Did anyone else beat the game without realizing you can upgrade your damage?

I recently beat the final boss of act 2 (as well as a ton of optional bosses like >!Beastfly, moth, Grimm from Temu, First Sinner, the cook, the red drilling guy, Gruz Mother from Wish, etc)!< without realizing that you can upgrade your needle. I also didn’t find >!double jump!< before the final boss, because I thought it would come later

To be honest I thought there would be 3 acts, and that you would start earning needle upgrades or double jump after act 2 (I missed >!Mount Fay!<). The thing is though, I didn’t think that the game was hard enough to signify that I needed a needle upgrade. I beat >!Lace!< on my 3rd try and the >!Grand Mother of Silk!< on my 2nd try. That’s not to be conceited or say haha ez game git gud, but that was just my experience.

I was genuinely confused when the credits rolled because I thought it was just another boss, but just the first one I which I really liked the fight design.

Now that I upgraded my needle the enemies feel pretty trivial

I think because I grinded hollow knight all bosses radiant, and doing all pantheons with all bindings (individually, not at the same time) it really skewed my perception of difficulty in these games.

Curious to know if anyone else had a similar experience