With everything doing 2 points of damage, including environmental hazards, the player is at effectively 2.5 hitpoints for a large majority of Act 1, as opposed to 5 in Hollow Knight. This changes the feeling of the game from "oh, a challenge, let's see what will happen and I'll learn" to "shit, a new room, I don't want to explore because I'll just get killed, where was the last bench, can I even get back here?"