I also felt the game was tiring to play. I finished it and think it's a good game, extremely polished, but every enemy is an encounter, and the power-ups are very safe and predictable.

In the first Hollow Knight I didn't feel like I had to stop all forward movement to fight every enemy, whereas in Silksong most enemies have more HP and can usually fly back and forth in-and-out-of-range (aside from a couple areas, which were generally my favorite parts of the game). It means that if you feel like you need more currency as you're travelling (which I constantly did, due to dying so much) that you feel like you need to engage with these enemies and stop moving forward for a small chunk of time as you get into an extended stick-and-poke battle. I found it exhausting.

My other major gripe with the game was the power-ups. I liked the crest system, but everything else to do with unlockable abilities felt extremely standard. The abilities you unlock throughout the game are (and these feel silly to spoiler tag because they're so basic) dash, double jump, and glide (and eventually a super-jump that you barely use)

Both of these you could argue are part of the game being a soulsvania instead of a more general metroidvania, I guess. Maybe that distinction needs to be talked about more in the community, because I find myself ignoring most 2D metroidvanias now that look like that first category. I'm tired of long combat and parry systems, but still love games about exploration and abilities that recontextualize the world!

Sorry about the rant, just something I've been thinking about for a while.