(Played through the Japanese PS1 collection)

One of the first RPGs ever and influential in ways you need to play to fully understand, the NES/Famicom port of this game is probably the biggest influence on the japanese side of the genre at the time and it's influence can still be felt even in games made much later who developed further away from those roots, sadly as game it's one of those cases where you can tell it's one of the firsts in the genre still trying to figure how to be.

The game itself ain't as brutal as it was made out to be, as someone used to the convetions of older RPGs at least, but every encounter of even level with the enemy could mean a potential reload depending on how things go, particulalry on later in the game, still regardless of that the game is rather dull since the dungeon floors as big as they are don't have much a reason to explore them, you won't find loot outside combat encounters and even then you won't find much worthwhile outside the late game, making most the floors pointless to explore outside needing exp and grinding, this is also a game where you might want to reload after a level up because your stats got worse. I managed to beat the final boss solely because he didn't use his party nuke spell on one attempt which otherwise would've meant need to grind for a few more hours to beat him.

As fascinating in it's influece as is I didn't find it particularly enjoyable