I’ve got the (Solomon’s) key, I’ve got the secret.
Sokoban, initially released in 1982 for Japanese home computers, is the first “block-pushing” puzzle game that challenged players to move around boxes to accomplish some kind of goal. Of the numerous similar games it inspired, one of the most popular was Tecmo’s Solomon’s Key, released for both the Famicom and in arcades in 1986. After spawning some ports to other consoles and computers, it was followed up by a sequel (or prequel, technically) in 1992, known as Solomon’s Key 2 in Japan and Europe, but renamed Fire ‘n Ice for the North American release, which is the version featured in the Nintendo Switch Online NES library.
In many ways, it makes sense that the name was changed – there are certainly some commonalities to the original Solomon’s Key, particularly the presence of puzzle-solving wizard Dana, but how it approaches those puzzles is quite a bit different. For starters, since Solomon’s Key was originally developed as an arcade game, there’s a strong action element, as Dana constantly needed to avoid enemies while hunting for the key that opened the door to the next stage. Much of that is drastically scaled back for Fire ‘n Ice, focusing almost totally on the brain stumpers.
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