Definitely an interesting one for sure. Like many NES/famicom games, if you don't have a guide or at the very LEAST a manual to tell you what everything means, you will be absolutely SOL. Progression through the levels is tied to finding specific passes either in first person dungeon mazes or in secret areas that can only be found by jumping over the tile on the level that the entrance is on, so without a guide you are goin to be doing a LOT of wandering/jumping around to find everything. The game does have a little bit of leeway for the guideless players in that you can purchase candles to make the secret passages visible for a limited time, and you can spend a lot of money to buy a pass just in case you REALLY can't find that last one, but on the whole I highly suggest heading to good ol gamefaqs before hitting this game up. Most of the games difficulty comes from its obtuseness as there really aren't many demanding action setpieces (with the exception of a BS difficulty spike halfway through the game with regards to some precise platforming over instant death pits), so it's not one of those 8-bit games that comes at you both with insane challenge and obtuseness.

Overall, it was aight. I guess you could probably beat this guideless if you had a LOT of graph paper on hand but I just dont got the time for that nawsay? For being the first goemon game on a console, it's a solid start.