I played this game a lot with my older brother when I was a kid and had fond memories, and I finally revisited it and beat it for myself. I have a lot to say about this game after dwelling on it for a couple days, so get comfy.
Non-gameplay stuff:
The game opens with a short cutscene of a boy named Jason with a pet frog. The frog escapes its enclosure and hops out an open window and towards a crate marked "Radioactive." The frog grows bigger and the ground beneath it caves in. Jason jumps down the hole after the frog and finds an advanced battle tank so he puts on the pilot suit inside and takes off after the frog. This is the extent of story within the game itself, and it's fine enough for setting up the adventure. (Worth noting that the Japanese version has no story cutscene at all and an entirely different plot described in its manual, but that's not the version I played, so that's not what I'm reviewing.)
The music, like almost all of Sunsoft's titles, is back-to-back great tracks. The music fits the area you're in, and sets a good tone for a mostly lighthearted adventure. Sound effect design is similarly on-point.
The sprites and environments look great, I have no complaints in that area. Monster designs are mostly cool, particularly most of the bosses have great screen presence. It's not all good in the graphics department though. When entering a boss room, the entire screen rapidly flashes bright white. I had to cover my eyes during these sequences because flashing lights can trigger migraines for me. At least the flashing happens at set times so it can be prepared for, but that's far from an excuse.
Gameplay stuff:
The gameplay is split into two different styles. You begin the game in the first style, which I will refer to as the overworld. In the overworld you pilot the tank in an open side-scrolling environment where you can explore at your leisure. The tank can jump, shoot its main cannon, and fire sub-weapons. There are three sub-weapons you can select in the pause menu and use by pressing down+shoot, though you must first collect ammo for them. The sub-weapons serve mostly to hit enemies that are otherwise in difficult positions to hit with the main cannon, making them fairly valuable. You can also get out of the tank by pressing Select, which you will need to do periodically throughout the game. On foot you can access some areas the tank cannot reach as well as enter dungeons, which take you to the other style of gameplay, which I'll talk about later.
There's a lot of platforming and plenty of enemies while exploring the overworld, and in similar fashion to games like Metroid, you gradually get upgrades throughout the game that allow you to reach new places and bypass new obstacles. The overworld is split up into 8 zones, each containing a handful of dungeons. One of the dungeons in each zone will contain a boss, and defeating it will reward you with one of the tank upgrades.
Overall I consider this part of the game to be pretty good. The controls are responsive and the tank feels good to drive around. Enemies don't take too much damage to kill and regularly drop health recovery pickups. Most enemies you kill don't respawn until you change zones or enter a dungeon. It's a nice feature that lets you clear out monsters so you can explore and tackle tough jumps unharassed. I mostly enjoyed my time with the overworld.
That said, it is not without some flaws. There are two major things here I take issue with: First, the game gives you zero indication or hints on where to go. This is not a unique problem for an exploration heavy NES game, but it is no less frustrating to deal with. Some of the zones are easy to get lost in while looking for the boss dungeon or the door to the next zone. This problem is made worse by the fact that several times you have to backtrack to previous zones to find the entrance to the next zone.
The second major issue tied to one of the upgrades for the tank. You get a hover module that gives you limited flight that controls akin to a jetpack. The hover upgrade is required to reach a few mandatory areas but has limited fuel that does not recharge on its own. This means you need to find and collect fuel pickups that only drop off certain enemies or show up in dungeons. It is very frustrating having to leave to go collect fuel if you happen to run out at a crucial time, and in general it means you don't get to use the flight as freely as you'd probably want. Later overworld exploration would be considerably better if the jets either slowly recharged, or if the fuel pickups were more readily available.
-------------
The second gameplay style occurs when you enter a dungeon and I'm going to say this upfront: these top-down segments end up being the bulk of the game and they range from almost tolerable to completely miserable. Once inside, the game switches to a top-down view and you must fight a variety of different enemies as you explore it. At your disposal is a gun and hand grenades, used with B and A respectively. The gun fires in the four cardinal directions and you can collect up to 8 upgrade pickups that power up its range, damage, and every few levels change the pattern of its shots. The grenades are thrown a short distance and explode on the ground, causing large amounts of damage but requiring careful spacing to use. Also within the dungeons are breakable blocks, some of which contain pickups, but most of which don't.
I...don't have much positive to say about these segments. Much like in the overworld, enemies remain dead until you leave the dungeon, with some rare exceptions, so that's a plus. The boss designs are neat but I said that before. Some of the tile sets are cool. I've already run out of nice things to say, so now it's time for the bad.
Your character sprite and hitbox are pretty large and you don't move super fast. Sometimes this leads to taking damage that feels nearly unavoidable, especially during some boss fights. Taking damage lowers the upgrade level of your gun by one, making it a frustrating tug-of-war to keep your gun at high levels. The last couple levels of gun upgrade change your shots to fire in a wave pattern, which can be useful for hitting enemies without needing to line up with them, but makes fighting in tighter spaces difficult, and sometimes the shots just outright miss the enemies. Dungeons that don't have a boss at the end only offer pickups and for the most part end up being a waste of time unless you're desperate for supplies.
The difficulty of the dungeons is overall not too bad, with the exception of the bosses. The boss fights that await you in progress dungeons range from trivial to completely asinine hard, with only one I considered a good middle-ground that was actually fun to fight. If you run out of lives and have to continue, you are sent back to the entrance of the overworld zone with no sub-weapon ammo and must make your way back to the dungeon. If you run out of continues, you must start the whole game over again. While there is a secret input on the title screen that lets you continue after a game over, I am considering that another negative point. Instead of putting that secret in, the game should just have unlimited continues.
Ultimately, the sad part of this game is that the overworld that I actually enjoy the gameplay of feels like it only serves to ferry you between the dungeons. There are no boss fights or any real goals to accomplish in the overworld other than "reach the next awful top-down segment." The concept of an exploration game having two completely different gameplay styles is a neat novelty for the time that I really wish was better, but its implementation leaves so much to be desired.
Do I recommend this?
No. The more I think about it, the more disappointed I am with the experience. If you have nostalgia for this game as I did, I advise you to just keep your rose tinted glasses intact and appreciate the memory you have of it. If you REALLY like "metroidvania" style games and feel the need to play this anyway, I suppose you could do worse, but there's no shortage of better offerings out there.
Non-gameplay stuff:
The game opens with a short cutscene of a boy named Jason with a pet frog. The frog escapes its enclosure and hops out an open window and towards a crate marked "Radioactive." The frog grows bigger and the ground beneath it caves in. Jason jumps down the hole after the frog and finds an advanced battle tank so he puts on the pilot suit inside and takes off after the frog. This is the extent of story within the game itself, and it's fine enough for setting up the adventure. (Worth noting that the Japanese version has no story cutscene at all and an entirely different plot described in its manual, but that's not the version I played, so that's not what I'm reviewing.)
The music, like almost all of Sunsoft's titles, is back-to-back great tracks. The music fits the area you're in, and sets a good tone for a mostly lighthearted adventure. Sound effect design is similarly on-point.
The sprites and environments look great, I have no complaints in that area. Monster designs are mostly cool, particularly most of the bosses have great screen presence. It's not all good in the graphics department though. When entering a boss room, the entire screen rapidly flashes bright white. I had to cover my eyes during these sequences because flashing lights can trigger migraines for me. At least the flashing happens at set times so it can be prepared for, but that's far from an excuse.
Gameplay stuff:
The gameplay is split into two different styles. You begin the game in the first style, which I will refer to as the overworld. In the overworld you pilot the tank in an open side-scrolling environment where you can explore at your leisure. The tank can jump, shoot its main cannon, and fire sub-weapons. There are three sub-weapons you can select in the pause menu and use by pressing down+shoot, though you must first collect ammo for them. The sub-weapons serve mostly to hit enemies that are otherwise in difficult positions to hit with the main cannon, making them fairly valuable. You can also get out of the tank by pressing Select, which you will need to do periodically throughout the game. On foot you can access some areas the tank cannot reach as well as enter dungeons, which take you to the other style of gameplay, which I'll talk about later.
