The Good: Technically impressive; groundbreaking; strong identity
The Bad: Too simple
Being developed by Gunpei Yokoi--Game Boy's creator himself--Solar Striker is more a technical statement of how to make most of the handheld's hardware than anything else; and for that matter it certainly gets the job done.
Other contemporary (or even later) shooters fell for the same traps every other early Game Boy title did: being thoughtless console-ish. In practice that always meant from (at minimum) tiny sprites to (in worst cases) sluggish controls due to some bad system resources management; but Solar Striker manages to solve both problems showing up a slick gameplay and plain clean graphics that, despite being fairly simple, feel much more natural in the small screen.
The game itself doesn't quite stand out by its design merits, but it doesn't fall flat either: it's a vertical scrolling with a straight-forward single ship upgrade (wider/stronger shoot power) and big bosses at the end of each level that feels interestingly balanced by urging you to care for making extra lives through raising the score--a must for a no-continues/password/saves game. Such a subtle intricacy can easily be missed as a proper "feature" but alongside the other tech achievements it helps to lend the title a solid sense of personality by finding a middle ground of some sort between arcades and "home" game design.
Unfortunately Solar Striker was kinda overlooked by gamers and, more sadly, Yokoi's peers. As it is it remains a great document of Game Boy's hardware true potential--something that took more time than it should to eventually be realized.