(some spoilers may exist below)

Summary: An excellent balance and rerouting of the vanilla. Puzzles are extremely well designed, and (mostly) rely on stand vanilla mechanics. Difficulty is elevated over the vanilla in many ways, but not to the kazio extreme. Very recommended. Thank you so much to the creator! I’m sure this was a lot of work (and it shows in the results)

PROS Dungeons: The dungeon puzzles are extremely well thought out and designed It’s rarely obvious where exactly to go or what to do next as there are often multiple directions to progress Difficulty increases in a roughly linear fashion as you progress through the game You are often offered options (like a B/O switch or hammer mole) when you must ignore them. Health/Damage is much more of a concern, but again, not to the kaizo level. For seasoned players, this is a welcome difficulty

Overworld: The flow for both light and dark worlds is well controlled by the creator based on the key item acquisition and intended play direction The feel is very vanilla, but the flow is sufficiently different to feel like a fresh take on a classic design

Ancilla: Item usage is much improved upon. as other reviews state, the Cane of Somaria fulfills much more of its potential Almost every item seems to be required for one feat or another, a nice touch

CONS Dungeons: I found, quite often, that i had to save and quit due to insufficient magic (real hardware, no save states). It was really quite frustrating. This is mostly due to exploring, trying things, and not knowing where to go. A bonk mechanic that is most likely unintended in the vanilla is required in 2 dungeons. In some locations, there’s excessive back tracking just for the sake of backtracking, but it minimally detracts from enjoying the game

Bugs: I did not record the events, but I believe I soft locked a few times A few glitches exist, most notably the swamp palace dam release water tile problem Many Sahasrahla dungeon tiles present the same old text, which, with the new dungeon flow, can be very disorienting and misleading. Very few unintended starts exist, but there is a tiny rail one can bounce off of in TOH that bypass a small amount of time spent walking KEY DOORS - many key doors will reappear after a save and quit to be locked again, without a way to get another key. The only solution seems to be to edit the memory in an emulator, save, then port back to console.

I also did not find (or need) the red mail.