There's a lot of platforming and plenty of enemies while exploring the overworld, and in similar fashion to games like Metroid, you gradually get upgrades throughout the game that allow you to reach new places and bypass new obstacles. The overworld is split up into 8 zones, each containing a handful of dungeons. One of the dungeons in each zone will contain a boss, and defeating it will reward you with one of the tank upgrades.
Overall I consider this part of the game to be pretty good. The controls are responsive and the tank feels good to drive around. Enemies don't take too much damage to kill and regularly drop health recovery pickups. Most enemies you kill don't respawn until you change zones or enter a dungeon. It's a nice feature that lets you clear out monsters so you can explore and tackle tough jumps unharassed. I mostly enjoyed my time with the overworld.
That said, it is not without some flaws. There are two major things here I take issue with: First, the game gives you zero indication or hints on where to go. This is not a unique problem for an exploration heavy NES game, but it is no less frustrating to deal with. Some of the zones are easy to get lost in while looking for the boss dungeon or the door to the next zone. This problem is made worse by the fact that several times you have to backtrack to previous zones to find the entrance to the next zone.
The second major issue tied to one of the upgrades for the tank. You get a hover module that gives you limited flight that controls akin to a jetpack. The hover upgrade is required to reach a few mandatory areas but has limited fuel that does not recharge on its own. This means you need to find and collect fuel pickups that only drop off certain enemies or show up in dungeons. It is very frustrating having to leave to go collect fuel if you happen to run out at a crucial time, and in general it means you don't get to use the flight as freely as you'd probably want. Later overworld exploration would be considerably better if the jets either slowly recharged, or if the fuel pickups were more readily available.
-------------
The second gameplay style occurs when you enter a dungeon and I'm going to say this upfront: these top-down segments end up being the bulk of the game and they range from almost tolerable to completely miserable. Once inside, the game switches to a top-down view and you must fight a variety of different enemies as you explore it. At your disposal is a gun and hand grenades, used with B and A respectively. The gun fires in the four cardinal directions and you can collect up to 8 upgrade pickups that power up its range, damage, and every few levels change the pattern of its shots. The grenades are thrown a short distance and explode on the ground, causing large amounts of damage but requiring careful spacing to use. Also within the dungeons are breakable blocks, some of which contain pickups, but most of which don't.
I...don't have much positive to say about these segments. Much like in the overworld, enemies remain dead until you leave the dungeon, with some rare exceptions, so that's a plus. The boss designs are neat but I said that before. Some of the tile sets are cool. I've already run out of nice things to say, so now it's time for the bad.
Your character sprite and hitbox are pretty large and you don't move super fast. Sometimes this leads to taking damage that feels nearly unavoidable, especially during some boss fights. Taking damage lowers the upgrade level of your gun by one, making it a frustrating tug-of-war to keep your gun at high levels. The last couple levels of gun upgrade change your shots to fire in a wave pattern, which can be useful for hitting enemies without needing to line up with them, but makes fighting in tighter spaces difficult, and sometimes the shots just outright miss the enemies. Dungeons that don't have a boss at the end only offer pickups and for the most part end up being a waste of time unless you're desperate for supplies.
The difficulty of the dungeons is overall not too bad, with the exception of the bosses. The boss fights that await you in progress dungeons range from trivial to completely asinine hard, with only one I considered a good middle-ground that was actually fun to fight. If you run out of lives and have to continue, you are sent back to the entrance of the overworld zone with no sub-weapon ammo and must make your way back to the dungeon. If you run out of continues, you must start the whole game over again. While there is a secret input on the title screen that lets you continue after a game over, I am considering that another negative point. Instead of putting that secret in, the game should just have unlimited continues.
Ultimately, the sad part of this game is that the overworld that I actually enjoy the gameplay of feels like it only serves to ferry you between the dungeons. There are no boss fights or any real goals to accomplish in the overworld other than "reach the next awful top-down segment." The concept of an exploration game having two completely different gameplay styles is a neat novelty for the time that I really wish was better, but its implementation leaves so much to be desired.
Do I recommend this?
No. The more I think about it, the more disappointed I am with the experience. If you have nostalgia for this game as I did, I advise you to just keep your rose tinted glasses intact and appreciate the memory you have of it. If you REALLY like "metroidvania" style games and feel the need to play this anyway, I suppose you could do worse, but there's no shortage of better offerings out there.
Played on Nintendo Entertainment System - Nintendo Switch Online, as well as FCE Ultra GX using my modded Wii. Seems like a good enough game, but it didn't hook me like I expected it to, so I will not be returning to this game.
This is definitely a flawed NES action game, but it's definitely "one of the classics", and it still holds up despite its design.
I think the main issue is enemy placement. There are points where you're basically required to take a hit going through doors, and others where you just get slammed by enemies who go off-screen. See, enemies stop moving when they are off-screen and only go back into motion when their entire sprite is on screen. Not moving or even being shown based on partial presence may not sound like a big deal but it significantly lowers the reaction time you are given to avoid things, especially if you're not paying a lot of attention to this kind of thing.
Besides that the only major flaws I have for this game are the lack of any sort of progress save and the strangeness of grenades, but I can easily look over those. Modern platforms have save options for Blaster Master and either way, it's easy to blast through the first couple areas in less than half an hour to get to where you were. Also, it's just really fun to play so going through the early segments over and over doesn't bother me.
As an early metroidvania, it can be shakey at times, but this game really maintains the thrill of gaining more abilities and finding new ways to use them in your progression. I really like going back to previous areas to find entry to more areas, but I think a map would have been nice, because it can still be rather easy to get lost.
I highly recommend giving this a shot. I got this one for real cheap (10 bucks) so it's real easy to come buy and well worth the cash.
7/10
I think the main issue is enemy placement. There are points where you're basically required to take a hit going through doors, and others where you just get slammed by enemies who go off-screen. See, enemies stop moving when they are off-screen and only go back into motion when their entire sprite is on screen. Not moving or even being shown based on partial presence may not sound like a big deal but it significantly lowers the reaction time you are given to avoid things, especially if you're not paying a lot of attention to this kind of thing.
Besides that the only major flaws I have for this game are the lack of any sort of progress save and the strangeness of grenades, but I can easily look over those. Modern platforms have save options for Blaster Master and either way, it's easy to blast through the first couple areas in less than half an hour to get to where you were. Also, it's just really fun to play so going through the early segments over and over doesn't bother me.
As an early metroidvania, it can be shakey at times, but this game really maintains the thrill of gaining more abilities and finding new ways to use them in your progression. I really like going back to previous areas to find entry to more areas, but I think a map would have been nice, because it can still be rather easy to get lost.
I highly recommend giving this a shot. I got this one for real cheap (10 bucks) so it's real easy to come buy and well worth the cash.
7/10
this game is so cool! you got a cool little tank thing and the music is so fun. when i was a little kid i saw it had a book at the library and i was so excited but then i remembered i can't read books and i almost forgot to return it because i still wanted to read it
Play the Japanese version if you're interested on Kane Gardner, really recommend it. Otherwise play Zero
Has aged as well as most NES games.
While definitely not one of the biggest developers at the time, nowhere near the same level as Nintendo, Sega, or even smaller ones like Konami and Capcom, Sunsoft did make quite a number of niche, quality titles at the time. Even though a good number of them weren’t anything too special compared to other games, they did provide enjoyable enough gameplay to where many people still remember a handful of their titles fondly to this day, such as the Batman games for the NES, Journey to Silius, and… Fester’s Quest…… ok, we can ignore that that one existed, because that will be the best for everyone. But anyway, out of all of their titles, they are definitely most well known for one game, which would launch their main flagship series, and at the time, was designed to be the greatest action game ever made. Whether they succeeded or not on that front is debatable, but nonetheless, this game would turn out to be the original Blaster Master.
