On one hand, this gotta be one of the most boring games to 100%. Most of it is just going through a bunch of randomly generated top down sections that get old way too quickly. Also this game has such cool improvements to its mechanics but it doesn’t utilize them in the level design nearly as much as I wanted, especially for the top down sections.

On the other hand, those improvements are still there and do make for legitimately intense, heart pounding gameplay. Also, the finale of this game is near perfection, in which the game throws you the best boss fights in the whole trilogy and an ending that actually made me shed a tear.

I would say highest highs, lowest lows but the lowest lows are still in BMZ 1 so it doesn’t work.

For now I’d say 3 about on par with 2 but which one I think is better changes every hour so I’ll see if I can find a proper answer.

One more thing, Leibniz is the GOAT

BMZIII is the last game of the trilogy, and I have to say it, they couldn't have done better.
Yes, it has some little problems gameplay-wise. For example; I did not like the level design that much and didn't like that they went back to the "semi-metroidvania" style of the first game. For me, Blaster Master Zero II did the "side-view" parts perfectly, yet, the "top-down" sections are way better in the third game. No locked main weapons, good counters,
nice challenging bosses, and the most important, a dash button!
However, I don't think this game shines in its gameplay, it did shine in the story. BMZIII has by far the best plot of the trilogy, interesting characters, nice dialogues, way better conflicts, and a good drama. Blaster Master Zero III did finish the story of Jason and Eve in the best way possible.

I cried like a baby in the final scenes, truly the perfect ending to this trilogy.

Alright the best way I can explain this game, is Blaster Master Zero 3 is the perfect bow that goes on a gift. The first game was really good but you could feel it was a remake and had restraints to it. Blaster Master Zero 2 went for more of a world to world gameplay, so Blaster Master Zero 3 a sort of light world and dark world setting or in this real world and hyper space.

Every thing good the past two games did carries over to this one, amazing story, music, graphics, fun game play, this one I'll say the difficulty doesn't come from the bosses as much as it comes from so many places to explore and much to pick up, it never gets boring.

Definitely recommend to anyone who loves Metroidvanias but do play all 3 games.

i thought the first two BMZ games were pretty good, solid games but nothing incredible

but this right here? this is something incredible, gameplaywise i feel inti's finally perfected both the on-foot and tank combat, and storywise it's absolutely phenomenal. much like luminous avenger iX, the last section of the game is absolutely packed with twists, and is sure to keep you engaged if you liked the first two games

do note that, unlike the first two titles, it's a lot more linear a la metroid fusion. like fusion though, it's a phenomenal game despite that

