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).

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

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 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.

Game #69 of my challenge

This is the first game in my list made by the well-known company Sunsoft and they have a whole bunch of commercial success in the west, and this was the first one of them.

First of all, the plot is kind of weird and the reason is that when it was first released in Japan, it was an anime type of plot. They though that it wouldn't work for the western side of the world, so they slapped a rushed-up story to replace the original one. The American story of this game is a little boy (Jason) that have a frog (Fred) as a pet. That frog ran away and jumped on an radioactive crate that was in Jason's backyard. We don't know why that kid has some radioactive stuff in the backyard, but let's assume it's normal. Fred becomes massive, dropped into a hole (in that same backyard) and disappeared. That boy followed him in that hole and found a vehicle named Sophia. That vehicle is designed to destroy mutants living inside the earth. So Jason puts a suit on and jumped in that vehicle to destroy the mutants, kill the Plutonian boss and to find his frog. All of this is shown as a slideshow in the game. I know the story doesn't makes much sense, but here we are.

The graphics are actually good. The enemies looks different from each other (even though there are some variants of the same enemy), the background is really nice and immersive. All the different parts of the game is really different from one another, so for a Metroidvania type of game, it's really important. The music is really good. There's a different song for each world and there weren't one that I though was bad, or I wanted to mute. My favorite song was Stage 2 (castle), but the song from Stage 1 (forest) is the most well known of the game. The boss music is really intense and makes you motivated to defeat that boss. The SFX are really average. There no much to say about the sound effects.

The controls as a vehicle are simple at first, but when you progress though the game, they get more complicated, but also more annoying. The reason being is about the wall and celling power-up and the swimming power-up. The vehicle can stick to wall and celling, and when it's time to do some tight jumps, it can be really annoying. The reason is that if you are too close to the edge, you will go down the surface under you when you didn't wanted to. This occurs mostly at the end of the game, but it was still irritating. The swimming power up is only bad because when you want to use your special weapon, you need to hold down and press B. When swimming downward, you will waste a lot of those special ammunitions only because you want to shoot those enemies. The control on foot weren't that bad. It took me some time to learn that if you throw a grenade with A and you hold that button, you can strafe. It's not really instinctive but I figured it out around the middle of the game.

The gameplay is a mix of a Metroidvania, a Platformer and half of the gameplay is a run and shoot. This makes an interesting mix, and you can see that they were inspired with the first Metroid game. The map can be really confusing, but they did something that the Metroid game was missing : a map. Of course, the map is not in-game, but in the instruction manual. It's a good enough map for you to not get lost in it. It shows you a general idea where are the doors and the location of each stages. That was ultra helpful. Throughout the game, your vehicle gets upgrades when Jason defeats bosses. Those upgrades helps you to get access to other parts of the game. Your vehicle can shoot bullets in front of it and on top. Sofia also have access to 3 types of special projectiles : A three missile thing, a lightning bolt and some homing missiles. The three missiles are shot in front of you in a fork shape and can be useful. The lightning bold is the worst weapon, because it shoot under you. It wouldn't be that bad if it would always hit at the same spot. However, the arc of the lightning bolt and the place where it hits is random, so this is mostly useless. The last weapon is the homing missiles. They can be really good, but sometimes, they don't want to hit the target and decides to do some back-and-forth around your vehicle. Those specials weapons were mostly useful in my playthrough against one type of enemy : the worms. Those worms are the most annoying and frustrating enemies by far because your normal cannon cannot hit them because they are too low on the ground. Let me tell you that there are a lot of them in the game.

For the Jason gameplay, I would say that his regular weapon is really bad. The reason being is that his gun can be upgraded by collecting some weapon power-ups. The more you got them, the stronger the weapon is. When you get hit, you also lose one bar of that weapon power-up. Let me tell you that this gun is the most inaccurate weapon in the game. It shoots some projectiles that does an S trajectory. each bullets has a different starting point so it's really hard to aim. I say that it's hard to aim, but I should actually say that it's impossible. There's nobody (excepts maybe speed runners) that can aim precisely with that weapon. So when you see an enemy, you mash the button and prey that it will hit. This is mostly visible against a boss in this game. Because of that, the bosses are really hard in this game. Fun fact, you fight against your frog twice in this game.

The game had some really good ideas, like the weapon upgrade of jason, the mix of on foot and vehicle gameplay. However, there were a lot of frustrating things in the game like the inaccuracy of bullets and annoying creature that makes me giving it a lower score that I would love to.