I had known about this game for a VERY long time, and I had wanted to play through it for a long time. Based on what I had seen and played myself, it looked pretty good, and considering it has gotten plenty of sequels and spin-offs to this day, including the Blaster Master Zero trilogy, which looks awesome, it was clear that many people loved and still remembered the series all the way to this day, so it must still hold some level of quality all the way to this day. After putting it off for a long time, focusing on plenty of other titles, I finally decided to check it out, and yeah, it is pretty great… but not as good as I would’ve liked it to be. A lot of it is pretty impressive for the time, but there are a lot of little things that hold this game back from being what I would consider one of the best of the NES library. Nonetheless, I still had a great time with it, and I wish I had checked it out sooner.
The story is about the most generic kid ever, Jason, trying to save his frog from a land full of mutants, and doing so by piloting a giant tank named Sophia that he just so happens to find, so it is clear this is the best story told in all media, the graphics are pretty great, being very impressive for the time, even if other games that look more visually appealing, like Mega Man, had already come out by then, the music is fantastic, with one or two iconic tracks present that you will definitely remember after beating it, as well as plenty of other good tunes, the control is pretty good most of the time, with there being plenty of options to maneuver around and get to new places, but there are plenty of instances where I had trouble with them due to some slipperiness in both parts of the gameplay, and speaking of which, the gameplay is pretty inventive, taking inspiration from plenty of different places, and creating something unique that stands out from the rest.
The game is primarily a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Jason and Sophia, go through 8 separate areas filled with plenty of pathways, caves, and dangers, take out plenty of enemies that will attempt to take you down, all of them being either gray or red, because colors weren’t invented yet, obviously, gather plenty of health items, weapons, and upgrades to give you an edge over everything, and take on plenty of big, disgusting bosses that will test your skills in every way. Once again, this is all typical for a game on the NES, but the way that Blaster Master differs from all of them is how it allows you to proceed forward and take out your targets. Given how you are piloting a tank for a majority of the game, you are given plenty of weapons you can find to take out enemies, such as a barrage of missiles, homing missiles, and even thunder bolts, but also, you are given plenty of choices for aiming your shots, so you can easily take out plenty of threats from plenty of angles, which may not seem like much, but considering how many NES games only let you fire in one direction most of the time, this is pretty innovative for an action platformer. Not to mention, as you go along in the game, you can gather plenty of upgrades for Sophia, which not only gives you new abilities such as being able to hover, pilot through water, and climb up walls and ceilings, but it allows you to access new areas that were once inaccessible, similarly to Metroid, really providing a sense of discovery and progression other games at the time just couldn’t manage.
But that is only the start of the options you have to moving through areas and kicking ass. At any time, you are able to get out of Sophia and traverse on foot, which you’ll need to do plenty of times to access new areas you normally wouldn’t be able to otherwise. While on foot, you can also access caves and dungeons, which lead to the second gameplay style featured, which are top-down adventure segments, where you move through a series of rooms, take out plenty of enemies with your weapons, gather plenty of health and upgrades to help you out, and fight all of the game’s bosses. It gives off plenty of Zelda vibes all throughout, and these sections can be pretty fun, even if they do get repetitive towards the end of the game, even with some of the bosses being repeated as you get closer to the end, which is never fun. Not to mention, whenever you get damaged in this mode, not only do you lose health, but also a bit of your gun’s upgrade, which is a fair enough punishment I guess, but it does really suck, and it makes you feel like the biggest tool. Just gotta get good, I guess.
Now, despite all of the good things this game has going for it, like I mentioned before, there are a lot of little things in this game that do bug me, including those moments of slippery control and repetition that plagues the game at points. First off, all of the locations and enemies in this game, while being cool to see, I can’t lie, are pretty bland overall. Sure, the bosses have some cool designs, but in terms of everything else, it all feels pretty generic for an NES game, which does suck, but it isn’t that big of a deal if you don’t care too much about something like that. Secondly, there are some moments of poor design that can be seen throughout, such as when you are going through a door, and you get hit by an enemy immediately without being able to do anything. That shit sucked in Metroid, and it still sucks here.
In addition to that, like I mentioned before, all of the bosses you fight in the game are all fought in the top-down sections as Jason, which does kinda suck, because this game REALLY needs some big fights while you’re in Sophia. Not to say that there isn’t already plenty of challenge in the side-scrolling sections, but come on, you are piloting a super-powered tank with missiles and lighting bolts. That is just SCREAMING with boss fight potential against something, but alas, we never get anything like that. Hopefully this is fixed in later games, but for now, it is somewhat disappointing.
Overall, despite some repetition, blandness with the environments and enemies, and some missed potential here and there, I can definitely see now why Blaster Master is considered a classic of the NES library, because it is genuinely a great game, carrying plenty of innovation for the genre, and that Metroid-y feeling of satisfaction when you get everything right. I would definitely recommend it for those who are fans of this system, or for those who have played later games in this series like the Zero trilogy, because there is definitely something that you are going to get out of this game. Man, now that I finally did check this out, I can’t wait to check out the sequel! I wonder what people think of that one. Hold on, lemme check…………………… oh no.
Game #360
I had known about this game for a VERY long time, and I had wanted to play through it for a long time. Based on what I had seen and played myself, it looked pretty good, and considering it has gotten plenty of sequels and spin-offs to this day, including the Blaster Master Zero trilogy, which looks awesome, it was clear that many people loved and still remembered the series all the way to this day, so it must still hold some level of quality all the way to this day. After putting it off for a long time, focusing on plenty of other titles, I finally decided to check it out, and yeah, it is pretty great… but not as good as I would’ve liked it to be. A lot of it is pretty impressive for the time, but there are a lot of little things that hold this game back from being what I would consider one of the best of the NES library. Nonetheless, I still had a great time with it, and I wish I had checked it out sooner.
The story is about the most generic kid ever, Jason, trying to save his frog from a land full of mutants, and doing so by piloting a giant tank named Sophia that he just so happens to find, so it is clear this is the best story told in all media, the graphics are pretty great, being very impressive for the time, even if other games that look more visually appealing, like Mega Man, had already come out by then, the music is fantastic, with one or two iconic tracks present that you will definitely remember after beating it, as well as plenty of other good tunes, the control is pretty good most of the time, with there being plenty of options to maneuver around and get to new places, but there are plenty of instances where I had trouble with them due to some slipperiness in both parts of the gameplay, and speaking of which, the gameplay is pretty inventive, taking inspiration from plenty of different places, and creating something unique that stands out from the rest.
The game is primarily a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Jason and Sophia, go through 8 separate areas filled with plenty of pathways, caves, and dangers, take out plenty of enemies that will attempt to take you down, all of them being either gray or red, because colors weren’t invented yet, obviously, gather plenty of health items, weapons, and upgrades to give you an edge over everything, and take on plenty of big, disgusting bosses that will test your skills in every way. Once again, this is all typical for a game on the NES, but the way that Blaster Master differs from all of them is how it allows you to proceed forward and take out your targets. Given how you are piloting a tank for a majority of the game, you are given plenty of weapons you can find to take out enemies, such as a barrage of missiles, homing missiles, and even thunder bolts, but also, you are given plenty of choices for aiming your shots, so you can easily take out plenty of threats from plenty of angles, which may not seem like much, but considering how many NES games only let you fire in one direction most of the time, this is pretty innovative for an action platformer. Not to mention, as you go along in the game, you can gather plenty of upgrades for Sophia, which not only gives you new abilities such as being able to hover, pilot through water, and climb up walls and ceilings, but it allows you to access new areas that were once inaccessible, similarly to Metroid, really providing a sense of discovery and progression other games at the time just couldn’t manage.
