LogFAQs > #972491060

Solomon's Key is a single screen arcade game platformer action game with the same concept of creating and destroying blocks with your magic wand. In this case, to seal off or stall enemies or herd them together so it's easier to time your jumps over them or block projectiles.

However it's an extremely brutal game with a lot of esoteric and arbitrary secrets (like create and destroy a block in a certain space, or hit your head against a certain block so many times. some are just scoring items, but others are needed for the best ending). You also have to finish the last quarter of the game without continuing, because it will send you back quite a few levels when you continue after that point (which is actually toned down from the arcade version, where you can't continue the game at all after a certain point). not to mention, jumping is mapped to up like an arcade game from that time instead of having a dedicated button for it which is the sort of thing that a lot of people would criticize as not aging well.

I enjoy it despite being terrible at it, but it would probably be too frustrating for most people. If you want to know what the general gameplay is like but are worried that it's too hard, I guess there's the option of giving the game boy version Solomon's Club a shot if you get the chance. The difficulty is much more reasonable since it's a new game not based on the arcade game and aimed at the home market from the start, and there's a shop where you can use your score to buy extra lives and powerups to make the levels easier.