Adventure Quest may not meet the expectations we have of if today. For example, although it has a huge map, a lot of locations are padding; a staircase may consist of 5 locations when 2 could have been adequate (top and bottom), there are quite a few east-west and north-south passages which could have been shortened. Inventory management is also a challenge as you are limited to 4 items.
Despite all these shortcomings, this is still an immensely enjoyable game. and the reason for that are the puzzles. They are varied, there are plenty of them, and they all have satisfying solutions. I was stumped on quite a few occasions but that was never frustrating because when I finally figured out the solution, it was always logical. There are several different areas within the game, the transitions between them are handled in an interesting manner, contributing to the suspension of disbelief.
If you like old-school if where the emphasis is on the problem-solving, this will definitely be worth playing.