But that is only the start of the options you have to moving through areas and kicking ass. At any time, you are able to get out of Sophia and traverse on foot, which you’ll need to do plenty of times to access new areas you normally wouldn’t be able to otherwise. While on foot, you can also access caves and dungeons, which lead to the second gameplay style featured, which are top-down adventure segments, where you move through a series of rooms, take out plenty of enemies with your weapons, gather plenty of health and upgrades to help you out, and fight all of the game’s bosses. It gives off plenty of Zelda vibes all throughout, and these sections can be pretty fun, even if they do get repetitive towards the end of the game, even with some of the bosses being repeated as you get closer to the end, which is never fun. Not to mention, whenever you get damaged in this mode, not only do you lose health, but also a bit of your gun’s upgrade, which is a fair enough punishment I guess, but it does really suck, and it makes you feel like the biggest tool. Just gotta get good, I guess.
Now, despite all of the good things this game has going for it, like I mentioned before, there are a lot of little things in this game that do bug me, including those moments of slippery control and repetition that plagues the game at points. First off, all of the locations and enemies in this game, while being cool to see, I can’t lie, are pretty bland overall. Sure, the bosses have some cool designs, but in terms of everything else, it all feels pretty generic for an NES game, which does suck, but it isn’t that big of a deal if you don’t care too much about something like that. Secondly, there are some moments of poor design that can be seen throughout, such as when you are going through a door, and you get hit by an enemy immediately without being able to do anything. That shit sucked in Metroid, and it still sucks here.
In addition to that, like I mentioned before, all of the bosses you fight in the game are all fought in the top-down sections as Jason, which does kinda suck, because this game REALLY needs some big fights while you’re in Sophia. Not to say that there isn’t already plenty of challenge in the side-scrolling sections, but come on, you are piloting a super-powered tank with missiles and lighting bolts. That is just SCREAMING with boss fight potential against something, but alas, we never get anything like that. Hopefully this is fixed in later games, but for now, it is somewhat disappointing.
Overall, despite some repetition, blandness with the environments and enemies, and some missed potential here and there, I can definitely see now why Blaster Master is considered a classic of the NES library, because it is genuinely a great game, carrying plenty of innovation for the genre, and that Metroid-y feeling of satisfaction when you get everything right. I would definitely recommend it for those who are fans of this system, or for those who have played later games in this series like the Zero trilogy, because there is definitely something that you are going to get out of this game. Man, now that I finally did check this out, I can’t wait to check out the sequel! I wonder what people think of that one. Hold on, lemme check…………………… oh no.
Game #360
I really do love this game but MAN was it hard to go back to, especially after playing Zero 1 and 2. I really can't point to anything inherintly wrong with Blaster Master; it's level design is solid, music is quite good (save for area 8, that shit sucks), the game has a solid challenge, and exploration is quite fun. But unfortunately, the main issue with the game is the era it was released in. Limited lives (which is a death sentence in metroidvanias), no saving, no map, insta-kills, et cetera. I would love if this game got a modern remaster or something, because the core of a great game is here. But unfortunately, I can only recommend the original Famicom version (with infinite continues).
Angel_Arle Blaster Master reviews
Part 2: Bomber King: Scenario 2 for Game Boy
Part 3: Blaster Master 2 for Genesis
Part 4: Metafight EX for Game Boy Color
I never really could make up my mind if I truly wanted to stop reviews. While I’ve been trying to do shorter ones, I’ve felt like I wanted to do a series of reviews I’ve always thought of doing. I haven’t fully decided but I think I’ll possibly review every Blaster Master game. I haven’t played most of these games so it’ll be an interesting time if I decide to do them. I should note I might also bring back the Sailor Moon and Rockman reviews but I’ve been undecided. Well anyway, onto the actual review.
Picture this, you’re a game developer who hasn’t made much good. Sure Wing of Madoola, Fantasy Zone (Famicom), and Ripple Island weren’t bad but you just can’t hit it out of the park with something special. What do you do? You go bigger and create an exploration game to surpass the likes of many. That’s when Chou-Wakusei Senki Metafight was born. This game would mix exploration in a tank and gunning down enemies inside rooms from the maze-like areas. Is the game itself any good after all these years? With many sequels down the line, It’s going to be fascinating to see if this will be the peak. This was my 2nd time playing this game. Time to discuss.
Metafight stars a fifteen year old named Kane Gardner who is off to put a stop to the enemy invading. Thanks to the help of a seventeen year old girl named Jennifer Cornet, she builds the Metal Attacker, a tank that can shoot various weapons and gain new abilities throughout the adventure. It’s up to Kane to go through eight areas and stop the villains with whatever tools he has! Now this is just stuff from the manual as the game itself lacks any story, not even an intro.
The game starts with you inside the Metal Attacker as you can shoot forward or upward. You can also jump and it’s a pretty floaty one too. The controls take a bit to getting used to but you should be fine after a while. You’ll be exploring big areas with many rooms and enemies ready to murder you. You want to find the room that contains the boss as it’ll have an item that enhances the Metal Attacker giving it a new ability. Though Area 4 only gives out a key. There’s three special weapons you can use that have limited ammo. The first is homing missiles which are just missiles that can home in on enemies and you’ll send out more depending on the enemy count on screen. The lightning weapon shoots lightning under you and it’s pretty useless as it goes in a few different directions that’s hard to guess and it misses most of the time anyway. The three way missiles will shoot three missiles that go forward and widen out as they keep going. The con with it though is that you have to always use three. To switch weapons you need to pause and select whichever and then press down and attack to use one.
With the select button you can have Kane leave the Metal Attacker and he can go into special rooms. The game switches to a top down gameplay style where you can shoot and use grenades, at least I think they’re grenades. You can strafe with the grenade button to help shoot better. Your gun has a meter which makes it get stronger the more pickups you get for it. It starts out as a normal shot, then one where it begins to shoot curvy shots, and then finally you have shots that go in a weird wavy pattern. The problem is that everytime you get hit, the level for it goes down. Kane also never gets upgrades for himself meaning pickups besides the gun and health will be transferred to the Metal Attacker. Kane also restores full health going into the Metal Attacker. Kane also is frail with small heights in the side scrolling areas so don’t even try using him for platforming.
Level design in the side scrolling areas are pretty fun. Despite the maze-like structures, nothing is ever too frustrating with the Metal Attacker. It helps that the game is very generous with health pickups. Levels are distinct and I’ll go over that in a bit. Enemies can come in a decent amount of variety. Some fly around and some are small and short. In fact for enemies like the landmines or worms, try to get Kane out and shoot them since he’ll go back to full health after the hits and you won’t lose ammo or health with the Metal Attacker that way. I do wish the camera was a bit better at showing what’s down below. What’s weird is pausing the game and unpausing sometimes does lower the camera. You also don’t really have much invincibility frames which can lead to many hits in hazards if not careful. You also only have 3 lives with none to refill with. You do have unlimited continues at the very least though stuff like Gun level reset after a death.
I like the progression in Metafight with the first area being a pretty good beginner level that gets you comfy with the rules of the game. Areas 2-4 have a lot of verticality to them showing more of how it won’t be easy to find where the boss is. Another brilliant design of Metafight is not finding the boss isn’t all doom and gloom. It’s still a good source for finding refills to stuff you need. Area 5 shows off the water level. You were taught earlier how the water worked here earlier and now you must traverse a lot of it with Kane alone. It makes for an interesting change of pace and really demonstrates the Metal Attackers feats when even easy enemies take multiple hits to die from Kane’s gun. Area 6 has ice physics that make the controls even more tricky to get used to. Area 7 has a lot of walls to break through with dangerous lava that can be hard to get out of. Area 8 has a lot of deadly spikes and with this game’s low i-frame count, you’ll have to be very careful though it does have an issue I’ll bring up later.
