Penguin Land and Solomon's Key
This thread is a tribute to two of the innovative puzzle platformer series' that originated in Japan in the mid 1980s, Sega's Penguin Land and Tecmo's Solomon's Key. If you're a fan of the genre and were gaming back then, you probably have fond memories of at least one of them.
I'll start with Penguin Land, the slightly older of the two -
The year was 1985 was and Sega was about to debut the Mark III (Master System) in Japan which would replace the SG-1000 as the Famicom's competition. The SG-1000 was a couple years old but it didn't have much in the way of original content. Its line up was quality but mostly ports of arcade and Western games.
One of most unique titles to grace the SG-1000 was Doki Doki Penguin Land. Penguin-themed games were fairly common in the early-mid '80s (Pengo, Snokie, Antartic Adventure, Penguin-kun Wars, Binary Land, etc.) but what made Doki Doki Penguin Land stand out was that it mixed puzzle and platform gameplay in a completely new way. The object of the game was to safely roll your egg down ice caverns, and strategizing where to break the ice so as to not drop it too far or have enemies crush it.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...guinSG1000.png
The game was also available in arcade form although it used the same hardware and wasn't enhanced in any way. It was also re-released on Saturn in 1997 alongside other arcade games in Sega Ages: Memorial Selection Vol. 2 and has appeared in recent years for cell phones and on the PC service GameTap.
The 1987 Master System sequel, Doki Doki Penguin Land: Uchuu Daibouken (which I read translates as "outer space adventure"), was a refinement of the first game's concepts. In the West, it was known simply as Penguin Land. Besides the obvious jump in graphic detail and animation, it had some of the most realistic physics on the market with the way the eggs would bounce, plus other small touches like being able to push a cornered egg out by squeezing past it.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...PenguinSMS.gif
It was released in both card and cartridge format, the latter version being superior because of the inclusion of a level editor. Back when I was a kid and life had yet to drain the creativity out of me, I would spend hours making levels for it. It made me realize how much I loved it when games offered multiple solutions to problems. It was also one of the earliest cartridges with battery back up (it came out the same year as Zelda 1 in NA but I'm not sure which came here first) so you could save your homemade levels.
The franchise made its Nintendo system debut in 1990 but it wasn't pretty. Pony Canyon's Doki Doki Penguin Land for Game Boy was licensed by Sega but didn't have the same quality; the controls sucked anus and it had painfully slow scrolling. This version was based on the SG-1000 game and didn't take advantage of the advancements the SMS game made despite it having been around for a few years. It's sometimes referred to as a port of the SG-1000 game but because the level designs are different, I consider it a separate title.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...-PenguinGB.jpg
It's a shame since the series would have been well suited for portable gaming. Even the SMS version, which would have been nice to play on Game Gear, happened to be incompatible with the Master Gear Converter.
The series got a sequel by Sega in 1992. Ikazuze! Ai no Doki Doki Penguin Land MD was one of the games offered on the Mega Drive's modem service. Since the TeleGenesis modem never saw release in North America, the modem games got stuck in Japan. At least they put a bunch of them in compilation form for Mega CD. Penguin Land MD can be found on 1994's Game no Kanzume: Sega Games Can Vol. 2.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...-PenguinMD.jpg
I was pretty excited to play a 16-bit Penguin Land but unfortunately it didn't quite capture the charm of its predecessor. Movement was a little more awkward as the egg would push towards you like a magnet when near it, and the whole experience didn't have the same level of polish. One neat thing this game did add was the ability to place a flag anywhere in the level as a checkpoint. Also, it let you more quickly scroll down to examine the layout of the level. It's still a good game I recommend, just not the improvement it should have been.
