I freed 14 allies during my second run.
I fear many parts of the screen would be constantly flickering when running this game on an actual NES ;) . However you made a great presentation following the limitations, I love the sprites and the NES feeling is very good in part because it plays as the exact speed you would expect to face when playing such a game on such hardware. The game controls very well and you made a great implementation of theme, I like the progression between constantly fighting in the beginning to running away more and more and leaving your allies do the hard work as it goes. The difficulty is pretty much perfect, I got overwhelmed at the appropriate moment, and the "things with plenty of eyes" (damn WOTC) are rightfully threatening, you want to keep your distances from them and it's cool.
Very cool!