Before beating the final boss, I wrote this:

Finished everything else but the final boss was a bit unfair, so skipped that.
Enjoyed the game overall, and the Pixel Remaster adds some really needed boosts that helped me even get through it. But there's definitely signs of archaic design here that I'm glad we've mostly done away with in the years since.
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After beating the final boss, I wrote this:

Now that I've properly beaten the game - An excellent game through and through. A bit of the design of the game has aged with regard to some of the bosses, but at the end of the day I had a great time. Greatly aided by the xp boosts in the Pixel Remaster, do not shy away from using these!