We went a long time without any new Penguin Land games but one finally appeared in 2005 in Sega Ages 2500 Vol. 23: Sega Memorial Selection for the Japanese Playstation 2. This was a remake of the SG-1000 original although certain visual elements reminded me of the MD game. Like the MD game, I didn't think it was as good as the second PL for level design or physics, but it stayed pretty faithful to the style of the 1985 title while modernizing the graphics and feel.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...PenguinPS2.jpg
On to Solomon's Key -
1986 was the year that arcade game maker Tehkan changed their name to Tecmo, and Solomon's Key was one of the first games to use the new name. On the surface it was just another one of many old-fashioned, single-screen platformers in a market rapidly shifting to more advanced, side-scrolling ones but its design was fresh enough to stand out. The object of the game was basic stuff, i.e. find the key that opens the exit, and escape before time runs out. What made it addictive was having to think and react quickly. You could create or destroy blocks to make stairs or barricade enemies. There have been many similar games since then but at the time having a platform game so focused on puzzles was still novel.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...omonArcade.png
The arcade version of Solomon's Key was re-released in recent years in the 2005 Xbox compilation, Tecmo Classic Arcade.
The arcade original was never hugely successful but the game managed to get some decent exposure via various home ports. U.S. Gold published several Western computer versions by Probe Software in 1987, the best of which was the Atari ST one; being 16-bit it had the nicest graphics and its gameplay was pretty faithful to the arcade game.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...-SolomonST.png
The Commodore 64 rev was probably the most popular of the computer ports; the graphics were downgraded but it played well.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...SolomonC64.gif
The Amstrad CPC port was nice and colourful but it was a little on the slow side.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...SolomonCPC.png
ZX Spectrum
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...olomonSpec.gif
IBM PC
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...-SolomonPC.png
Arguably the best version was Tecmo's own NES port. It suffered from the low colour palette of the system when compared to arcade and ST but it played beautifully. It also added a password system so you didn't have to play through every level in one sitting. This version was re-released on Famicom Disk in 1991 and more recently on Wii Virtual Console.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...SolomonNES.gif
Even the Master System managed to get a rare version in Japan in 1988. It was done by Salio, a short-lived third-party (some theorize this was Tecmo using a different name so as to not incur Nintendo's wrath but I don't know). This port is a neat collector's item but as a game I didn't like it much due to the awkward delay while jumping.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...SolomonMK3.gif
Solomon's Key has had its share of clones over the years but I think Pack-in-Video's Zipang (1990) for the PC Engine counts as part of the franchise. The game is based on some TV show license or something but its gameplay was licensed from Tecmo. Despite the Asian theme, it played like SK and could easily have been a sequel. Zipang doesn't seem to get much mention among SK and PC Engine fans but it's well worth playing.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...LSK-Zipang.png
Unlike Penguin Land, the series faired well on the original Game Boy with Tecmo's Solomon's Club in 1991. This was a follow up to the arcade/NES game. I think it's as good if not better than the original. It's very similar but I prefer its control (having a button for jumping instead of pushing up). The item shops were a nice addition, too.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...lomonsClub.jpg
I guess the GB game technically counts as a spin-off because Tecmo released Solomon's Key 2 for the NES in 1992 (at least that's what it was in Europe and Japan; North America got it in 1993 as Fire 'N Ice). It's not related to Graftgold's Fire and Ice from around the same time.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...20FirenIce.png
SK2 may have been in the same genre but it was a departure for the series. Besides the increase in story elements with its cinemas (it's a prequel in story), the design was more puzzle and less action this time. Instead of having to deal with a bunch of enemies and acquiring keys, the point was to push blocks of ice to take out all the fires on the screen. It was a neat little puzzle game that proved the NES could still pull off great titles several years into the 16-bit era. Personally, I don't like it as much as the classic SK style but many seem to prefer it.
SK returned in 2000 with Solomon for Game Boy Color. I guess Tecmo didn't have much faith in the franchise anymore since they released it as Monster Rancher Explorer in the West (although it's worth noting that the Japanese release does have Monster Rancher characters in it and the game itself wasn't altered as far as I know). I was turned off of this game at first as it has kind of a cheap look to it and I didn't like Monster Rancher characters merged into an SK game but it was actually quite well made, one of the better GBC exclusives. It played a lot like classic SK but with some screen scrolling, battery backup and a level editor added. You could trade homemade levels with other people via the link cable.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...erExplorer.gif
And check out this impressive SK fansite for more info - http://www.fabiosanna.it/solomon/index.html
So what do you think of the Penguin Land and Solomon's Key games? And since Tain was asking about a thread on puzzle-platformers in general, feel free to talk about other games in the genre. Maybe I'll add some more that don't get mentioned later.
