Thank god for sega ages, I don't think I would've stomached this otherwise. It's an extremely archaic jrpg that at least tried to have a story, varying locales and decent graphics for the time, but maaan it absolutely shows its age. All of the npc dialogue is dry and only serves to tell the player of where they need to next, with very little character, though it's admittedly translated better and more informative than other games of its time. The game's comically grindy too, though the ages release thankfully has a mode that doubles exp gained. Progression is occasionally obtuse, with having to talk to an npc with unchanging dialogue multiple times being a recurring barrier behind progression. I've also never seen the appeal of making your own hand drawn maps - maybe I just didn't grow up in a time where it was necessary, but I'm glad the ages release adds an automap because I do actually like filling out maps in dungeon crawlers, and I'd probably go insane without it in a game like this, I respect the cool pseudo-3d effect they pulled off, though, super impressive for an 8-bit home console.