I had a very different experience with this game that was probably the reason I liked it so much. Somehow I completely missed the fact that it had a map. So for its entirety I went in virtually blind, relying only on memory to remember where I had already passed through, backtracking countless times through the same places.

It was only near the very end that I had no idea where else I could go that I finally resorted to the internet and found out that the game, indeed, had a map. It was a moment split between realising how dumb I was and how much better the game had played for me this way. It's a feeling that can't be reproduced in subsequent playthroughs, but it still lingers in my mind to this day.

Also makes me wonder how well metroidvanias could play without a map. REDO! seems to be the only one that ever did it, and it was unfortunately criticised for that, even though it added a lot of the experience of feeling lost and finding your way through the world.