Preliminary: (I am playing a fan translation of the original 1989 release, so it has all the quests, not just the ones included on the English language prototype some people have played.) Heh I was really unsure about this cuz a) I had missed it on the backlog anyway and b) the sound is very tinsely and the meh sound quality of NES. But I liked my first battle to start my grind, an enemy named Stupid Dog that looks goofy lol reminds me of its contemporary 89 RPG release Mother. But with a much more generically Dragon Quest inspired Look.

Despite the tinsely sound, nice overworld tune and town tune. Ugh me and RPGs am I really gonna let myself get sucked into another long one? The menus are quite frustratingly slow and tedious to go through, even with Fast message on, so we shall see.

Sheesh the random battles are ridiculously frequent. Tbh I'm enjoying this game so far except the usual early NES JRPG issues: slow dialog, slow menu navigation with extra steps that were unnecessary, too frequent of random battles. But like usual I can't resist the RPG urge so I will likely at least play a good chunk if not all of it.

Early Game

Ugh the tiny inventory is already posing an issue, especially with each item taking up a spot. The battle music for this green guy boss is quite just absolutely terrible lol.

Well, I kept asking myself when I was going to learn my lesson about having to finish every RPG, no matter how mediocre. And then I got a good excuse to drop it, I'm stuck on this inescapable island! Now, presumably, people would have been getting a Password at each town, but since a) password systems < saves and b) I decided to use savestates instead, I hadn't done so. Early in the game I realized this is a mistake, since most early JRPGs' teleports rely on that concept--you can only tele to where you've "saved" or rested. Well, I had rested at plenty Inns, but alas it's based on saves. Anyway, point being I'm stuck at this island and somehow the game designers thought it a good idea to make the only way off the island to use the teleport system? Am I missing something... I gave a guy a Leek Soup to get here (Bone in the unfinished English language version), why can't I just have that guy bring me back? The teleport item just takes me back to the village here on the island, as does the teleport service in the building to the east. Welp.

Ugh! As I wrote that I got the RPG urge again and decided to try some more ideas... sure enough the game had a workaround. Well-done, programmers. Tho frustrating in general. And the game continues to be very mediocre and only going to get a 3 star anyway so why finish it... (cool that it gave me a submarine for being silly and messing up lol)

Yeahhhh nah, I got through the Cavern now that I had the Bomb. And beat the boss and realized it's time to stop. It's just quite mediocre. Really it's probly worth a 2 but I just can't deny the RPG hook.

Look: 7/10 Run of the mill NES RPG look, tho some of the enemies were neat and some of the towns had comfortably nostalgic colors.

Sound: 7/10 Some real bad tunes, but also mostly just the classic NES RPG sound.

Play: 7/10 Run of the mill NES JRPG.

Feel: 7/10 Ditto

Attachment: 7.5/10 Can't deny I still kinda wanna finish it, but I should move on. Some day when I wanna play through all decent JRPGs, this will make the list. Otherwise meh.

Overall: 7.1/10

Completion: Used the Bomb in the Underwater Cavern in the First Quest

Playtime: ~1h 30m