Solar Descent
The Playdate has become home to a number of strong (and exclusive!) NES Zelda-likes. There’s Resonant Tale, of course, and Season One’s Ratcheteer. There’s “weird Zelda” HANA, Lolife, Wirewalk, Aurora: Oasis Adventure, The Lushes Land, Woodland, and the Along Came a Spider and Tochi games. There are even more than that, and I haven’t played them all yet! (I will, though.) They each offer something unique. And now we have Solar Descent, which takes many of the more complex and hard to emulate aspects from the first The Legend of Zelda game and brings them to the Playdate.
There are seven full-size dungeons whereas most Playdate Zelda-likes shoot for three. There are swappable items, and secrets, and places where you need to run fast so you’re not caught in a trap. There are mysterious wizards dispensing knowledge and relics you can equip to upgrade your abilities. There’s a full world map, and dungeon maps, and a compass to see where treasure chests are. There are a number of characters to help along the way, and each has a unique way to complete the sub-story. Sometimes you’ll use time travel mechanics, or sometimes you’ll do a full Phoenix Wright deduction scenario. And you don’t even have to help them all! However, it is the only way to get the “true” ending, so I’d recommend it over the underwhelming “just enough” finale.
Like Zelda, each dungeon will give you a new item necessary to advance the story by helping you get past a particular obstacle locking off the next part of the world map. You’ll have to switch between some of these sub-weapons on the fly, giving it an almost Dark Souls immediacy. Can’t change your equipment in the safety of the menu, here! Also, the menu is opened and closed by docking or undocking the crank, and there is a TON of crank usage… maybe even too much.
Okay, so: my only real complaint(?) about Aurora: Oasis Adventure was that you had to constantly use the crank to restore energy just to walk. This burden eventually lessens as you get more energy or the crank refills the gauge faster, but it never really felt… right, like something I actually wanted to do. In Solar Descent, you’ll use your energy for sub-weapons but also just to swing the sword, and when you’re out of sword juice, you’ll need to run away from all the bad guys for a few seconds to crank and refill your sword-swinging strength. It gives the game a huge sense of tension and immediacy, but I really didn’t want that. Luckily, there are a ton of assist modes available, like “take no damage” or “don’t lose XP on death” (oh yeah, Dark Souls stuff again!) or “sword attacks don’t require AP.” As a busy adult who did not want to lose an inordinate amount of time or progress (I have like ten more games waiting to get on this site right now!), you just know I turned on the “no XP loss” and “sword doesn’t drain energy” assists (and the game doesn’t punish you for it). Still a tough game, but this made it a lot more doable. Don’t know how I would’ve beaten that final boss without it.
The crank is used for a lot of other things, too. You crank one way to restore your sub-weapon/sword energy, and you crank the other way to use a flask to refill your health (both while enemies are still trying to get you in real time). There are a lot of crank-based puzzles, too, and you’ll dock/undock the crank any time you want to open the menu and check the map or rearrange relics. Oh, and the sword feel is great. This was one area that I felt Aurora: Oasis Adventure really excelled, and Solar Descent gives it a run for its money. It really feels smooth like playing NES Zelda instead of the sometimes clunky Pulp movement, and figuring out the different ways to attack/defend against the many varieties of enemies is a big part of learning how to succeed in this roughly 4-hour, real GAME game. Oh, and you can upgrade your stats with XP from enemies and orbs that you find hidden around the world. Really smooth progression, too.
Basically, if you like Zelda-likes, or sizeable Playdate games, or cranking, or finding secrets and solving little mysteries, or games that can get pretty hard and will take some tenacity to win (and you can decide how much of a challenge you want!), Solar Descent is a great pick for you. It’s out on Itch now and coming to Catalog soon!
(Released May 24, 2025, on Itch, with free demo and source code available. Coming to Catalog on September 30, 2025. Copy provided by developer.)