I think it must have been around 1996 when my mom came back from some kids-free holiday with a little surprise in her baggage. My brother and me – always excited about unexpected gifts – would have never imagined looking at two nice square boxes with this promising print on their sides: GAMEBOY. Turned out one game was Metroid II and the other one was called Solar Striker. Never heard of any of them. But who cares. It’s video games. Considering the depth of a Metroid game to the simplicity of an arcade space shooter, I got pretty much stuck to the latter to start with. Surprisingly, it dragged me deeper into the matter than I had expected.
Put simply: Solar Striker is a vertical shoot ’em up and it’s … simple. No obstacles or walls, no bombs or special attacks, no fancy exceptions. There are a bunch of enemy types. However, each type strictly follows its specific moving pattern and attack. No surprises. Each of the six stages ends in a boss battle, which is pretty short. After half of the gameplay, you are facing intermediate bosses during each level and all of them again before fighting the final and ultimate enemy. Power-ups are available, but your ship’s arms are limited to four types of weapons. Actually, it’s only two, only the amount of simultaneously fired shots differ. Overall, it is this basic dodge-and-shoot thing.
And then, there are the graphics. Sixteen-by-sixteen pixel wide sprites, despite the bosses, which can spread over half of the screen once in a while. The backgrounds are not much worth mentioning, just pretty flat and repetitive illustrations. However, the background can also serve a purpose. Like representing streets from a top view with armed vehicles running on them. Sprite animation is kept to a minimum.
So what’s the deal with it then, you may ask. Well, this simplicity is working really well with that one. The one thing considering the appearance of the game is its launch date. Being released in 1990 makes it one of the first cartridges available for Nintendo’s Game Boy, which came out the very same year. And comparing the graphics with titles of that time, it doesn’t really fall that short. In fact, it is still enough to keep the action going. Actually, the lack of visual complexity puts the focus on the gameplay, instead of trying to impress. Talking about the gameplay, we are heading straight towards the core of the whole attraction. It is linear, it is repetitive, it is short-termed. Each level takes between 2 and 2 1/2 minutes to be completed, leaving you with roughly 20 minutes for a run-through. However, for the past 25 years since I played SolarStriker for the first time, I never managed to beat it. It should be mentioned that I really suck at video games, especially shmups. But that is one point that lets me fire it up again once in a while.
At first glance, it looks too easy. The controls are nothing more than the d-pad. Basically, you could tape down the A or B button for rapid fire. Every single enemy appears from the top of the screen. And in theory, the enemy waves are a fortune-teller’s dream by memorization. But as always, the devil is in the detail. The speed, direction and amount of enemy bullets are well level-headed making it challenging but not impossible. Emphasis on challenging. And every time I play it, there is this moment when the ship gets hit the first time, reducing the arms level, viciously sucking away one precious life. It feels like everything is already lost before it even ended. Anyway, it still feels quite satisfying to shoot spaceships, trucks, and insects all over the place. The shooting itself is very pleasing not least because of the well-designed sounds. Each shot is confirmed by a nice pew-pew laser sound and the background music also has its own unique charm. It should be mentioned that every stage has its own chiptune title. Solely the enemy explosions feel very shortcut. The explosion of your own ship on the other hand comes with fancy stereo sound. Just to make sure you didn’t miss your destruction. Now I’m wondering how often in my life I heard this derisive sound of depression.

Ah, what the heck! I will give it another try. Challenge of a lifetime.