I’m either missing something, or this game is a total disaster

I’ve played through for about 12 or 13 hours now, and throughout it’s been ok. I like the characters, some of the battles have been fun, but there’s been wayyyyy too many repetitive fights. Frustrating game flaw, but I pushed through

Now, I get to the cat door. Turns out, I don’t have enough soul weapons (I only have the moon blades and the katana). Sam says to go through the soul machine to collect the other ones - okay, sure. I figure it will send me back to wherever I missed them. I do the machine…

And I’m back in the veggie kingdom. Okay, I already did this. I play through that whole thing again, and now I’m back at the start of the game before I even beat the dragon. The text is identical. All my items are gone, but my level is the same.

Am I missing something here? Or did the game basically reset my save file, expecting me to play through the ENTIRE thing again? If that’s the case, this will genuinely be my least favorite gaming experience of all time. I already felt like this game was designed to waste my time, and I’m not playing through this whole thing a second time. So please let me know if I’m wrong and there’s a different way forward.