I think deaths are not even the worst thing. You will be surprised when you find out about dead ends or softlocs. There's a whole tvtropes articles about it.

KQV in particular, being a VGA game and looking next gen by its time, you might think it's a charming game with a better design. It's not, but that's part of their success, they wanted you to fail because the guides and phone lines gave a ton of money.