While the setting and the general atmosphere of the game were really appealing, exploring the map quickly became boring as I ventured in Zebes' dephts due to the constant repetition of the same areas (NES memory issues I presume), on the other hand this repeatitive levels structure helps you remember it, so I didn't really feel the absence of a mini map.
The amount of time required to farm life points and rockets is honestly ridiculous, at some point I began using NSO save states to avoid it completely. If you add the fact that checkpoints are far away from each others, it makes the game really hard and painful.
The game lags a bit during boss battles and when there are a lot of enemies on screen, I wish these issues could have been fixed on more recent hardware like the switch.
I suggest playing the game until you reach the first elevator and then switching to the special version available on nintendo switch online, which takes you directly to ridley, the first boss, with all the equipment unlocked. I don't think it's worth playing the whole game (nostalgia or historic value aside).