Look: 8/10
Wow, what detailed graphics. And the castle looks so much like the Fisher-Price castle toy from childhood (the game for that was great). Great houses and even clouds throughout the game ha 
(And yes that's my little robin hood hat looking self there in the clouds :-p ) Really great Giant sprite too 
And I was busy admiring the background and overall colors in this screen below, helping quell my irritation at the parts they tried to use navigation/controls as the "difficulty" of the game rather than solving puzzles or truly just doing an action-adventure (don't make controls the focus of screens, if you aren't going to have very solid controls :-p) 
Lol I loved the look of the little tiny sprite for you when you shrink from eating the mushroom, but I didn't get a chance to screenshot it cuz it went so fast :( If only there were a whole segment while shrunken.
Sound: 6/10
I do like how the music changed as you got deeper into the cavern that requires most of the treasures like the Fiddle and Clover, etc. feeling like you're approaching endgame. But even that was annoying. And overall, the sounds were just...no. At least there was that brief jingle for the fiddle lol... and the nice victorious jingle that occasionally happens, like when you open the castle doors... uff
Play: 7/10
Very interesting to see an early adventure game that doesn't exploit the limited-inventory-space concept. So many of them outright relied on that feature, ha. And of course, this game is striking in that it presents and acts as a graphic text adventure, but you move around in the screens. Not as revolutionary as people make it out to be, since action-adventure games already existed, but it still feels revolutionary because it's like the arcade style movement was transplanted right into an otherwise graphic text adventure. Silly in some ways tho, since you could just use a joystick and press the joystick button to, say, Push Rock instead of typing it ha. Still, interesting amalgamation. The swim mechanic was silly. As were the cloud platforms. And the collision masks and movement controls (which both wound up relevant for battles and climbing things) were very bad. Tho this executes the press-one-button-and-the-character-moves-till-you-stop-it better than every early microcomputer game with it so far (Apple II comes to mind, why did they love that mechanic heh), it still might as well have just been a true action-adventure. Joystick buttons could have replaced most the necessary commands, or even a concise menu. If you're gonna base so much of your game on precise maneuvering and timing, you should probly make that the focus, not the focus on blending a text adventure with arcade action. Like, entering the castle... that drawbridge... there's no logic to it, the collision mask/platforming of it is so poorly done lol (pro-tip: just act like there's no logic or bend to it, simply have your feet line up with the top part of the curve, why make it a curved platform if you weren't going to treat it as one lol, might as well just had a flat bridge...)
Another pro-tip: You type "show status" to see your inventory (not "inventory," as I had expected ha)
And another pro-tip: Don't be like me and waste so much time trying to type "jump" to grab onto the Condor: for the IBM PCjr, at least, you press 0 to jump. That's only useful in the one part, and would have been nice to see some platforming/true action-adventure in this but whatevs, there's your tip.
Feel: 8/10
Another game where following along with a guide will surely make me enjoy it more. Well, shoot, I burned the crap out of my hand while cooking (derp) the night I was going to really play this game. This will be a definite setback for gaming, streaming, and exercise! Argh! Lol the irony of me playing this game with several burn blisters on my hand and then this hilarious sprite of your character charred by a dragon happens (the look really does shine in this, I see why people mention that a lot) 
Coming out of the cave (which you had seen before) after "defeating" that dragon, despite having come in from an underwater cavern accessible from the well gave me Zelda feels, when you'd wind up in a cave you've been in before but from another entrance (and with new abilities or new access). And yesss, the Fiddle treasure definitely gave me Zelda feels too , I mean cmon look at that, might as well be an ocarina :-p 
And lmao! You straight up shove the old witch into her own stove. Murderous
Attachment: 8/10
As interesting as this is, after playing a game like Below the Root, I just feel like it might as well had been an action-adventure with a menu at most. Still, very well-done, my type of puzzles and length for an early adventure, and nice to fully engage with a game from the text adventure lineage (I felt like I was growing away from the genre). I definitely feel this would have been better as an earnest action-adventure, but the Look is amazing, the action aspects aren't awful but also aren't great, and the item retrieval/Feel/harkening-to-Zelda-and-beyond makes it stand out. On the 2nd night of playing, I almost gave up cuz I couldn't get the "cute friendly elf" to appear. Darn RNG-based things heh, walking in and out of the screen felt tacky... but hey, it's better than early text adventure RNG-based permanent deaths heh... Plus this has Save Game function hallelujah. And unlimited inventory (half the challenge of most text adventures, heh). And thank goodness for this map, even with a guide to reference :-p
Done at last. Doesn't your character kind of look like a Runescape classic character??? With a partyhat on no less?? Haha. Felt like a Runescape ending, so sudden and absurd when the king drops dead. But beautiful screen, very RuneScape look to you there, and overall fun to play. I wish it reported your overall score at the end, maybe with a rank or something. Like I've said, I wish it were a true action-adventure, but an interesting experiment nonetheless to blend arcade action directly into a text adventure. Even tho I'm not in love with this game, the fact I plan to replay this for a stream--per request--and its legacy, its being a series, and its uniqueness all made it hard for me to settle with a 7 here. If only the controls were tighter and this would be a definite 4 star overall.
Completion: 100%
Playtime: ~3 hours
