Delved into this cliche-storm of a game after a friend's recommendation piqued my curiosity. Many games from this era have their share of frustrating gameplay elements, and this one is particularly egregious in a few ways: the limited color palette means that some enemies tend to blend in with the background, and combined with the screen crunch means you rarely get enough time to react to them. Worse still, nearly every enemy is a flyer that likes to attack you from above/below while you can only attack left or right. The feel of platforming is quite stiff too, and there are far too many extended climbing sequences with tiny platforms where one single miscalculation means falling to the bottom of the screen and losing a minute or two of progress.

What really saves this game is how forgiving it is - infinite continues, and you respawn right where you died. In a more linear game, I would chalk this off as an uncreative band-aid over a poorly-balanced and poorly-designed experience. However, the infinite continues do work with the spirit of exploration the game seems to be encouraging. The stages are large, nonlinear, and full of neat little secrets and items to discover, and taking away the penalty for death means that the game - despite its difficulty - becomes a relaxed little playground where you're likely to find something new every time you play it.

Of course it'd be nice if the game was more polished, but it's a decent enough experience as is. Said friend who recommended me this game was insane dedicated enough to be able to 1cc it, and while I don't share in his enthusiasm, I do think one could do a lot worse than Wizards and Warriors if you were looking for a fun distraction from the NES era.