Blasting From the Beginning Again

It’s interesting to think how many times the original Blaster Master (or Metafight, if you prefer) has been retold. While the original NES game has seen its fair share of sequels (a Game Boy barely related spinoff, a Sega Genesis sequel, a PlayStation three-quel), the game has actually seen just as many remakes. The Game Boy Color got Blaster Master: Enemy Below, a heavily remixed version of the original game. The Wii saw a second remake, Blaster Master: Overdrive, that tried to upgrade and update the formula. And then there was Blaster Master Zero, a complete remake again, this time on the Switch and other platforms, which was an even more extensive reinvention that really tried to push the concept of the series to its limits.

Developed by Inti Creates, the company that has made a name for itself in the retro reinvention sphere (working on tiles like the Mega Man Zero and ZX games, Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10, the Mega Man-inspired Mighty Gunvolt series, the Gal Gun games, including Gal Guardians: Demon Purge, and the throwback Bloodstained titles Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon and Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2), Blaster Master Zero shows the same kind of care and attention that the company has put into so many of its titles. It has that retro, throwback feel paired with a ton of modern additions that make the game feel classically made but rich and modern. It has real charm in ways that, one could argue, only Inti Creates could achieve.

The basics of the game will feel familiar to anyone that’s played through Blaster Master on the NES. A boy, Jason, finds a frog, who he names Fred, and takes the frog home. While hanging out in his lab, Jason sees Fred run off. Jason follows, and he spies Fred diving into a hole into the world. Jason chases over the frog, diving into the hole as well, and at the bottom the boy comes across SOPHIA III, a powerful tank that seems all too happy to let the kid inside. Fred has vanished, but Jason sees that the world around him is dangerous, so he jumps into SOPHIA III and drives off, in search of his frog and a means to get back to the surface.

Some of the basic details of the story are changed a little. The game takes place centuries after our current era. Jason isn’t just a boy but a teen genius. The frog, Fred, seems like more than just a frog, and the hole he jumps into is a strange portal, but credit to Inti Creates, they preserved as much of the original story as they could… and the same goes for the gameplay of Blaster Master Zero, starting right at that first, oh too familiar, zone of the game.

Area One looks, feels, and sounds like you’d expect from Blaster Master. The same song (lightly arranged, of course) starts playing, your tank starts rolling, and you begin cruising through the forests of this new world on your quest to save a frog. The layout of this first area is familiar, following the basic beats you’d recognize if you’ve played the NES game before. Head down the level, find the watery area, jump out of the tank, enter the area for the boss, and then blast away. That mix of driving and top-down shooting, the way it all fits together in that first level, it’s all there, properly preserved in this remake.

And yet, this first zone also reveals that things aren’t going to work quite the way you’re used to. The original game, despite its Metroidvania designs, was fairly straightforward in its construction. Each zone had one item you needed to collect, and your job was to get to that item, guarded by a specific boss, get the item, and add it to your tank so you could then reach the next area. Very rarely did you need to go off the beaten path, and when you did it was to find the entrance to the next area, wherever it might have been hiding.

Blaster Master Zero, by comparison, really emphasizes the Metroidvania aspects of the series. While your main goal is still to get to the big boss in each area and get their key item, whatever power it might be to push you to the next zone, there’s a lot of other stuff in out of the way areas you can collect. There’s upgrades for Sophia’s arsenal, giving you more firing options. There’s upgrades for Jason’s arsenal, increasing his survivability, his power, and his bombs. There are maps to find, health upgrades to collect, and plenty of reasons to go everywhere and explore everything. It puts far more emphasis on exploration, which isn’t a bad thing.

Thankfully, while you’re exploring all these nooks and crannies, you’ll have a great time doing it. The game is very well made, with a fantastic design sense that drips from every moment. Not only does the title control well, very tight and responsive, but it looks and sounds fantastic. The soundtrack is littered with old and new tracks, solid arrangements sitting beside new songs that work so well in the mix. And this is on top of fantastic, retro-inspired graphics that feel like they came off the NES and got the right level of upgrades. It’s obviously working on the throwback feel, with a limited palette of colors to play with, while still adding enough flourishes to feel properly modern.

I will note that once you’re past the first couple of areas the game does take a narrative turn. While the basic construction of Blaster Master Zero remains consistent, it does deviate from the original title in a couple of specific ways. Firstly, the game introduces a second character early on, a co-pilot named Eve who helps Jason by providing advice about bosses and weapons. She’s really there so Jason has someone to talk to, and so there can be more story added to the game than, “dude drives around in a tank, shooting things.” She’s a fine addition, and the game works hard to make her fit into the narrative and make you care about her as a character.

The biggest twist comes late in the game, after the first eight zones and a false ending. This is where things take a major shift (spoilers) as Eve drives off with SOPHIA III to fight a final, mutant core infecting the world. Jason chases after her and finds SOPHIA Zero, a new tank he can use for the last zone, Area Nine, that’s been added to the game. I won’t go into too much detail about this last area as it’s really go to go in fresh and experience the first really new content in one of these remakes, but suffice it to say that this last area does add in some great new content while also leaving open the possibility of future adventures for our two heroes. It’s a great addition for the game and the series.

If I have any quibble with the game at all it’s that all the Metroidvania additions actually end up making the game much easier. The NES game was pretty damn hard, making players work for every inch of territory they claimed on their adventure, but this newer game swings far in the other direction, making things much easier, between the health additions, SOPHIA’s increased arsenal, and Jason’s upgrades as well. This is most obviously seen in the various boss fights where Jason ends up being so powerful that none of them really feel all that dangerous. There’s a tiny difficulty spike in the last couple of boss fights, but even then it’s not to the point that I ever really felt worried. Blaster Master Zero is just an easy game, and you gotta know that going in if you’re looking for the traditional hard-as-nails gameplay of the series.

With that said, I don’t really think that’s such a big deal. Being somewhat easier does mean that players are more likely to get through the title (how many people that played the original NES game actually got all the way through it?), and that allows them to have a solid, satisfying experience for the few hours they invest in the title. In a choice between a traditionally hard game that I might not get through, and a game that errs maybe too easy but in such a way that at least I can see the ending, I’ll likely choose the latter. And if I want a hard experience later on, I’ll skip a few of the power-ups and try for a challenge run. That’s always on the table.

Blaster Master Zero is worth your attention. It’s a fun and slick experience that provides all the action and thrills fans of the series want. It was a successful enough title that it warranted two sequels (so far) and you can tell, right from the get-go, why it did so well. This was a huge accomplishment for Inti Creates, and it might just be the best game in the series since the first title… if not the best, period.