If you're playing it on the original cart, the game makes quite clear that you are collecting "tetrads" or Tetris pieces. The game is one big Tetris RPG
And if you're NOT playing it on the original cart, the Virtual Console version replaces every text mention of "tetrad" with "block" wholesale, leaving poor
Mike Jones unaware of what a block is:
StarTropics 1 was the cover story of the first Nintendo Power I ever bought, so I got pretty attached to the maps from the first game, but ultimately played and bought Zoda's Revenge first and got StarTropics later on when it was on sale. I'd argue that unlocking the controls to not be tile-by-tile movement makes it a bit easier to accidentally be a few pixels off and plunge to your death while StarTropics intends your movement and jumps to be done in a more bit-by-bit, strategic manner that makes misjudgements in distance less likely.
That said, dungeon rooms with multiple heights of platforms are possible in ZR and are fun to work with. Mostly though, the lack of invulnerability frames, the traps in the stage designs, and just the movement patterns of the enemies themselves can definitely be just brutal sometimes.
For anyone that likes Zelda 1, I think that both are fun and worthwhile games in their own right, but I do think that StarTropics 1 may have aged a bit better (finding workarounds for dipping the pack-in physical letter in water for digital releases notwithstanding).
That Zoda's Revenge soundtrack, though!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tLX1woaCVQ
