This looks considerably better than zelda 1. (I'm mentioning zelda just because this looks vaguely like it to me, and zelda is awesum.)
Kind of a shame nintendo didn't know how to sprite, back then; I mean, mario had some clean, clever bits to it (clouds come to mind), but zelda was just ugly as hell - no outlines, no shading, nada. Later NES games like kirby looked great, but poor zelda didn't. I can't really fault nintendo; spriting was a brand new medium, and it just takes years to figure out how to do it well.
looks great. reminds me of some 8 bit game on the front page a little while back.
perfect example of how bad graphics are because of the artist and not the technical limitations. this looks reall great!