My experience trying to play this game: I figured out how to get past the hobgoblin but only have trying a bunch of thing and taking a bunch of damage. I tried backtracking home since the game mimics pokemon so much, but couldn't avoid triggering the hobgoblin again. Annoyed, I continued and got to the part where the guy asks for too much money and couldn't find anything to do that helped, even after finding the way to go around the entrance. I tried restarting the game to see if I'd missed something or otherwise softlocked, only to find out the entire opening is unskippable.
I don't think what you were trying to do was bad. However, I think you need to consider the player's perspective more.