Rooms that Kane goes into are probably the low point for the game for me mostly because the gun just isn’t consistent enough to hit enemies leading to hits that don’t feel like your fault. The game also has a bad problem with how enemies spawn. It sometimes feels cheap with how they’ll just come out of nowhere. It’s here where some of that early Sunsoft jank shows up meaning they haven’t fully reached the confidence they would later. I’m also unsure why they would put instant death in these rooms. While I never fell into them, it feels like a poor design choice. The ice physics rooms are probably the worst areas as the controls just don’t work well with them. Even worse, some rooms just have you enter with enemies about to hit you and it almost goes to the same level of Metroid 1 in terms of cheapness when entering doors. When you have a mechanic that relies on not getting hit, I expect good enemy placement.
Bosses are all done in the top down sections and they can be pretty challenging with their size and Kane’s movement in general. It’s really hard for me to tell if grenades or the fully powered up gun do more damage. I’m not really a big fan of them but they do at least for the most part feel diverse enough to at least be memorable. I can only think of one similar boss which are the frogs. If you struggle with some bosses there is a glitch you can exploit. For bosses 2, 4, 6, and 7, shoot a grenade and pause as it hits and they’ll take continuous damage, just unpause after 15-20 seconds and they’ll be dead. Beating a boss will give you one of those upgrades for the Metal Attacker.
The first upgrade the Metal Attacker gets is the hyper shot which gives it more power, simple enough. The second upgrade is a crusher shot which can destroy blocks you once couldn’t destroy, opening up more areas for you. The next one is interesting as it’s a hover ability. If you were wondering what the H pickups were, well these refill your hover as it drains fast. This also marks an interesting point as you’ll have to go back to the very beginning of the game to find an area you can hover to that leads to area 4. This game has backtracking and I’m mixed on it because while the game does provide shortcuts or short routes to get back to where you go, it never really feels well thought out besides for the sake of just doing it. I’m not sure if I’m in the minority for it but I've never been the biggest fan of it. The upgrade in area 5 will help the Metal Attacker swim in water which is very nice. We also have the 2 wall upgrades letting you travel on the wall and ceiling. Sadly Wall 2 is a terrible upgrade because going off the edge will have you travel on the wall below you making jumps a pain in the ass! Half the reason area 8’s spikes are hard to avoid is because of this design choice.
Metafight does look pretty good for a Famicom game of its time. While enemy sprites aren’t the most interesting color wise and the game does rely a lot on dark colors, it still has some good looking areas. The tiles presented to form locations look pretty nicely detailed and a lot of them look unique from each other even if some aren’t the most visually cool looking. I do like how being in the top down levels zooms in the action making the sprites look bigger and the bosses massive sprites are impressive though the entire room becomes black to compensate for it, outside of the final boss. The music is what really impresses me with the first area having this heroic feel to it where it feels like Kane is fully prepared to defeat anything in his way. It gets you motivated for the journey. I really like the 4th area’s theme with how creepy it sounds along with the frog croak at the end hinting at what the boss truly is. The 5th area really gives a feeling of the unknown when entering the water, it sounds…mystical? I don’t know how to describe it. The rocking tune of Area 7 really gets you pumped with all the lava around. I could go on and on about how good the tunes are and while not everything is a hit for me personally, I still love it. Easily one of the highlights.
I should mention the US version named Blaster Master. It’s mostly the same but it’s got a new story starring a guy named Jason who chases after a frog and leads him to a tank and it’s up to him to find the frog. They even made an intro song for this cutscene which sounds nice and the area you travel out of when starting the game looks different to match the cutscene. The ending is a little different too but it just removes the chibi versions of Kane and Jennifer off the end screen and the final shot before credits added the frog. I should also discuss how continues work. You only have three in this version. Now I personally think this was done since it was usual for the time but I wanna bring up that the manual for the Japanese version supposedly mentions you have 5 continues when in the actual game it’s infinite. Could this suggest the US version is more complete? Honestly, I’m not sure. This game is already long enough being about 3-5 hours depending how you play and there’s not even a password system. Despite this, the game ended up being more popular in the US.
We would see this game rereleased a couple of times. The first one being put in Memorial * Series: Sunsoft Vol. 4 for the PS1. It also came with the game Ripple Island. It plays fine but sadly the audio is pretty bad especially on the percussion so I wouldn’t recommend it at all. The game would see a couple of emulated rereleases via stuff like virtual console. The most interesting one has to be the NSO rerelease of the game as they also gave it an SP version that lets you start at the final area with everything maxed out so if you struggle with this game, maybe play this one if you want to see the toughest part of the game.This also applies to the US service of NSO.
This game is an interesting turning point for Sunsoft. At this point, many of their games would be very high quality and they would become respected around that time. While Metafight didn’t do too well when it came out, it would be considered a hidden gem in Japan. As for me, it’s a good game if flawed. While I appreciate what it sets out to be, I can’t help but feel some of Sunsoft’s early jank is still presented here. It’s got problems I can’t look past but with stuff like Rough World, Hebereke, and Gimmick being created after this fine work, Sunsoft would have it good for a while. Metafight wouldn’t see another Japanese game for many many years. Though with that said, we do have what I like to call a filler episode for the next game. Next time it will be the Game Boy game, Bomber King: Scenario 2. (That is if I actually feel like continuing this).
Part 2: Bomber King: Scenario 2 for Game Boy
Part 3: Blaster Master 2 for Genesis
Part 4: Metafight EX for Game Boy Color
I never really could make up my mind if I truly wanted to stop reviews. While I’ve been trying to do shorter ones, I’ve felt like I wanted to do a series of reviews I’ve always thought of doing. I haven’t fully decided but I think I’ll possibly review every Blaster Master game. I haven’t played most of these games so it’ll be an interesting time if I decide to do them. I should note I might also bring back the Sailor Moon and Rockman reviews but I’ve been undecided. Well anyway, onto the actual review.
Picture this, you’re a game developer who hasn’t made much good. Sure Wing of Madoola, Fantasy Zone (Famicom), and Ripple Island weren’t bad but you just can’t hit it out of the park with something special. What do you do? You go bigger and create an exploration game to surpass the likes of many. That’s when Chou-Wakusei Senki Metafight was born. This game would mix exploration in a tank and gunning down enemies inside rooms from the maze-like areas. Is the game itself any good after all these years? With many sequels down the line, It’s going to be fascinating to see if this will be the peak. This was my 2nd time playing this game. Time to discuss.
Metafight stars a fifteen year old named Kane Gardner who is off to put a stop to the enemy invading. Thanks to the help of a seventeen year old girl named Jennifer Cornet, she builds the Metal Attacker, a tank that can shoot various weapons and gain new abilities throughout the adventure. It’s up to Kane to go through eight areas and stop the villains with whatever tools he has! Now this is just stuff from the manual as the game itself lacks any story, not even an intro.
The game starts with you inside the Metal Attacker as you can shoot forward or upward. You can also jump and it’s a pretty floaty one too. The controls take a bit to getting used to but you should be fine after a while. You’ll be exploring big areas with many rooms and enemies ready to murder you. You want to find the room that contains the boss as it’ll have an item that enhances the Metal Attacker giving it a new ability. Though Area 4 only gives out a key. There’s three special weapons you can use that have limited ammo. The first is homing missiles which are just missiles that can home in on enemies and you’ll send out more depending on the enemy count on screen. The lightning weapon shoots lightning under you and it’s pretty useless as it goes in a few different directions that’s hard to guess and it misses most of the time anyway. The three way missiles will shoot three missiles that go forward and widen out as they keep going. The con with it though is that you have to always use three. To switch weapons you need to pause and select whichever and then press down and attack to use one.
