The enemy encounter design is grating - most of the time it's just filling the screen with damage spongey enemies that usually run towards you on flat level design and the respawn rate causes multiple enemies to appear at once forcing you to stay in one spot for a long duration. The overhead sections are mindless with enemy placement and it acts as a pace breaker in between the side scrolling sections. The bosses in the game are decentish, but that's the most I'll credit this game for.

God I loved this game. Hard as shit but so much fun. I really enjoyed sliding across the rope bridges as a kid.

I didn't mind the sidescrolling sections but found the more Zelda-esque overhead bits to be a bit ugly and dull, overall not bad for 1986 but not a game I go back to frequently either.