I mostly post joke reviews on this site because I’m lazy (the score reflects my own opinion, however). That’s not the case with Blaster Master Zero III, because this game is truly something special. Blaster Master Zero III is a follow up to Blaster Master Zero I and II, succeeding the stories of both. Zero I was a solid game with little wrong with it. It was somewhat short and had issues with its overall challenge, but it was extremely fun to play, being one of my favorite metroidvanias. Zero II was a big improvement, making gameplay and stages more varied, while increasing the difficulty by a lot. The only problems were that the game’s new mechanics were a bit underutilized. Zero III takes almost everything good, as well as its underutilized mechanics about Zero II and then some. There are some pretty big improvements here. For one, Jason is actually really fun outside of his tank! Jason now has a jetpack, allowing him to survive falls, so long as you can time it right. I really appreciate how it's also used in platforming, too. Alone, this is already a great improvement over Zero II, but they didn't stop there with Jason. His top down sections are also improved, too. The gun system has been completely reworked; instead of getting new weapons when you get more gun power, in Zero III, you start with 5 guns to boot, and get more power when you get a gun upgrade. Unlike Zero I and II, you'll always have the ability to exploit the enemy's weakness, but your Gun power makes a big impact on how easy it is. If you suck at the game, it'll be a hellish time. But if you're good, you'll be able to take full advantage of the combat. A change I also like is that the Energy Guard is no longer permanent. In Zero I and II, if you got hit, you lose your Guard for 5 seconds. If you get hit again, you go down a level. It worked, but it was really easily cheesable, especially in Zero I. In Zero III, if you get Energy Guard, it guards not only your gun level, but your HP too. This sounds easier at first, but now it's consumable. You get 4 Guard at a time, up to 16, gradually respawning in the overworld. I wasn't a fan of this at first, but if you know what you're doing, you can easily get 16 guard and just power through this game. There's also Guard for the tank too. I didn't find it as useful (because the tank doesn't have gun power), but I'd rather have it than not. I really liked the weapons here, too. I used the Quad shot, Electricity, and Wave quite a bit. I wasn't really a fan of the pea shooter, or the whip though. Not because they're necessarily bad per se, but in general, I just found the others to be more effective. But, I really liked the top down sections way more than I expected to. Playing around with my toolkit was really fun, and the challenge feels just right to me, unlike Zero I, which was very easy. When it comes to the tank gameplay, it's generally what'd you expect from Blaster Master. Find upgrades that help you progress, find new abilities, travel the world, et cetera. Unlike the other games though, Zero III introduces a new mechanic; the sub SP. Your guns are more powerful than normal, but in exchange, all of your weapons (save for your vanilla shot) now consume an orange SP meter. This adds to the challenge of the game, as you have to now manage two SP systems. If both are drained at the same time, you get killed in one hit. In reality this is only really an issue with the super nuke you get at the end of the game, but watch out regardless. The main weapons are really fun to use. I really like G Crusher+; it's more damaging at the expense of SP cost. There's also this automatically shooting fire bomb thingy that does a fuck ton of damage. And the Anti SF ammo is fucking powerful. The regular subweapons are fine. I find Zero II’s a little better but I can live with these. Not a fan of the dash nerf, TBH. In Zero II it was a bit more practical for fast travel, because if you spammed it, you'd lose less SP overall. In Zero III, the SP cost is the same no matter what. I also wasn't the biggest fan of the super nuke. It's fine, but it's got nothing against Zero II’s Full Acceleration Burst. When it comes to the overall level design, it's great! They all stick out pretty well and I like them all. A thing I really liked about them were the hyperspace sections. By pressing L+R near a weird screen crack, you can enter hyperspace, and these provide an alternative version of the levels. It was a nice change of pace, but I kind of disliked the insta-kill thingies. They probably should’ve toned down on those, but other than that, it’s pretty fun! The bosses are also pretty fun. These are so much better than Zero II’s bosses, because for one, they're not too easy, but also not too difficult. My favorite would have to be the Jason boss, but for that, I'd have to go into a plot summary. So, SPOILERS AHEAD!
Zero III starts off directly after the last game. Jason and Eve were promptly captured once they return to Sophia, the Gaia Sophia completely destroyed in the process. We don't know why yet, but out of nowhere, the Sophia Force who captured Jason and Eve are now under attack, so Jason hightails it out of there with a new tank, attempting to find Eve, only to be stopped by Kane Gardner. Not even he knows where Eve went. It’s a long journey of going to hyperspace, and exploring Planet Sophia. Yeah, unlike Zero II, you only get one world, aside from Stranga. It does make it feel a bit more linear, but I think it works overall here. As the game goes on, they reveal that after the last game, Eve technically turned into a mutant, hence why they were attacked at the start of the game. After Planade G’s downfall, Eve’s mutated cells were still present, and as Eve technically killed Planade G, mutants were left without a ruler, and Eve was crowned as the Mutant Queen, hence her absence. If Eve were to be killed or go AWOL, the mutants would grow angry and cause a rampage on earth. This leaves Jason with a descision in Area 6. You can either let Eve seal herself away in hyperspace, suffering for the rest of her life, or you can intervene. Intervening will cause Eve to look back and cry, revealing her true feelings to Jason. Jason promises that they will reunite one day, and the game fades to black. After this, we cut to Kane in hyperspace with the Sophia III, ordered to kill Jason and Eve as they opened a hyperspace portal without permission. However, the mutants couldn’t attack Sophia if they wanted to, as Eve stopped them from doing so. Even then, Kane still has to kill them, leading to a fight. You can select either Jason or Kane, but the choice is fruitless story-wise. I recommend picking Kane for this, as his boss fight with Jason is AWESOME. It’s really hard, but everything is telegraphed so well. He uses all of the abilities you gained throughout the adventure, which not only shows how far you came, but makes for a chaotic fight. This should be a trope in metroidvanias from now on. Definitely the best bossfight in the series. When it comes to the Kane fight, things are more disappointing. It’s really damn easy. I beat it on my first try, which is insane considering Rising Garuda took more attempts. But like I said, the ending is the same, so pick your poison. After the fight, it’s revealed that Eve and Jason actually had twins, and Kane decided to back off. After saying farewell to his daughter, Eve, the two (and Fred, yeah he’s still here) ride off into the unknown, thus ending Blaster Master Zero III. I’m serious, that’s pretty much it. I love Zero III but I just wish there was more of it. Zero I and II had so much content outside of the main story (alt characters, hard mode, mini-games, etc.), but Zero III has nothing of note unfortunately. We should’ve at least got a mode where we play as Kane or something. That’s literally my only major complaint about this game, because otherwise Zero III is pretty much perfect to me. Zero III is an incredible send-off to the series, genuinely one of the best sequels of all time. And I thought Zero II was amazing; this just blows it out of the water. Play this game. It’s such a great time, but make sure you play Zero I and II, too. The ending of III has a bigger impact because I played Zero I and II first (at least it does to me). Farewell, Blaster Master!