With the select button you can have Kane leave the Metal Attacker and he can go into special rooms. The game switches to a top down gameplay style where you can shoot and use grenades, at least I think they’re grenades. You can strafe with the grenade button to help shoot better. Your gun has a meter which makes it get stronger the more pickups you get for it. It starts out as a normal shot, then one where it begins to shoot curvy shots, and then finally you have shots that go in a weird wavy pattern. The problem is that everytime you get hit, the level for it goes down. Kane also never gets upgrades for himself meaning pickups besides the gun and health will be transferred to the Metal Attacker. Kane also restores full health going into the Metal Attacker. Kane also is frail with small heights in the side scrolling areas so don’t even try using him for platforming.
Level design in the side scrolling areas are pretty fun. Despite the maze-like structures, nothing is ever too frustrating with the Metal Attacker. It helps that the game is very generous with health pickups. Levels are distinct and I’ll go over that in a bit. Enemies can come in a decent amount of variety. Some fly around and some are small and short. In fact for enemies like the landmines or worms, try to get Kane out and shoot them since he’ll go back to full health after the hits and you won’t lose ammo or health with the Metal Attacker that way. I do wish the camera was a bit better at showing what’s down below. What’s weird is pausing the game and unpausing sometimes does lower the camera. You also don’t really have much invincibility frames which can lead to many hits in hazards if not careful. You also only have 3 lives with none to refill with. You do have unlimited continues at the very least though stuff like Gun level reset after a death.
I like the progression in Metafight with the first area being a pretty good beginner level that gets you comfy with the rules of the game. Areas 2-4 have a lot of verticality to them showing more of how it won’t be easy to find where the boss is. Another brilliant design of Metafight is not finding the boss isn’t all doom and gloom. It’s still a good source for finding refills to stuff you need. Area 5 shows off the water level. You were taught earlier how the water worked here earlier and now you must traverse a lot of it with Kane alone. It makes for an interesting change of pace and really demonstrates the Metal Attackers feats when even easy enemies take multiple hits to die from Kane’s gun. Area 6 has ice physics that make the controls even more tricky to get used to. Area 7 has a lot of walls to break through with dangerous lava that can be hard to get out of. Area 8 has a lot of deadly spikes and with this game’s low i-frame count, you’ll have to be very careful though it does have an issue I’ll bring up later.
Rooms that Kane goes into are probably the low point for the game for me mostly because the gun just isn’t consistent enough to hit enemies leading to hits that don’t feel like your fault. The game also has a bad problem with how enemies spawn. It sometimes feels cheap with how they’ll just come out of nowhere. It’s here where some of that early Sunsoft jank shows up meaning they haven’t fully reached the confidence they would later. I’m also unsure why they would put instant death in these rooms. While I never fell into them, it feels like a poor design choice. The ice physics rooms are probably the worst areas as the controls just don’t work well with them. Even worse, some rooms just have you enter with enemies about to hit you and it almost goes to the same level of Metroid 1 in terms of cheapness when entering doors. When you have a mechanic that relies on not getting hit, I expect good enemy placement.
Bosses are all done in the top down sections and they can be pretty challenging with their size and Kane’s movement in general. It’s really hard for me to tell if grenades or the fully powered up gun do more damage. I’m not really a big fan of them but they do at least for the most part feel diverse enough to at least be memorable. I can only think of one similar boss which are the frogs. If you struggle with some bosses there is a glitch you can exploit. For bosses 2, 4, 6, and 7, shoot a grenade and pause as it hits and they’ll take continuous damage, just unpause after 15-20 seconds and they’ll be dead. Beating a boss will give you one of those upgrades for the Metal Attacker.
The first upgrade the Metal Attacker gets is the hyper shot which gives it more power, simple enough. The second upgrade is a crusher shot which can destroy blocks you once couldn’t destroy, opening up more areas for you. The next one is interesting as it’s a hover ability. If you were wondering what the H pickups were, well these refill your hover as it drains fast. This also marks an interesting point as you’ll have to go back to the very beginning of the game to find an area you can hover to that leads to area 4. This game has backtracking and I’m mixed on it because while the game does provide shortcuts or short routes to get back to where you go, it never really feels well thought out besides for the sake of just doing it. I’m not sure if I’m in the minority for it but I've never been the biggest fan of it. The upgrade in area 5 will help the Metal Attacker swim in water which is very nice. We also have the 2 wall upgrades letting you travel on the wall and ceiling. Sadly Wall 2 is a terrible upgrade because going off the edge will have you travel on the wall below you making jumps a pain in the ass! Half the reason area 8’s spikes are hard to avoid is because of this design choice.
Metafight does look pretty good for a Famicom game of its time. While enemy sprites aren’t the most interesting color wise and the game does rely a lot on dark colors, it still has some good looking areas. The tiles presented to form locations look pretty nicely detailed and a lot of them look unique from each other even if some aren’t the most visually cool looking. I do like how being in the top down levels zooms in the action making the sprites look bigger and the bosses massive sprites are impressive though the entire room becomes black to compensate for it, outside of the final boss. The music is what really impresses me with the first area having this heroic feel to it where it feels like Kane is fully prepared to defeat anything in his way. It gets you motivated for the journey. I really like the 4th area’s theme with how creepy it sounds along with the frog croak at the end hinting at what the boss truly is. The 5th area really gives a feeling of the unknown when entering the water, it sounds…mystical? I don’t know how to describe it. The rocking tune of Area 7 really gets you pumped with all the lava around. I could go on and on about how good the tunes are and while not everything is a hit for me personally, I still love it. Easily one of the highlights.
I should mention the US version named Blaster Master. It’s mostly the same but it’s got a new story starring a guy named Jason who chases after a frog and leads him to a tank and it’s up to him to find the frog. They even made an intro song for this cutscene which sounds nice and the area you travel out of when starting the game looks different to match the cutscene. The ending is a little different too but it just removes the chibi versions of Kane and Jennifer off the end screen and the final shot before credits added the frog. I should also discuss how continues work. You only have three in this version. Now I personally think this was done since it was usual for the time but I wanna bring up that the manual for the Japanese version supposedly mentions you have 5 continues when in the actual game it’s infinite. Could this suggest the US version is more complete? Honestly, I’m not sure. This game is already long enough being about 3-5 hours depending how you play and there’s not even a password system. Despite this, the game ended up being more popular in the US.
We would see this game rereleased a couple of times. The first one being put in Memorial * Series: Sunsoft Vol. 4 for the PS1. It also came with the game Ripple Island. It plays fine but sadly the audio is pretty bad especially on the percussion so I wouldn’t recommend it at all. The game would see a couple of emulated rereleases via stuff like virtual console. The most interesting one has to be the NSO rerelease of the game as they also gave it an SP version that lets you start at the final area with everything maxed out so if you struggle with this game, maybe play this one if you want to see the toughest part of the game.This also applies to the US service of NSO.
This game is an interesting turning point for Sunsoft. At this point, many of their games would be very high quality and they would become respected around that time. While Metafight didn’t do too well when it came out, it would be considered a hidden gem in Japan. As for me, it’s a good game if flawed. While I appreciate what it sets out to be, I can’t help but feel some of Sunsoft’s early jank is still presented here. It’s got problems I can’t look past but with stuff like Rough World, Hebereke, and Gimmick being created after this fine work, Sunsoft would have it good for a while. Metafight wouldn’t see another Japanese game for many many years. Though with that said, we do have what I like to call a filler episode for the next game. Next time it will be the Game Boy game, Bomber King: Scenario 2. (That is if I actually feel like continuing this).
For an early metroidvania, this is a pretty decent game. Definitely better than Metroid and Castlevania. For me personally, it did get a bit stale the more I played, especially when I had to backtrack, but for what it is the world is well-designed and was fun to explore. The controls also feel good, the upgrades are cool, and I especially love the boss designs. It's no wonder why they used one of them as the centerpiece for the box art. The sprites are massive compared to your character and that allowed them to be much more detailed, making them look very grotesque and menacing. Furthermore, the variety in gameplay is very nice. Having half the game be a side view in your car exploring the overworld, then going into a dungeon area where it turns into an overhead perspective adds a lot of diversity to spice things up. Overall I think it could use some work, but for an NES game, it's fun nonetheless. I'll definitely be checking out more games in this series as I'm sure they'll be even better.
