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)

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.