- Blaster Master Zero -- Switch -- ~12 hours
Well, I finished my first game of the new year, and it's one I started over the summer and then dropped for a while. You have to start somewhere, I guess.
Others have reviewed
Blaster Master Zero before me, but I'm going to run it down from the top anyway.
Blaster Master Zero is a re-imagining of the classic
Blaster Master. IntiCreates did the dev work and attempted to mimic the NES in some ways, using low color graphics and pixel art and chiptunes that are meant to evoke the NES sound. Unlike other
Blaster Master sequels or remakes, however, they also stuck to a lot of the original model as well.
Most of the game takes place in side-scrolling levels in which you drive Sophia III, an advanced tank vehicle. As you progress in the game you can get cannon upgrades, new special weapons, mobility enhancements, and life bar extensions. Some areas require you to exit the tank as a tiny little dude to proceed. In this form, falling further than your jump height causes damage, and much further instant death. Your little dude can also enter dungeons, which switch to an overhead view and allow you to shoot in 8 directions. You can get better main weapons as you progress, special weapons, and maps, which display the full map for the level AND all dungeons contained therein, including indications of where to find bosses and items. All of these details are identical, or otherwise very similar, to the NES original. This game is essentially an attempt to recreate the original game in a larger, enhanced form.
Levels are somewhat non-linear. There is a definite path through the game, and keyed gates largely prevent too much sequence breaking, but you can sometimes get various upgrades and weapons in variable order, and the levels seem to be numbered arbitrarily. You may progress from level 3 to level 6, and then double back to level 2 later in the game. This is mostly OK, but there are some times the backtracking can be a real pain. More on that later.
Despite the self-imposed graphical and auditory constraints, the game looks and sounds good, and definitely does things the NES could never dream of, much like most retro re-interpretations. Control of the tank feels pretty smooth (except in water) and your dude controls well in dungeons. The game's flow is pretty easy to get into and mostly fun, but there are some hiccups. First is that the game attempts to retain two aspects of the original NES title.
The first of these is the energy bar for Sophia III. To use any of the special weapons, some of the charged shots, and some of the mobility functions of Sophia, you have to expend energy. Energy slowly regenerates, so you can't really get stuck with no way to advance due to lack of energy: just sit there long enough and you'll top up. Enemies frequently drop energy power-ups as well. However, you can often get stuck in a tight spot where you need to expend a lot of energy quickly, and then you just have to sit on your ass for a time while you wait to charge back up. Special weapons and movement abilities discharge energy a bit too quickly, and charge shots probably shouldn't use up any energy at all. They really did make the energy economy just a bit too tight at times.
The second hiccup is that, in true Sunsoft top-down fashion, when your character takes a hit in the overhead segments, his weapon is downgraded. This was a pain in the original and a pain here. But it's worse here. Later on you'll get a special recharging shield that allows you to take a hit and not lose a weapon level, but it it only so helpful (more later). In the NES original, your weapons got more and more powerful but behaved similarly. In trying to make this title more interesting, they made many of the weapon power levels behave dramatically differently. One weapon level is actually a shield that deflects shots and has no ability to deal damage or shoot on its own. But that means that if you take enough hits to lose the particular weapon you need for an area you can get screwed. Also, your dude walks pretty slowly, and many enemies do not. So you can get stuck in spots where you have no choice but to take 3-6 hits right on top of each other, wiping out a ton of weapon options and making the recharging weapon shield far less useful. The end result is occasional frustration when the game puts you in a bad place. And make no mistake, the game does sometimes put you in a bad place.
The game is normally pretty fast, fun, and fluid, but there are a lot of frustrating places. And it's not that those places are more challenging. It's that they feel designed to intentionally be frustrating. There's one spot where you, as the little tiny pilot in the side-view Sophia area, have to take a flying leap and catch a ladder mid-fall. And if you don't, of course, you die. And you jump back a screen and have to go through a small amount of annoying BS to get back to where you can try the leap of faith again. There are some areas in the top-view dungeons where you have to be "stealthy" (avoid the enemy, basically), and if you screw it up, instead of you fail and restart the level, all the enemies crowd in on you. You CAN survive to escape the screen, but if you do your weapon will be very powered down and you'll have lots most of your health bar. It's frankly better to just die and restart at the beginning of the dungeon, because it remembers how much life and weapon power you came in with and resets you. Whereas if you get spotted and manage to escape, you're probably in a much worse state than if you just started over and tried again.
One other frustration I had is that there is no quick travel system. If you discover you missed a power up because you weren't paying enough attention, going back to find and collect it can be an absolute pain. There aren't many shortcuts, and even with shortcuts it takes time.
The game has a normal, sad ending, and a good, complete ending.
If this review sounds a little overly critical, that's because it kind of is. When I started playing the game I really liked what they were doing, but by the end of the game, I was just glad to be done. I feel like
Blaster Master Zero was a good idea taken too far. It paid too much homage to the original, capturing some bad ideas with the good. On the whole I found it fun, but there were too many frustrating moments, especially near the end of the game. And those frustrating moments felt like bad design, not mistakes. They were simply bad ideas that got implemented, and not oversights by the design team. The game was 70% great and 30% annoying, which is just too much annoying, even given how good the great parts are. This is not a game I will ever go back and replay, sadly. But I am glad I got to experience it.