Pros:
+ a huge overworld with hidden secrets and a revolutionary approach to progression
+ three-fold gameplay of tank, on foot and overhead action is unique and seamless
+ all levels have their own visual character and hold specific challenges
+ equipment upgrades noticeably change the gameplay and movement options
+ enemies do not respawn and pickups do not disappear after exiting a screen
+ re-entering areas and upgrading weapons as needed is possible
+ health of the main character can be replenished by entering the tank
+ boss fights can be retried again right away
+ controls on foot as well as in the tank are tight and even make strafing possible ...
Cons:
- ... except for the one-hit fall damage on foot that leads to cheap deaths
- continues are secretely limited and their amount is kept from the player
- no save or password system leads to a lot of frustration on death
- losing health and gun power on hit is a frustrating double punishment
- navigating the overworld and knowing where to go is difficult
- entering non-boss areas on foot for upgrades is basically a waste of time
- chances for finding hover and health pickups is not equally distributed
- backgrounds are lifeless and not animated
- grenades are apparently useless (this might be an issue with my emulator)
- late stage bosses appear to have RNG attacks
Magic Moment: Returning to the first screen of the game and realizing that progress was always in plain sight.
Playtime: Roughly 5 hours before dying in the final level and deciding that I was satisfied. Played on a shoddy NES emulator without save states originally released on Playstation 1 but repackaged for Playstation 4. I know.
Verdict:
As someone who grew up without a NES, this is one of those classic games that seems to have become synonymous with the success of Nintendo's first console. From a contemporary perspective, that fascination is easily understood: the controls are tight, the action is difficult without ever becoming unfair, the overworld traversal is engaging and the progression through a complex overworld in search of permanent upgrades predated the modern codification of Metroidvanias. At the same time, the lack of a save feature and the severe punishment of being hit by an enemy leads to a lot of frustration and requires memorisation of level layouts and enemy behaviors (at least when playing this without save states). Despite this criticism, playing Blaster Master still holds a lot of entertainment and gives insights into the origin of what would become an entire series of action games that is till going strong to this day.
Play this once if you want to know what the fuss is about, but an emulator is mandatory.
+ a huge overworld with hidden secrets and a revolutionary approach to progression
+ three-fold gameplay of tank, on foot and overhead action is unique and seamless
+ all levels have their own visual character and hold specific challenges
+ equipment upgrades noticeably change the gameplay and movement options
+ enemies do not respawn and pickups do not disappear after exiting a screen
+ re-entering areas and upgrading weapons as needed is possible
+ health of the main character can be replenished by entering the tank
+ boss fights can be retried again right away
+ controls on foot as well as in the tank are tight and even make strafing possible ...
Cons:
- ... except for the one-hit fall damage on foot that leads to cheap deaths
- continues are secretely limited and their amount is kept from the player
- no save or password system leads to a lot of frustration on death
- losing health and gun power on hit is a frustrating double punishment
- navigating the overworld and knowing where to go is difficult
- entering non-boss areas on foot for upgrades is basically a waste of time
- chances for finding hover and health pickups is not equally distributed
- backgrounds are lifeless and not animated
- grenades are apparently useless (this might be an issue with my emulator)
- late stage bosses appear to have RNG attacks
Magic Moment: Returning to the first screen of the game and realizing that progress was always in plain sight.
Playtime: Roughly 5 hours before dying in the final level and deciding that I was satisfied. Played on a shoddy NES emulator without save states originally released on Playstation 1 but repackaged for Playstation 4. I know.
Verdict:
As someone who grew up without a NES, this is one of those classic games that seems to have become synonymous with the success of Nintendo's first console. From a contemporary perspective, that fascination is easily understood: the controls are tight, the action is difficult without ever becoming unfair, the overworld traversal is engaging and the progression through a complex overworld in search of permanent upgrades predated the modern codification of Metroidvanias. At the same time, the lack of a save feature and the severe punishment of being hit by an enemy leads to a lot of frustration and requires memorisation of level layouts and enemy behaviors (at least when playing this without save states). Despite this criticism, playing Blaster Master still holds a lot of entertainment and gives insights into the origin of what would become an entire series of action games that is till going strong to this day.
Play this once if you want to know what the fuss is about, but an emulator is mandatory.
Your Frog gets lost, then you kill it in Stage 4. Then you kill it again in Stage 7. Then he appears in the Ending. I don't get it but the game is good
Some people call this a "metroidvania", but it's really a prototype of that. It's too early in gaming history to actually be one, as the designers couldn't let go of traditional action platformers design philosophies.
There is an interconnected world, you do acquire new powers that open new doors, but it's really a linear adventure that takes you through some huge levels, and halfway through the game requires you to backtrack to the very beginning for totally arbitrary reasons. Exploration isn't really encouraged because there are no secrets or shortcuts or power-ups other than the ones you get from beating the area bosses. Exploring will really only take you to dead ends.
The instruction manual gives you a "map" for most of the areas (areas 4 and 5 don't have one for some reason?), but around area 2 or 3, you'll realize that the map is worthless, and you'll google a proper map online.
Using save states, this is a nice game, but I'm thinking of the poor kids that played this on an actual NES back in the day, and it was probably miserable? There are no passwords and no saving, you have to do it in one sitting, an absurd design choice considering the size of the game. The north american release features limited continues - that is insane.
Especially considering that the last couple of bosses have RNG-based attacks. I rewinded the hell out of them, I'm not sure how players are expected to get better, there is no pattern or wind-up for the attacks. And then the last area is a bunch of time-wasting design, some pixel perfect jumps, and that terribly designed wall-walking mechanic which is sure to give you lots of damage.
Finally, the top-down portions are a nice change of pace, but the choice to lose your gun upgrades when you take a hit is... curious.
This game is basically another example to the philosophy of 80s designers, where they punished the player as much as possible for whatever reason.
I'm legit not sure if one can finish this game as originally intended. With save states and rewinds, it's nice though.
There is an interconnected world, you do acquire new powers that open new doors, but it's really a linear adventure that takes you through some huge levels, and halfway through the game requires you to backtrack to the very beginning for totally arbitrary reasons. Exploration isn't really encouraged because there are no secrets or shortcuts or power-ups other than the ones you get from beating the area bosses. Exploring will really only take you to dead ends.
The instruction manual gives you a "map" for most of the areas (areas 4 and 5 don't have one for some reason?), but around area 2 or 3, you'll realize that the map is worthless, and you'll google a proper map online.
Using save states, this is a nice game, but I'm thinking of the poor kids that played this on an actual NES back in the day, and it was probably miserable? There are no passwords and no saving, you have to do it in one sitting, an absurd design choice considering the size of the game. The north american release features limited continues - that is insane.
Especially considering that the last couple of bosses have RNG-based attacks. I rewinded the hell out of them, I'm not sure how players are expected to get better, there is no pattern or wind-up for the attacks. And then the last area is a bunch of time-wasting design, some pixel perfect jumps, and that terribly designed wall-walking mechanic which is sure to give you lots of damage.
Finally, the top-down portions are a nice change of pace, but the choice to lose your gun upgrades when you take a hit is... curious.
This game is basically another example to the philosophy of 80s designers, where they punished the player as much as possible for whatever reason.
I'm legit not sure if one can finish this game as originally intended. With save states and rewinds, it's nice though.
Just about a masterpiece, but held back by the lives/continues not working out and the gun meter issues. Those issues are pretty easily mitigated though by playing on modern hardware. Controls well, filled with cool visuals and music and a ton of interesting ideas. The best Metroidvania on the NES; it absolutely eclipses the first Metroid and is overall more fulfilling than the fun but flawed Simon's Quest.
