Together Retro: Solar Jetman

[extrarice]

I remember having this one when I was a kid. Freaking hard game, but so enjoyable. The alien worlds were so unique and mysterious! I have to find another copy of this to pick up somewhere...

[Ivo]

Flight is pretty easy until you pick up an item, then it gets fun. I found the best thing to do was to make sure I was going the direction I wanted to go when I dropped shields and grabbed an object. That way inertia's in my favor.

I've given this a bit more time again. It certainly seems a nice game. It is so much more forgiving than Thrust! I expect having the shield active will cost tons of fuel but it doesn't really seem to cost that much, I activate it liberally.

I've picked up some thrusters or boosters on level 2 that let you do the "Select" boost. I'm fairly sure the probes should have had this from the start, as carrying cargo without it is REALLY slow and boring (and you practically need to pick the cargo up already going directly up with some momentum). I wonder what happens if I hadn't picked them up (which was a bit of a pain and I thought they were only scoring items, like the Easter Island statues also in level 2)? I'm still undecided if it would then be better to have Select be the "weak" thrust instead of the strong one - fortunately I'm playing on a Saturn pad with Select mapped to the L shoulder, in a NES pad that can't be comfortable!

Ivo.

[Mozgus]

I need to try this again, did anyone beat it?

What, ever? You could probably count the number of people in the world who've beaten it on one hand.

[Ivo]

This is a good game worth playing today, but I wouldn't say it is a great game or a classic.

I finished this today, on an emulator, and I did use Save states in order to save myself time. But I can honestly say by now I have the skills to beat it without states, using passwords - it would just take me much longer (and I can't be bothered). Believe me if you want to, and I'm confident I can replay e.g. level 12 without using states and record it for you guys (it is rather huge though).

I must say I think some of you guys are overstating the difficulty (or is the remark of people not finishing meant to be about it being a chore / bothersome to do it?).

Granted, the very last level (after you complete the Ship) is not very fair, and not using states I would have to finish Level 12 a bunch of times until I would be able to get through the last level without dying.

My impressions is that there is a good bit of learning curve in controlling the ship, and it is something that is shared by other games of the type (Thrust) - but after you get rather used to it and after you get the mapping device it really isn't that hard.

As far as I know, you effectively get an unlimited supply of ships, as in jetpack mode you can head into one of those dropping off points (where you can transport items to your mothership without going back) and you will be transported to the mothership with a new ship without losing one. There is not time limit, so you can do the level slowly, returning often to re-fuel so that you never run out of fuel in a bad place. It does take a bit of patience and sometimes it feels a bit like a chore, but my point is that it isn't that hard.

Ivo.

[Unleaded Logic]

I'm about to try it for the first time ever. Picked it up at a resale shop for a buck!