Thank you to everyone who left comments!  

The big post-jam will be applied shortly (along with all the footnotes that document changes I made to the game).  Hope that should most, if not all the problems that were found over the last couple weeks.

Wow, this is a stellar entry! Music is great, graphics are great, skills are cool. A few minor bits, the gamepad support for the menus was hypersensitive (though maybe my controller? But it’s not an issue with other games) so it would sometimes double move, which meant arrowing up from the map could accidentally wrap to quit, which made me very very sad and avoidable if start also unpaused.

Along those lines, it would have been nice to pause into the map, then arrow to change modes. Also weird was resetting the music on pause (or maybe it was going into the map). I loved the music but as the world expanded, I had to check it a lot more so kept hearing the first few bars. That, combined with the fear of accidentally quiting, is making it feel bad as time goes on, especially because I don’t know what to do next (I have the hammer, boots, fireball, whip, shield and gauntlet). I’ve just been wandering around hitting most of the walls with the hammer, mostly uselessly.

I really appreciate the frequent health/magic drops, I went a looooong time before finding the first save. Also, the slime hitbox is weird, jumping and attacking doesn’t seem to work on them but the other enemies can be damaged that way.

Anyways, this is such a quality game, these smaller things (minus accidentally quitting) really stand out. I’m thoroughly impress you squeezed all this onto a nes controller!

This gave me real old school Nintendo vibes. The music, the graphics, the controls. I actually got frustrated with it the first day of voting, and decided to come back when I had more time and wasn't so frustrated. The second playthrough was better. You had a massive amount of content, and I barely scratched the surface. Pretty amazing in 30 days. Your game page was well-documented and reminded me of the little manuals that used to come with games. That was nostalgic. Also loved the map. It was needed.

I ran into a number of issues, some of which I would probably be less picky about if the game hadn't looked so complete. First, I got soft-locked into a room. While going down a vertical corridor, I went right through a red door without destroying it. On the other side I was stuck in a room and could not destroy the red door from the left side. I had to quit and restart. Not so bad because it was right below a save point.

The collisions for slimes that you had to jump to hit were not clear. The sword would swing, but the slime would not take the hit even though the sword passed through it. You had to be at the same vertical level as the slime at the same point that the sword was at the bottom of its arc for damage to be dealt.

There was a lot of reading necessary outside the game to play the game. I was glad you had the manual, but I had all these buttons on my controller and none of them would shoot a fireball. So I went back to the page and found it was Up + B. Even in Metroid they told you to press Select to switch from your gun to missiles. I would expect a game this polished to tell me how to shoot the fireball in-game when I got it. (Admittedly this isn't something I would expect in a less complete game.)

The level design was pretty good, but it missed some design elements I would expect in a game this polished. It took a long time to get to the fireball, and it was not a clear route. Typically the first upgrade is close by and introduces a mechanic, then lets you play with it. The map expands as you play, and things you passed by become clearer. This felt like being thrown into a dark room and wandering aimlessly for a while. That's what made me frustrated the first time. I didn't even know if I was going the right way. The second time I just kept hitting dead ends and dying on spikes or in blood vats and just kinda stopped playing. If you were going for a hard game, well done. Just wasn't my cuppa.

I also agree with @netpro2k about the map. I wanted it to be on the Select key, which instead just gave me a negative beep sound. Also B didn't exit the menu, which again I expect things like that in a game this polished.

My last comment is that the movement and jumping felt like an old school NES game. That was nostalgic, but not fun. I always found those games to be very finicky about jumping. This one was no different. The movement was slower than I would like, but not unexpected for what the game looked like - which was an old NES game. Jumping was very particular, and I did get the hang of it, but it didn't feel natural. Compared to old NES games, it was very faithful. Compared to modern games, it was less than what I would expect and compounded the frustration of playing the game.

Overall, really good job capturing the aesthetic and making a solid NES game. It looked, felt, and sounded like one.

Wow. Nails the NES aesthetic and vibe. Very impressive submission. Huge amount of content (I admittedly on scratched the surface of). Would like to have seen the map be on the select key, it was annoying to have multiple steps to check it (maybe this came as a powerup later?).

Death was very punishing... But honestly that kind of correct for the NES.

Color me extremelly impressed, that was a very wild ride.

The amount of content here is surreal and it's quite well polished the whole way throught, and the fact you did it all from scratch makes it even more unbelievable to see. This is definitelly the most impressive and well made game on the whole jam when it comes to the technical side of things, there's no doubt on that.

Like, for real, this game, it is, freaking, HUUUUUGEEEEE, and like, yeah, that's... mostly a good thing, actually. The actual map  is super varied and you're never 100% lost, because the gwaphics and level design are all fairly memorable from room to room, and the whole map is actually really well designed in general.... Or at least I thought so on the first 40 minutes or so of playing it. It's funny really, everything feels like this should be a perfect entry, but there was a point were things started to get.... a little annoying to navigate. And the moment I felt like I actually needed to use the map you provided on the game page to progress was the moment I knew everything went downhill.

