It's a pretty bad game. Really jerky animation and scrolling, insanely obtuse game design. It did look pretty cool in still shots, back in the day... very similar to Super Mario Bros. Unfortunately, the game sucks.
What you need to do to progress is find the keys to the walls. Some walls have symbols on them, like a clover. To make that wall disappear (so you can pass), you need to find the clover icon somewhere else in the game. These icons are revealed by jumping in random places. If you jump in the single place in the game where the clover icon is placed, it'll appear and you're golden. Pretty... well, stupid, eh?
Another fun gem. Most enemies kill you with one hit. However, there is a single pterodactyl in the (huge) opening area that will instead take you to a bonus stage when you touch it. There is nothing else special about this enemy, and no outward indication of its unique ability. There may be one other enemy in the game that does this, in the second realm... I can't recall.
Funnily enough, I beat this game (and learned all of the above) when borrowing it from a friend 13 or 14 years ago. After you win, there is a second quest where all the item locations are changed. I'd had enough, and turned off the NES, never to play again.
Before I was able to beat it, I called FCI's gameplay counselor(s?) to ask where I could find the "photograph" item I'd read about in Game Player's magazine. It was supposed to show you where you had to go to escape the ruins after completing all the objectives. The bored-sounding guy told me that it was only in the Japanese version of the game, and I hung up. Good job, Game Player's.
Ok, last bit. If you do play it, there is a hidden continue option you can access by pressing select twice on the title screen. Helpful, since the game is like a mini-Metroid and you wouldn't exactly want to start over after playing for two hours.
In summary: only play this game if you're bored, have lots of patience, and are looking for something of a bizarre relic of the early NES era.
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