Solar Jetman is one of those NES games that looks simple until you actually play it. You start off in this little rocket, zipping around space, blasting aliens and collecting weird glowing orbs—feels like a chill arcade shooter at first. Then your ship inevitably explodes (because space is mean), and suddenly you're floating around in just a spacesuit, trying not to get wrecked by the same aliens who now seem way faster than you.

The gravity mechanics are the real kicker—some planets pull you in hard, others barely at all, and maneuvering your jetpack without faceplanting into rocks becomes its own mini-game. Oh, and you’ve gotta drag ship parts back to base with a tow cable that might as well be made of spaghetti. It’s janky in that classic NES way where half the challenge is wrestling with the controls, but there’s something weirdly satisfying about finally nailing a tricky landing.

Controls are standard NES emulator stuff: arrows to move, Z/X for buttons. Just don’t blame me when you yeet your ship into a black hole by accident.