It's deeply unfair and hard to read, but I kind of love it anyway. There are so many missable items that this game demands that you create your own strategy guide. I missed the candle and then loaded into an all-black area, and had no choice but to just restart. But it's not just the big upgrades, you have to read your enemies the second you load into a level or they can kill you very easily. I played this using judicious use of save states but still ran into many unwinnable situations. You need to meet the game at its level, but if you do you can have a good time with it.

This is a brutal game, but still pretty fun. It earned its role as the granddaddy of RPGs, but do not go into this game unprepared for it to be as punishing as it is.