Not quite as strong as 2, but a fun game regardless. The new stuff that's here is fairly enjoyable, and the conclusion is one of the best parts of the whole series and is a perfect sendoff to the trilogy. My problems come with how this feels like a different version of 2, and retreads far too much familiar ground while 2 was a completely fresh experience. 2 felt larger and grander, with tighter pacing and more creative level design compared to 3, which just feels a bit worse in just about every aspect. Again not bad, but having played 2 right before playing this really showed how little 3 innovated on the formula.

What happened here?

There's a lot to love about this game: Awesome boss fights, improvements to the mechanics, and spectacle befitting the finale of a trilogy. However, this comes with a lot of problems I can only describe as baffling.

This game has no difficulty curve. Honestly it's more of a difficulty fork: Weirdly difficult at the start, freaking EASY for most of it aside from one or two really hard fights, and then the penultimate boss is the hardest thing in the series. I genuinely have no idea what to think of this game's difficulty other than it desperately needs a complete overhaul of what goes where in terms of difficulty. It really started getting to me by the end of the 3rd or 4th area that nothing was freaking happening in terms of gameplay that being shocked from my general feelings of "this is ok but too easy" by the difficulty spikes legitimately left me exhausted.
This goes hand in hand with the story being genuinely nothing. Leibniz's character arc is fantastic and I love that character, and it's nice that at least that part of the game was handled well. However, the plot around it is the most empty void of nothing possible. Oh no my father in law's hunting me down for the law and my wife's missing! But he's also helping me? And my wife wants to be missing?? But she's captured too??? I could genuinely summarize 80% of the game as "nothing is happening." Blaster Master Zero 1 also has this trait but it works there because of the initial low stakes of the plot followed by the gradual upward curve in tension. Blaster Master Zero 2 works because of the development of each of the stories of each pilot and co-pilot as you're working toward a better goal. 3's plot takes the worst parts of both plots to where I genuinely didn't care by the end even as there were big emotional climaxes.
The two in tandem make for a game that feels like trying to microwave a whole leftover steak: The experience isn't as fresh and no matter what I try to do the steak will not be the temperature I want all the way through.

On the whole, it's still Blaster Master Zero and these games are solid. Art's still beautiful, music still bops, game's still fun. Overall I enjoyed myself for a lot of the game. However, I couldn't shake the feeling that this game is completely directionless and loses some of the magic from the previous games without having anything unique to call its own. This game takes one step forward and two steps back.

I really hope this isn't the last note the series goes out on. This series deserves something better to close out on, and from the almost comically heavy-handed hints of doing something more in the future I certainly hope so.

(If I could rate this a 6.5 I would)

Blaster Master Zero III kind of confused me. It fixed 2's biggest problem: The clutter of a toolkit in the Top-Down sections. In III, there's 5 guns (each of which upgrade individually), a selection of subweapons, a dedicated dash button, and a singular counter button. I also loved the risk-reward element that many of these dungeons had: risking your progress for even more upgrades, or playing it safe and leaving. The Top-Down sections still have problems; The progression isn't nearly as developed as in the 2D sections, the level design is still very basic and rarely makes use of all the moves, etc.... However, they were undeniably better than those of 2.

