Today marks the 37th anniversary of the release of Solomon's Key, a classic puzzle platformer game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Family Computer Disk System (FDS) in Japan on July 30, 1986. The game was later ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America and Europe in 1987.
In Solomon's Key, players control a wizard named Dana who must explore a series of dungeons to find and collect 12 keys. The dungeons are filled with traps, enemies, and locked doors, and players must use Dana's magic key to open these doors and progress through the game. Like the contemporary Dark Souls, the challenging design requires players to learn from their mistakes and are rewarded accordingly.
Originally developed as an action game, the team had trouble completing the project in this direction. It was then suggested that Solomon's Key be a puzzle game and this resulted in both elements of action and puzzle establishing their balanced presence.
Upon its release, Solomon's Key was met with critical acclaim. The game was visually appealing for its time and was praised for its innovative gameplay, challenging difficulty, and addictively fun factor. Solomon's Key has since become a cult classic, selling over 1 million copies worldwide.
Today, Solomon's Key's most recent release can be found on a the Nintendo Switch Online service so be sure to load up your balance with a digital code. It can also be played for free on the Internet Archive.
If you're looking for a challenging and rewarding puzzle platformer to play, then I highly recommend Solomon's Key. It's a classic game that still holds up today.