It's just as straightforward as in higher level languages, just not quite as interactive as interpreted languages, but I've never seen an "intro to programming" that started in a REPL even when using an interpreted language. Hello world is even shorter and simpler than most languages (in a modern OS environment).

Shenzhen I/O begs to disagree :P

https://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/

You start with a simulator like this one:

https://edsim51.com/about-the-simulator/

Very immediate and positive feedback.

You can with a decent monitor that shows the values of registers, can look up values in memory, etc.