Took me just under 48 hrs to complete, which includes mapping just about the entire game out in Microsoft Excel. I made it to about the 8th floor before wanting to get it over with and started using a walkthrough.
This is a decent game spoiled by inadequate controls. It does support the SNES mouse, but like Might and Magic III, I found it to be better with the standard SNES controller. Maybe it's my mouse, but it had a tendency to register a single-click as a double-click. There just aren't enough buttons with either controller option to work well. One source of frustration, which led to many reloads, is that when using the standard controller, you have to toggle between the d-pad moving the mouse and your party's movement. Unfortunately, there is no indication as to which mode you're in, so it's very easy to either forget which mode you're in and step in a trap, or due to the real-time nature forget to change the mode when you want to do things in the other mode. Using the mouse does alleviate this issue, but since such a small percentage of the game will be in combat, I find needing to click on the direction arrows to move to be a tedious method compared to the d-pad along with shoulder buttons to strafe. Another major annoyance is that the Start button brings up the Camp menu, but doesn't exit it. Instead, you have to click on the exit button, and then it automatically puts the cursor at the bottom right of the screen, which is annoying when using the controller due to how it has to stop at each possible clickable item as you move the cursor.
With the snail's pace the mouse cursor moves at when using the standard controller, it's nearly impossible to do much more than just attack with everyone because everything is real-time, and it doesn't pause when you try to cast a spell or access a character's inventory. While using the standard controller, at least it does auto-cycle through what everyone has in their hands, which does make battles much more doable. As for the battle system, having only the front two characters able to use melee weapons is really limiting. Fortunately, there just happens to be exactly 2 bows and 2 slings that are laying around in the dungeon for the other four characters. If you get attacked from the side or rear, your back 4 characters can be attacked, but strangely, no one can attack the enemy since they have to be in front of you. The slow cursor speed also makes picking up all the projectiles you used in battle extremely tedious.
There were a couple things that were VERY obtuse and I don't know how anyone would actually think of doing what's needed to be done to advance. One being needing to throw an item at a wall very late in the game when that was never something you needed to do before, and another needing to place specific items on a shelf with absolutely no indication that you need to do it (well, actually there is, but it's AFTER you did it).
Having to eat is a pointless feature. It just makes it a requirement to have a Cleric, since you won't find any rations after about the halfway point. So, you must have the Create Food spell. It would have been nice to have SOME indication of what equippable items do and weapons' strengths. I would have liked to have had at least one shop. It also would have been nice to be able to talk to more of the dwarves than just their leader. I bought this used, which included the manual, but it seems that they simply copied the PC release's manual, but not the entire thing as it refers to charts that don't exist. Maybe there's more documentation that I'm missing?
Being able to save anywhere is very nice. It's just too bad it doesn't have multiple save slots.
I liked the music, except for the first block of floors for which I turned the music off.
Due to the controls, I would have preferred the turn-based strategic battle system they used for the GBA port.
