Preliminary: Bahaha, took me a minute to realize, um, I'm not supposed to kill everything. Looks like I need to look at a StrategyWiki. Some of the people are good guys and I realized cuz my money was disappearing! I like how upgradable you are, I already got a couple Sandals and the Slingshot, at first I was iffy about this one but I think this will be a fun one!

Oh shoot I was over here grinding for money, enjoying that the pots respawn their coins etc, and then realized there's a timer! Ah!

Welp, I'm loving it so far. I like how fast I'm moving with 3 Sandals, and I like the top-down set up in the underground parts. Excited for my next play session to see what I think of, what I believe is, first-person dungeon crawling parts? Maps are all I've needed so far, and that's only to reference, same with the StrategyWiki to look up items' uses. Love a game I can just enjoy and play and simply reference things as needed! Main complaint is some of the Sound, like that high-pitched transition ring.

Day 2

Welp woops, turns out with the Shops and such, I should use a fan translation. So, I'm starting over! Good sign that I was willing to do that, of course. At first, I thought the worst part was having to re-earn those Sandals (because it allows you to jump farther, which I needed in one of the dungeons to get a free Pass, and it generally makes navigating way more fun when you can jump over 2 obstacles at once etc.), but then I realized (PRO-TIP ALERT) what item comes from a pot will always be the same, and you can force it to refill by just getting it off screen, so I went to the Sandal pot, got it, walked far enough away for the pot to disappear, went back, tada 3 Sandals quickly.

I'm usually not a big fan of gambling in adventure games, but this was simple enough (just bet odd or even with dice) and was fun enough to build a nice starting cash stack. Just head straight to the gambling house when you get a bit of funds, so if you lose them all, you can easily start over without losing much. Maybe I had good luck but I got over 5000 really fast with the gambles, and grinding for it was taking way longer than that. Also, side note, why does almost everyone look so grumpy in this game? lol

Aw cute, an encouragement message from Mom, reminds me of Earthbound which I'm currently playing. Time for my first dungeon! And uh, only 12 more to go (tho I just read that, annoyingly, at the end of the stages you get sent back to the start in a "new district," which really is just the classic arcade re-cycling where enemies are faster and stronger but everything else is the same. One reason I could hypothetically go for all eight districts is because you get a "best ending," but uh no, that's way too long and repetitive.)

I accidentally solved the first dungeon and got a 1-up on the way. Not bad, tho still don't love first-person dungeon crawling... at least Phantasy Star got me more into it recently! I had a hell of a time capturing this Dungeon Exit/ending screen, so the doors are partly open lol. Anyway, time to focus

Most the music had just been meh so far but in the 2nd Stage, I really liked the forest area tune. And always love these colors

Day 3

Pro-tip: don't walk on the water, it kills you lol. I'm flying through now, getting in the groove. Some of the underground area designs seem repeated, but it's fine. Fun, simple gameplay, in the end basically an action game with adventure items and whatnot. and uh, first-person dungeon crawling segments (which I'm surprised to say I'm not minding! even without a map!). Continuing to enjoy a lot of the music too.

Day 4

Ugh I really need more time to play this game, I keep having very little time so it's making it seem like a longer game than it really is ha. (Tho finding all these hidden staircases without lucky gambling for Candles or a map like I have would take a really long time indeed). Anyway, I really like the dungeon UI for multiple reasons--cute, effective, nice map (tho my screenshot below doesn't show me with a map), and most of all, a compass built in. The guy on the upper right changes direction based on which way you're facing. Helps sooooo much. Much kinder than Phantasy Star's compass feature released a year later :-p

Wow I was so lost in the Stage 7 dungeon lol but luckily there are no enemies and timer stops during it so I eventually found my way out. Well, by found, I mean stumbled upon the exit :-p I still don't love first-person dungeons but I'm learning to tolerate them :-p Bahahaha omg on the next dungeon I realized how to access the Map after you collected it >.< I thought the top thing was a mini map. Woops. The map is sooooo much nicer lol. And it even comes filled in!

Look: 7.5/10 Overall, quite mediocre, tho I have to keep in mind this is 1986 not 1988. But the dungeon UI, dungeon map colors, and ending screens helped solidify this.

Sound: 6.5/10 Not great, tho a couple good jingles. That high pitch sound when you transition, tho, is terrible.

Play: 7/10 Pretty rudimentary jump but after all this was 1986 (and I'm now used to 1988 standards, but discovered this from Konami Wai Wai World). Pretty terrible collision masks too. So in general the action elements lacked. But the adventure elements were addicting and action elements not so bad that they made it unplayable. So I was hooked nonetheless :-p

Feel: 7/10 Tho I was hooked to the game, on the 13th Stage (and my 5th day of playing lol), it was a bad sign that I just outright skipped the dungeon because it's optional. And I decided not to replay any of the Stages. It was hooking, but only for the Adventure elements and the goal of reaching the palace and finishing the game. Too bad it isn't the true end >.<

Attachment: 7/10 Technically not great, glitchy full of mediocre programming, jumping through damage, repetitive gameplay, and yet it's the type of game I can't help but "finish." That being said, technically to finish it, you'd have to recycle the levels over and over and that's yet another design flaw imo. Hypothetically that increases replayability, but not for me and doesn't increase the Attachment. If anything, it detracts from the feeling of finishing all the stages, since it implies I'm supposed to just do them all again. As if it weren't already repetitive enough!

The ending I got was cute tho and wound up being quite satisfying. No desire to go for the best ending, but this was nice. And the Password feature at that point is nice too.

Overall: 7/10

Completion: The 13 unique levels, normal ending

Playtime: ~3 hours