This review contains spoilers
An early metroidvania with the dumbest child isekai plot you could ever think of and a lack of infinite continues in the western version because videogames back then were simple toys that needed to last long instead of works of art.
Despite the ambition that shines through at first with the vulnerability with which the Sunsoft team portrayed the pilot of the SOPHIA in a manner similar to cinematic platformers, a massive world for NES standards bringing different little environments with a graphical simulation of 3D depht at some points...
Gameplay wise it's just clunky. As one of their first projects it was maybe too ambitious and couldn't be polished properly. Early on, there are some spots where the SOPHIA can get stuck on and you simply need to commit suicide to reset things, even if later when you come through that area with the new powerups, you can get out. Unlike posterior games in the genre like Super Metroid, where you can toggle the weapons on and off: you can fire the special shots when pressing down and the fire button (good luck swimming without wasting it) and near the end of the game the platforming becomes extremely annoying because there's a required improvement to the vehicle where it starts automatically climbing up and down walls, making jumps unnecesarily complicated because you can't turn that off. Metroid II would later improve on this wall-climb ability by making it activate while you are in rolling ball mode.
And well, compared to Metroid or The Guardian Legend for NES, the atmosphere is lacking, and compared to the latter, the story is as minimal as you can get. Because it doesn't have a password system in neither the japanese or the western versions, you also have to beat it in one sitting, forcing you to replay it from scratch whenever you turn it off, which is a sin for a 4 hour metroidvania. I used save states at the start of every area so I could continue later once I got tired, I'm not falling on this archaic trap for kids from the 80s who had nothing better to escape to.
Despite the ambition that shines through at first with the vulnerability with which the Sunsoft team portrayed the pilot of the SOPHIA in a manner similar to cinematic platformers, a massive world for NES standards bringing different little environments with a graphical simulation of 3D depht at some points...
Gameplay wise it's just clunky. As one of their first projects it was maybe too ambitious and couldn't be polished properly. Early on, there are some spots where the SOPHIA can get stuck on and you simply need to commit suicide to reset things, even if later when you come through that area with the new powerups, you can get out. Unlike posterior games in the genre like Super Metroid, where you can toggle the weapons on and off: you can fire the special shots when pressing down and the fire button (good luck swimming without wasting it) and near the end of the game the platforming becomes extremely annoying because there's a required improvement to the vehicle where it starts automatically climbing up and down walls, making jumps unnecesarily complicated because you can't turn that off. Metroid II would later improve on this wall-climb ability by making it activate while you are in rolling ball mode.
And well, compared to Metroid or The Guardian Legend for NES, the atmosphere is lacking, and compared to the latter, the story is as minimal as you can get. Because it doesn't have a password system in neither the japanese or the western versions, you also have to beat it in one sitting, forcing you to replay it from scratch whenever you turn it off, which is a sin for a 4 hour metroidvania. I used save states at the start of every area so I could continue later once I got tired, I'm not falling on this archaic trap for kids from the 80s who had nothing better to escape to.
A weird blend of Metroid (including literal Metroids floating around...) and top down running and gunning. The story premise is just as bizarre. Visually it looks fantastic for a NES game, but the somewhat clunky controls and rather repetitive gameplay keep it from true greatness.
Pretty challenging but it holds up pretty well.
(Played using Nintendo Switch Online NES)
This game honestly just sucks. Enemy placements are horrendous, the boss battles aren't fun at all. The controls also suck, the car is slippery and during later sections of the game you climb on walls and at the final area of the game you just ram into spikes that do like a million damage it sucks its terrible. The game stinks don't play it
This game honestly just sucks. Enemy placements are horrendous, the boss battles aren't fun at all. The controls also suck, the car is slippery and during later sections of the game you climb on walls and at the final area of the game you just ram into spikes that do like a million damage it sucks its terrible. The game stinks don't play it
de los mejores juegos de la nes para mi un juego muy largo que facil mente te puede quitar de 5 a 4 horas y la musica es lo mejor.
don't play this without save states, worst mistake of my life
No
One of the best action games on the NES. Smooth controls, great music, and the levels are well designed for the most part.
I will say tho, there is absolutely no reason to explore. You get the tank upgrades from the bosses, nothing outside of that. Honestly, considering the lack of a map and how annoying some later areas can be sometimes, I'm thankful for this.
I will say tho, there is absolutely no reason to explore. You get the tank upgrades from the bosses, nothing outside of that. Honestly, considering the lack of a map and how annoying some later areas can be sometimes, I'm thankful for this.
i actually beat this one! was not expecting a cool little metroidvania, especially based on how bad the box art is for this. i wouldve liked this even more than NES metroid if there was any reason to explore at all (there really isnt). also it sucks that enemies dont actually show up unless theyre within a certain range of you, and that range is much smaller than the actual screen size
A cool little game that fit's the metroidvania mold. The gimmick of piloting a tank and being able to get out on foot feels very ambitious for it's time. Was unfortunately held back for me by its NES era mean-ness with its enemy placement and level design, and the lack of an in game map makes navigating difficult and confusing. Also it doesn't affect the gameplay at all but I don't know why they made the localization changes they did? An intergalactic war feels like a much more interesting set up than a boy chasing his pet frog.
Quite a confusing labyrinth to go through, the beginning of the game feels really rough cuz you're missing some essential abilities and the bosses are pretty damn hard too.
Not a bad NES game though.
Not a bad NES game though.
A great concept and top-notch presentation, especially the soundtrack, but that comes across to me as a veneer for subpar level design and atrocious bosses.
Great game. One of the best on NES!
One of the highlights of the NES library undoubtedly but it still has a fair share of major issues that bring it down. One is the lack of passwords and saves, which isn't too uncommon for the time at all but seeing as this is pretty long for an NES title it could really use some.
The other, much bigger issue is the fucking wall climbing mechanics introduced after Area 6. They are so fucking bad. A lot of people will tell you this but I can not stress how much more miserable the game becomes with them. You'll always cling to the sides of platforms when you just want to fall from one and even though there's only one new area after this is obtained I probably could count more than 50 times it tripped me up. It's such a shame too, because it's so late in the game and leading up to that point it controls and plays wonderfully. I wish you could just turn wall climbing on and off or something on the pause menu, only having it turned on when absolutely necessary. It's probably one of the most absurd endgame blunders I can think of, at least gameplay-wise. Crusader of Centy still has this beat if we count plot-related ones.
Despite the wall climbing being from hell, I would still recommend this. Maybe I wouldn't recommend beating it, but for that first half especially it's a lot of fun. I just wish it could've sustained that enjoyability longer than it does, and I'd definitely have it at an 8 or so if that was the case.
The other, much bigger issue is the fucking wall climbing mechanics introduced after Area 6. They are so fucking bad. A lot of people will tell you this but I can not stress how much more miserable the game becomes with them. You'll always cling to the sides of platforms when you just want to fall from one and even though there's only one new area after this is obtained I probably could count more than 50 times it tripped me up. It's such a shame too, because it's so late in the game and leading up to that point it controls and plays wonderfully. I wish you could just turn wall climbing on and off or something on the pause menu, only having it turned on when absolutely necessary. It's probably one of the most absurd endgame blunders I can think of, at least gameplay-wise. Crusader of Centy still has this beat if we count plot-related ones.
Despite the wall climbing being from hell, I would still recommend this. Maybe I wouldn't recommend beating it, but for that first half especially it's a lot of fun. I just wish it could've sustained that enjoyability longer than it does, and I'd definitely have it at an 8 or so if that was the case.
really unique game, but it became very boring to me after area 4
A Nes classic that has not aged as well as others. The lack of continues really hurts the game and the level design can be frustrating especially with the clunky controls. Many of the doors scattered throughout the levels only exist to waste time which is simply put, a bad design choice. Still a fun game and worth a try.