First things first, the fact you actually felt the need to leave a map on the game page should already have been a signal, but it is REALLY hard to find out where you actually need to go or not.  Honestly, the SINGLE BIGGEST offender of that is the path to the sliding skill, after you get the hammer. Pretty much every other breakable wall on the game is actually fairly intuitive to tell where they are, wich is good design, EXCEPT the SINGLE most MANDATORY one!!! Like, really, how did that happen? why is every other breakable wall a little offset from the rest or on spots that looks like entrances, but the one wall that should be the clearest of them all just looks like a perfectly normal wall on an absolutely random room with nothing remarkable about it?? That single wall just felt so evil for absolutely no reason lol.

Also, there's is no indication wheter or not I'm near a save point or a warp room before actually encoutering them, so they're all extremelly missable, since they might as well just be another normal room with more enemies. This makes for some moments where the player might feel like they've been wandering around for hours withouth ever finding a single place to rest because they just passed by all the chekpoints. their positioning on the full map is actually very descent, they're very fairly spaced from each other, but there should have been something on the scenery to indicate wheter or not you're near one of them.(Especially the ones on the final area because of all the softlock transitions issue... Imagine you finally reach that place, but due  to a bug have to reload your save all the way back to the skeleton boss at the catacombs because you didn't enter the completely normal looking entrance that led to the  save point at the final area?)

Also, something that also made traversing kinda frustating was the combat. It's actually super smooth and super fun at the beggining of the game! But as you explore  further annd further the enemies just gets more and more damage spongy.... I guess that's on me for not finding every single sword upgrade, but hey, that's fine, we have fireballs!... Until Fireballs don't kill them either and I'm out of stars.... Also, some enemies are just kinda bullshitty, like the those little worms you find on a few rooms. They're literally too low on the ground to hit with any of my attacks, and there's a room on the water area where I am literally FORCED to tank hits from them since I have to slide below rocks with worms on the floor that I have no way of killing or avoiding... And also, who had the idea of making tankier specter paparazzis?? The ones on the catacombs took 2 hits to die and that felt so perfect for this kind of enemy, so you can imagine I was not happy having to deal with things following me at high speeds that took 5 or so hits to die at the final area... (But hey, at least I could fireball those!).

(Kind of unrelated but still related tho, I really like the detail that Skeletons have this secret weakness of dying instantly to the hammer. It's never mentioned on the game, but I think it's fun this way, and it's actually quite intuitive, since you know, bones are just as hard as walls!)

Oh well, all of that aside, that's a really amazing game.... The art is super good and consistent, and I love all the scenery and decorations and different tiles sprinkled all around, and the music is also very very good, I love them all, altought there's this tiny detail that the music restarts from the beggining everytime you pause lol.

Also,  an OPTIONS MENU??? That's peak!!! I really appreciate that! Specially the input configurations! It's just always so good to have those, even on jam games I'd argue it's super worth it to spend some time to develop something like that, and mobile controls even? Now that's just overkill lmao, but heck yeah, the more the merrier!! xD

Save files are also always very appreciated, altought I did play the whole game in a single sitting, wich was probably detrimental, a good chunk of my frustration with exploration might have been mitigated if I actually took a break, but oh well...

Also spoiler alert, but the ending? The princess was me. I'm sorry but I can't afford to see Sir Regal hitting a slime 10 times without killing it in front of me again x)

Don't get me wrong tho, this is probably one of the games most likely to win the jam despite my negativity on this comment, I'm sorry for the rant x3

Wow. The full package! Super impressive fitting all this in to a jam

i like all the new areas!  its really faithful to the nes while also being kinda too easy, like idk enemies always drop hearts, anyways great game! i love the visual style, actual save slots in a jam game?? very impressive

I always like seeing enemy variety in a way that makes me move or engage in interesting ways. Thanks for that! And impressive that you got multiple biomes in with the time you had. Ah, the nostalgia.

This was fun! Faithful to the NES, but with a few modern design conveniences that don't upset the balance too much. The variety in the game is fantastic, especially given the timelines you had to work with. Unfortunately wasn't able to finish it, since I got softlocked into a wall when passing through zones about 1.5 hours into my playthrough. (A quick glance at my inventory suggests I may have been just two items away.) This came after another instance where I nearly softlocked when I approached a zone transition from the water side and couldn't progress without the ability to open yellow doors, and couldn't regress without a dash jump (which I was unaware was an option).

I could echo the desire to have somewhat faster movement, and more frequent save points (I hadn't realized there *were* save points until my second attempt), but my "biggest" complaint is about how you're cheating in more simultaneous colors than the NES could show ... so given that, it seems fair to give you your well-deserved kudos.

This game is incredibly nostalgic! You've truly nailed the NES aesthetic! The art and music are so atmospheric and immersive. When I picked up the fireball ability, it instantly gave me classic Metroid vibes. Some of the enemy hitboxes and platforming felt a bit janky at times, but honestly, that only added to the authentic retro charm. Fantastic work!

Enjoyed playing the game. Feeling the nostalgia. Good Job!