Solstice

"Watch out for the spikes! Argh! Not again..."

Ever play one of those games that frustrate you time and time again with it being so easy for you die, and it happens so frequently to you? Then every time it happens you put the control down with the “forget this game” attitude causing you to walk out the room to only find yourself back inside about 2 minutes later saying, “I’ll get it this time!” Well, this is one of those types of games. The constant dying annoys you to the point where you just want to pick up your NES and throw it out the window, yet there’s something about the game that keeps you continuing to play? Well, whatever defines that brings you to the strange effect that Solstice has on you.

The storyline is basic. Bad guy captures the princess, and now it is your job to be the hero and go on a journey to rescue her from him. You’ve heard the story a million times; it never gets old retracting you all the way to the Super Mario Bros age, but just is glad this princess doesn’t end up in “another castle.” Well, after the short intro that explains it all to you, you can finally start the game as…Shadax, the purple wizard! Whatever floats his boat…moving on.

The controllers are basic on this puzzle RPG type game. Like all other puzzle games, you’d think your character could do way more things, but can’t so it won’t ruin the fact that you have to think your way through situations instead of just running through everyone. It upsets you because of the limitations, but acceptable. But despite the fact that you can’t take out enemies all at once by shooting out your amazing thunder attack (or whatever imagination you have about what a purple wizard could do), it’s still a fun game to play.

The graphics are pretty okay, but of course it should even be expected for the NES. Well, I guess the graphics should impress you to the point that you could actually make out what you’re doing and what you’re around. Keep playing the game and eventually you’ll be humming these songs in your head as your playing it. It won’t stick to your head as much as “Who let the dogs out,” but it’ll come close (Oh, come on, now you know every once in a while you sit at school, sick of that song, yet you still find yourself singing it to yourself).

Use everything in the rooms to your advantage, even the colored boxes that stand out like a sore thumb. The difficulty of this game is off the wall. A lot of the obstacles are really hard to do, and that’s if you could figure out what to do! Just think of the whole game as one big dungeon in a “Legend of Zelda” game, where everything in the room looks suspicious, even the skeleton walking up and down the screen that lets you walk on his head. Don’t worry, it gets better once you start getting the hang of it and figuring out what to do. There’s a good deal of power-ups throughout the game that give you certain abilities and gives you extra lives and etc, just like almost any other game of this type would.

Overall, the game is worth getting. The playability of the game is pretty good if you had a good experience at it first time around. It’s not a long game to beat; you could beat it in a couple of hours if you put your mind to it. But I’d say its still worth it. A worthy selection for you collection…hey, that rhymes!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/04