However, I think I prefer the 2D sections in 2 more than in III, for several reasons. 2 had much more level variety and felt like a much more streamlined yet still unique experience. In III, most of the locations are just cyber-hallways. The movement in 2 was also much better. You had a dash, a 'ground-pound' in the form of a drill, wall jumps, and deployable springs. III ditches the drill and springs, and has spawnable block lines. An interesting concept, but it's introduced near the very end and is underutilized.

I also wasn't a fan of the reverse dimensional rifts. It's an interesting idea: Flipping a game mechanic on it's head in fun ways. The issue is that often, the ways are not actually fun. I liked the enemies jumping when you touch a spring, but everything else was pretty forgettable. In Top-Down, the rifts are just auto-generated sections that aren't all that great.

That just reminded me of another thing that annoyed me. In the top-down sections, often you're presented with really tough enemies or constantly respawning enemies. However, fairly early on the game basically says, "Oh, just take the rifts to skip those." What? Why are you making a section intentionally annoying and encouraging the player to skip it in a game where scouring the map for collectibles is the whole point? There's nothing in said sections, so they are quite literally made to be skipped.

I know I've been ragging on this game, but I still enjoyed it more than I didn't. The visuals and sound are a bump from 2, the story is cheesy but somewhat entertaining, and most of the bosses are really good (Although a few were reused ones from previous games). However, a few dumb choices prevented this from being the true pinnacle of mutant-blasting action.

Really struggling to find the words for this one. Blaster Master Zero 3 is a damn great game. It builds upon the first two games in the exact ways it needed to, and finishes off this trilogy of games very strongly.

The glorious pixel art visuals are even better than they were in BMZ2. Although, if I have to give any gripe, it's that I think they occasionally caused slowdown on the Switch version (I assume this problem doesn't exist on other platforms). When there's a whole lot happening on screen, the game dips juuust enough below its 60 FPS to make things feel a tad sluggish. Nothing game-ruining, but I found it distracting on occasion.

Hopping between tears in dimensional space really added a nice layer of depth to the 2D maps, and made for interesting alternate routes in the top-down dungeons. It's also used for really cool spectacle across the whole game.

Top-down combat is the best of the series, bar none. Jason's arsenal got streamlined, and your five weapons all have utility at their various levels. The man can now dash around and counter enemy attacks like nobody's business, and enemies are more aggressive to compensate. As for tank combat, it unfortunately becomes a bit easy once you have a specific weapon, but it's still versatile and fun overall.

Map design is a bit more linear in comparison to the first two games. I've seen others compare it to Metroid Fusion, and I'm willing to agree on that front. The one flaw I have with this map design is the "disposable shield" pickups, and how they're marked on your map the same as any other upgrade pickup. While I was thorough and lucky enough to grab all actual upgrades in a timely manner, they really should be marked differently in order to cut down on unnecessary backtracking and the like. I don't dislike the temporary shields (they saved my ass more than once), it's just not fun to see them when you're explicitly looking for permanent upgrades.

As a standalone experience, I'd probably rate this one a 4/5, but let's be real here; Who the hell plays the third and final game in a trilogy first? The game is excellent with a minor flaw or two, and caps off the trilogy wonderfully. I'll probably return to BMZ2 if I want my BMZ fix, but I will never forget this final game in the trilogy.

Una conclusión perfecta a lo que es, esencialmente, una historia de amor y viajes espaciales.

Todos los personajes son geniales y la quimica entre ellos (mención especial a la dinámica entre Leibniz y Kanna en Stranga, o la dinámica de Leibniz y Jason en general)

Si bien es cierto que a lo mejor he echado en falta los viajes entre planetas de BMZII, el juego lo compensa con creces con un carisma desbordante.

Y bueno, el final verdadero. Inti Creates ha hecho un trabajo increible haciendo finales en los anteriores y este no iba a ser menos. Destaco sobre todo ya no solo el jefe final (que solo mencionar su identidad sería el mayor de los spoilers) sino el penultimo, en el que los sentimientos están a flor de piel.

Si os gustan los metroidvania jugad a esta trilogía, vale muchisimo la pena de principio a fin.