mmm well i played for quite a bit,it sure feels pretty classic and ancient,it works like this on the overworld you have an overhead map and you move around like in zelda,but when you enter a dungeon it switch to 2D and it become quite platformy
combat is automated,when you touch an enemy they become a ball of smoke and the fight happens automaticaly,power up are important because if you aren't powered up enough you can't defeat whatever you need to kill but at the same time it feels lame that the player gets to do nothing in combat at all
the jumping section in the dungeon are nice but most of the time is spent searching whatever power-up you need,the next item to make the plot move forward,there is one huge dungeon that you explore as you unveil more of the plot
after the first hour of the game,the hero gets to transform,you can either morph into a frog which gives you increased jump and the ability to travel underwater or a snake,which let you slide under low passages,turn enemy into blocks (which you can push into human form) and get hint from other snake (that otherwise would attack you) so there is a little bit of puzzle solving by changing form,changing form requires consumable items which is a little annoying but to be fair,the game always seems to put at least one of them close to where you need it when you need them
the fan-translation is top notch,i haven't seen a single line of japanese and it flows perfectly,if i didn't know any better this could have been an official release
so yeah ultimately a lot of the game is spent hunting for stuff,though since the game is pretty linear there is not a lot to search
