1st time beating HK

I beat the game for the first time recently (no dlc just base game) and get the feeling I made the game much harder for myself. I never found shade soul or shade cloak, didn't have spiral nail until basically the hollow knight. I ended up with 7 or 8 masks and 2 of the soul reserves though so it felt good on that end. I've watched fireb0rn and other HK playthroughs but didn't want to look up locations during the run.