Once again, not nearly as bad as I feel people say it is. I already got the gist of things out of the way when I reviewed its sister game, so I'll spare repeating myself here too much.

The core gameplay and structure is predictably the same as Faces of Evil, with the same controls and mostly the same items, all the control quirks are still present, yadda yadda. This game is a bit more streamlined, as I was able to do most of what the game wanted me to do without needing to really consult a guide whereas with faces evil I was nose deep in that gamefaqs page. The levels themselves are also a bit less solid this time around, with a lot of spots where using a rope to progress is unavoidable. There's also a bit more money grinding in this game, as the levels are designed in a way that requires using ruby-consuming items a lot to make it through. There's no snowball/fireball shenanigans this time around though! Instead theres a flute and a loaf of bread that I never had to use once in my entire run, so that's something.

I think both this game and faces of evil have their share of upsides and downsides from one another to the point where I'd say they are about equal in quality. I'm not really sure why they felt the need to split the game into two sister releases, but they sure did. Maybe they were going to have some sort of cross-compatibility between the two or something during development, idk. Someone has probably done the research to find the answer to that question. Regardless, I didn't find either of these titles to be a really bad time. Definitely rough around some edges, sure, but nowhere near "worst games of all time" level. Not even "worst zelda games" to me either, I'd gladly play more of this over something like the oracle games or phantom hourglass any day. Maybe these "bad games" are pretty cool after all.