LogFAQs > #979768144

I like Solomon's Key a lot and I think it's one of the best early NES games, but it's also one of the hardest NES games to finish due to a combination of being difficult and how if you try to continue past stage 40 you just get sent back to stage 40 so you have to finish the last stretch of the game on one credit (which is actually toned down from the arcade game where you can't continue at all past stage 27 or 28). The sequel, Fire n Ice is one of the best puzzle games on the platform, and a lot easier/more accessible. But it's also a lot later in the system's lifespan (definitely worth playing when you get to it though).

I bounced off of Mighty Bomb Jack at first due to the torture chamber mechanic, but once I found out how to avoid it and how you're supposed to use the powerups I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would because just jumping around is fun. However, it's the sort of game that has a lot of esoteric nonsense that's basically impossible to figure out without a guide, if you're trying to get the best ending or are playing for score (and a lot of people who try it probably just give up just from running into the torture chamber mechanic for the first time).

Babel/Mystery Tower has some rough spots (getting the actual ending is stupid) but I think it's worth playing overall. Particularly since it's a Namco game that gets buried behind the nth rerelease of Pac Man or Dig Dug and it doesn't get referenced into the ground in their other games like Tower of Druaga. It got a rerelease in a Japanese only PSX collection, and it got a theme in Pac Man 99 but that's about it afaik. It's not even on either of the Namco Museum Archive games that were made specifically to collect Namco's NES games (and they include games that they just published like Mendel's Palace and Dragon Slayer 4/Legacy of a Wizard).