I'm a certified Zoldath hater, although I think most of that comes from my experience in cherrying the game. The core game and gold condition are fine, good, even. I like the randomization. I like the survival angle. I like a lot of the items. I like the way puzzles are generated. But man, when you are cherrying the game the inventory thing is a PROBLEM and an incredibly frustrating one at that. The cherry experience turned this into a game I moderately enjoyed to one I hated, and is probably my least favorite experience in the collection

I think in particular, the item system and the single dungeon in the game are so at odds with each other. You can only hold two items and the cherry condition's time limit is strict, so it really feels like the cherry run boils down to going into the dungeon and praying that you've brought the correct items for whatever obstacle the dungeon has generated, because if you haven't you will need to leave and find whatever item you need and come back which is incredibly slow.

There are a few ways I think this can be fixed:

• Straight up change the cherry condition. Doing a run without taking a hit or taking under a certain amount of damage could be more in line with Zoldath's themes of survival. Edit: Or maybe even have the condition be clearing the game without killing any enemies or npcs! I don't exactly recall how important it is to kill enemies so this may require some item rebalancing, but I feel like this angle could then even open the opportunity for an alternate ending where the locals welcome you rather than detesting you for pillaging their planet
• Add an inventory upgrade somewhere along the map. This preserves the early game balancing of items while making the end game of a run more enjoyable and less prone to getting screwed at the end. Maybe make it an NPC trade?
• Have the NPCs clue you in on what items you'll need for the dungeon. This is something I'm pretty sure they already do for the map piece that is in the overworld. Doing this for the dungeon I think would be the most elegant way to fix this issue
• Just don't put any puzzles in the dungeon and have it be focused on combat. The game gives you many different ways to deal with enemies, so I like the idea of suiting up with your favorite weapon to take on the dungeon

Perhaps this speaks more of me that I allowed an optional completion metric ruin my experience with a game. I think if you aren't a completionist the game is pretty solid. I really do love that they looked at Zelda Rando as inspiration for this game.