Blaster Master Zero (2017)

PROS

• Combining several styles into one action game and allowing the player to context switch at will was a creative idea for its time and still makes for a compelling experience
• Exploring the map for optional dungeons and upgrades is fun

CONS

• Controls and physics are not as polished they should be
• Terrible audio quality and ear-piercing sound effects
• Doesn't do enough to modernize the original's simplistic mechanics and level design
• Attempts to inject more story into the experience fall flat
• Back-tracking through the same areas multiple times is boring

Weren't it for the fact that I played the NES original as a kid, I likely would have given it a pass. But now, I could come back with a vengeance on a game that I had a difficulty because I was no skilled gamer back then.

Blaster Master Zero is a remake that puts on a pixel graphic overhaul, additional gameplay features and story elements adapted from a novelization of the same name. So, it's not a carbon-copy remaster for the sake of putting out for today's generation. With the recent sequels that follow this remake, it tells that the devs have ambitions set for this old classic.

You play as Jason Frudnick, an engineer in the distant future, who sets out to rescue a frog named Fred and comes upon a combat vehicle named Sophia III, which helps him to traverse through dangerous areas. He also meets an enigmatic girl named Eve, who has a connection with the vehicle and helps him on his mission to save Fred and Earth from an alien threat. The plot is sparse enough to give some breathing room between shootouts and exploration while also building on the story development and relation with the characters. If you think the normal ending is bittersweet with some loose ends hanging, explorers can definitely take satisfaction in that finding all the items grants you an extension of the adventure with a new area and a true ending that connects to the sequels. Regrettably, I had to spend some time doing backtracking and wished that there was a warp function to quickly traverse between the areas.

Throughout the game, there are plenty of items to enhance your stats, utilities and the arsenal to overcome the obstacles with ease. A good note to take is that the boss battles are varied enough to bring fresh challenges between, if not for the lack of gameplay balancing, making them either too easy or grudgingly hard. If you lose enough weapon stats before a battle, at worst you might be down for a long fight, blasting in short range while putting your measly self at risk of dying. On the other hand, enough weapon stats make certain battles a cake-walk, even against most of the bosses, because you can utilize weapons that are effective for crowd control and bypassing defenses.

MB0 is a fresh revival of the NES classic that has featured cross-genre experience early on, with balancing issues needing to be addressed. The plot and the characters are intriguing enough for me to look into the sequels, as I would like to see them more fleshed out. Still an enjoyable game, which I am content with revisiting the past for a good measure.

Song for the mood: Find A Way (Or Make One) by Anubis Gate (Progressive power metal)

This was a fun, simple little game. There was nothing mind blowing about it but it was an enjoyable experience from start to finish. I sort of wish there had been a bit more complexity in places and it really did feel like a slightly updone NES game (because that's what it is) but I was never bored. My only other complaint was playing on the 3ds version hurt my hands after awhile. (And I can't believe they cut away without saying "I love you." >:O)

Inti Creates is quickly becoming my fave indie dev team as almost everything they make that I have played is at least entertaining if not downright amazing. While this doesn't rise to the heights of Gunvolt I cannot deny the fun I had. Try it out if you get the chance, but I recommend the Switch version over the 3ds one.

“You take the blue pill; the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill; you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” -Morpheus, The Matrix

Blaster Master Zero is the prime 21st century example of a 20th century 8-bit throwback that’s both visually accurate yet ultimately mark-missing. It seems that many developers don’t realize what made the games of the NES special was not merely their pixelated graphics about which many of us feel so nostalgic. Rather, it’s that tangible sensation in gameplay and the grueling challenge which recalls to mind why the 8-bit era was so great.

Blaster Master Zero encompasses the modern, self-important egotism of graphics while still trying to be a retro game, missing a few of the things that really made retro games unique.

Now all that isn’t to say that Blaster Master Zero isn’t a worthy recreation. Developer Intel Creates has done a spot on job at re-envisioning the 1988 Blaster Master, a game I know only by reputation. At face value, BMZ looks the part. It’s far more convincingly 8-bit than many other remakes and reboots trying to aim for the same aesthetic. It spares us all the bells and whistles like over-reliance on parallax scrolling, animated textures, or smuggled 3D elements which would only serve to take you out of the experience. I felt transported back to the days of the NES with the opening cutscene describing the premise in pixelated detail.

