it's cool imagining what old classic NES games could have been if they had modern genre spins like crafting/collecting in a NES zelda... this is definitely nailing that concept and aesthetic!
Balance/progression creates a bit of a grindy problem as you mentioned i saw in a comment -- and it's brought more to the attention from the lack of music/sound. After i realized i wasn't gonna grind up all the resources (esp if i lose everything when i die right now), i decided to explore for 5 minutes. A lot of cool stuff in this game!! I got to fight the slime boss and I'm glad i got to find the dungeon and check that out too