Oof did this need more time in the oven. The game world's stuffed with respawning enemies and the combat comes in two forms: 99% murderously dull, 1% murderously hard. The music's fun, but too brief for such a drawn-out game. Some of the interior layouts are interestingly haphazard, but they have almost 0 detail or interactivity, and the dialogue's hit-and-miss. The saving grace is the graphics---the palette's spot-on, all the tiles and sprites are great, your character's little pumpkin head-bob is cute, the environments are characterful, some of the big battle sprites are pretty sick... if it wasn't for the combat, I'd have a way better opinion of this for the graphics alone.
My progress: got the dog following me, probably near the end of the game