The game takes place in the far future of planet Earth, where apocalyptic war has ruined the ecosystem and plunged the world into an ice age. Humankind has migrated underground, building massive infrastructures in the hope of one day restoring the planet. As humans near the completion of their restorative project, a comet falls from the skies.

Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/blaster-master-zero/

Rating: 8.5/10

I haven't played a Blaster Master game since the original one for NES, and even then I played it as a kid so I remember very little about it. That's only important because I can't accurately compare that one to this one, so it's kind of its own entity. As much as I loved it (it's one of my favourite NES games), my memory is non-existent. I know it was hard, and that comes into play here in a bit.

I also know that the intro ()freaked me the fuck out as a kid for some reason. Even now, I think it's a much better opener. It's a little weird, has creepy music, and just threw you into this strange world where your pet frog gets really huge and you find a tank.

In comparison, Zero didn't hit me at the beginning like that. It was just wordy and average from a narrative perspective. Still confusing nonsense, but longer than the original. Not bothersome, but unnecessary.

But it's a wonderful game in a lot of ways. When you compare the two you can see how the graphics are updated and upgraded here, something that you may not notice if you haven't played Blaster Master in a while. Sometimes we remember the graphics of games as better than what they are. There's more detail and more happening, especially when you enter buildings and caves.

Blaster Master has always shined in how original it is. Even today the mixture of sidescroller and top-down shooter is pretty refreshing. There aren't many games that blend the two disparate genres together, and because of the advancement of technology they were able to do more things like pack more on screen or have more kinetic environments/enemies. I mean, they still follow patterns and whatnot, but the retooling is obvious.

That's not to say that the sidescrolling is a slouch. It's not: it's a completely solid Metroidvania in its own right, with big levels to explore and things to find, along with plenty of enemies to blast. Environments are varied, such as an ice one, a water one, fire, etc, much like you would expect. Despite the fact that the genre has become increasingly more popular in the indie space, Blaster Master is still a fantastic representation of it.

I would have probably settled on a 9 if it wasn't for the difficulty. Unlike the first one, which is a product of its time and brutal, this one is surprisingly easy. Not just easy, but unforgivably simple. I don't even care for hard games because I feel like I did my time with them growing up and now appreciate the convenience of checkpoints. I maintain that quite a few of the games that are praised for their difficulty fall into a trap of thinking that less checkpoints equals better experience. I vehemently disagree with that. At least in a game like Dark Souls the enemies give you a difficult time and there's a fear that comes with that that I can respect, even if I'm not a fan of the series. Games that make me replay the same section repeatedly just zaps the fun out of it, so when I know that's a mechanic (if you can call it that), then I lose interest in the game generally. Not always, it's not a rule, but it's a mental trend.

Zero has a plethora of checkpoints, which is good, but the enemies offer no challenge. Sure, I died, but it was mostly due to my own impatience or stupidity, rather than them testing me. For example, I fought a boss that ended up killing me because at the end instead of keeping my strategy, I just went berserker and I didn't have the health to do it. Just dumb. The rematch was considerably different as I went in and murdered it like it had no right being in there with me. If this was a boxing match it never would have gotten sanctioned. On that note, there were not just one--but many--bosses that I annihilated. I had more issues with the parts in the tank, but I never felt threatened.

There are a few reasons for this. One is that health is abundant, so even if you get hit it doesn't matter. You'll find something to cure you. To quote Alien from Spring Breakers, "[There are] rooms of this shit!" The other problem is that your guns in the top-down section get more powerful. Guns shoot through things that enemies cannot, so once you bar is filled and you have the wave gun you can commit genocide with ease. The game tries to balance it by making it that when you get hit you lose a bar, and have to resort to being a pleb if you're hit enough, but you won't get there because like health, you're never too far from something to refill it. It's unfortunate that even someone like me finds the game too easy; I can only imagine what good gamers think.

However, that's the only flaw I can find. The rest of the game is impeccable and is more ammunition against this popular opinion that the Switch doesn't have any games. Even though there is only one AAA game and no ports of games on other systems, Nintendo has still built a solid launch lineup with this, Zelda, Snipperclips, Bomberman (as overpriced as it is) and, I hear, Fast RMX. Oh, and the Shovel Knight expansion which is a timed exclusive for the Switch. There may be more but that's all I've had. Anyway, check this out because it's retro nostalgia done well.