I don’t know if this is the right community for this, so I am sorry if it shouldn’t go here. I am currently playing through a link to the past for the first time and have noticed a steep increase in difficulty once I unlocked the dark world. The dark palace was okay but I am honestly kinda stuck at the swamp palace. I would love to play through the game because it was a lot of fun up to this point but I don’t feel like the game is mechanically fun enough to beat my head against the wall repeatedly. I have already noticed I can swap between the worlds with the mirror so I guess I could go to the normal world at any time to stock up on fairies. Are there any other tipps or hidden mechanics to make the game easier? I don’t really want to spend a lot of time aimlessly searching the world for heart containers and following guides to them also seems kinda tedious.
I think this particular Zelda is especially focused on exploration (unlike the next ones until BOTW). There are many secrets everywhere, with a lot of hints given by the NPCs. When I did it for the first time 10 years ago, I had explored so much that I completed the 3 last dungeons in a raw.
If you don’t want to experience it this way, I guess you should follow a guide.