Jason, brave hero of yesteryear, is roused from retirement by the news that mutant lifeeorms, thought to have been long since destroyed, are once again on the move, hollowing out subterranean niches in the image of their old haunts. The decision to reactivate Sophia seems to Jason nothing more than an inevitability. Back into the cold once more... - Eight areas to explore, to find the keys and kill the sub human bosses - Use the tank’s suction system to drive up walls and along ceilings - Drive Sophia or go it alone with Jason.
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Game was wack
Not much different from playing the NES classic from what I could tell. It's still an alright game for any GBC owners.
Eh. I didn't like the level design compared to the original, and the backtracking is more annoying than the first.
They should bring back Leonardo Gardner tho
They should bring back Leonardo Gardner tho
Blaster Master: Screen Crunch Edition.
Even better than the first entry to the series, very fun and if you don't mind pulling up a guide to play through a game, I would definitely recommend you to check this series out.
Angel_Arle Blaster Master reviews
Part 1: Chou-Wakusei Senki Metafight for Famicom
Part 2: Bomber King: Scenario 2 for Game Boy
Part 3: Blaster Master 2 for Genesis
We’ve really been all over the place with the series so far and only one of these has really been a Japanese game so far. Well Japan as well as everywhere else finally got the true sequel to Metafight. It took until the year 2000 for it to get released but we now have Metafight EX for the Game Boy Color. I’ve never played this one before like the past two games but I knew a small amount of it so I went in hoping for something on par with the original. Well enough talk, let’s get on with it.
We are back in the Metafight canon for the plot as it now takes many years after the events of the original Metafight. It takes place in the year 2107 with enemies trying to destroy the planet. Though I’m very confused why it shows two things that look like Kaijus. With Kane being dead and all, who will save the world now? Enter Leonardo Gardener, a descendant of Kane. He gets into the Metal Attacker and is ready for the fight. That’s about it. While it’s not much, at least we got an intro this time and it even has the music from Blaster Master that was never used in the original Metafight.
Right off the bat you’ll realize something about the game once you begin playing. This is almost the same as the Famicom original in terms of gameplay. That’s right, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel or doing stuff like 2 did, we have more of a remix game here. What do I mean by remix? Well it shares a lot with the original but with new level design and even mechanics to change the game up. You’ll be going through 8 areas with the same themes as last time with the same Metal Attacker sidescrolling exploration and the top down action sections with just Leonardo. So for this review, I’ll just be discussing the changes and see what they improved or even made worse.
When it comes to the Metal Attacker, it’s mostly what you expect. The controls aren’t one to one the original but they aren’t awful. The only problem I had was sometimes it feels awkward to turn, especially in midair. Your special weapons are also the same from the Famicom game but changes have been made. Homing missiles are weaker and you also can only shoot one at a time. They still can be reliable at times so don’t be hesitant to use them. Lightning has been buffed tremendously! The hitbox actually works this time and it kills pretty much any enemy in one hit making it a great weapon. Triple Missiles feel pretty useless in this game sadly and I only really found myself using them when I felt like it. At least they only use up one ammo in this game. The Metal Attacker also gets all of the previous upgrades though I don’t know why it even lost them. You can also get an upgrade to up the max health by 2. There’s also one big change they fixed. You can now turn off the Wall item! This is a big game changer as it fixed one of the worst issues with the original game with Wall 2 making platforming a lot worse.
Level design in this seems to be mostly new with a couple of familiar setpieces. Some sites mention the game is harder than the original when it comes to this but to me it didn’t really feel harder but it does have a big change. If you read my review of Metafight, you’ll know I wasn’t a big fan of the backtracking even if it wasn’t too bad. Well Metafight EX has a lot more of it because you now have to get upgrades for Leonardo that can be found in specific catacombs that have the item. Speaking of Leonardo, he also has more stuff to do in EX in these sidescrollers. One of the newest things is several block sections where you’ll have to make a path to get into a catacomb and I do not like these at all. It doesn’t help that making a bad mistake could end up giving you a game over in just a second. It doesn’t help that all of them are in the 2nd half of the game. They do hint at them early on but you aren’t able to interact with it at the time. Going back to the backtracking thing, I’d argue this game does it a lot better. It now doesn’t feel like it’s done just to not make Area progression linear. It now feels like a reward for remembering to use a new upgrade in a section to get stronger. While nothing inventive, it gives more incentive to backtrack instead of the game just doing it for the sake of being different.
Though now we need to talk about those top down sections with Leonardo. They are pretty bad in this game. Let’s just rip the bandaid off now and I’m going to say the control is a lot worse now. You can no longer do diagonals which makes movement feel awful and this really hurts the game. Going through these sections feels so much worse with the four directional movement and it never once felt good. You can at least still strafe and use grenades. They also nerfed the gun as it now only has three levels. This is really lame as it doesn’t fix the problem I had with the hitboxes being a bit funky. It also makes some enemy encounters a pain in the ass, especially the health spongy ones. Even worse the game has a big problem with enemies just coming in and shooting you immediately. You get little to no reaction time and it’s frustrating! They even brought back those enemies that just shoot at you up close when you enter a new room. How freaking lovely.
So you might be asking, Arle, why not just ignore them? You can already easily grind refills and weapons to begin with so why go into the catacombs? Oh you thought it was just like before where you just need to find the boss? Nuh uh, you need to find a key! Remember that key item from the original that was just there so one boss could give you something? Well now it’s in every level and you need it to enter the lair of the boss. It’s doing these that have made me despise doing all of this searching inside. All the problems you had will get worse knowing you’re forced to do more of it. The game doesn’t even teleport you to the entrance when getting a key. You know what I did a lot of? Killing myself to take me back to a checkpoint or the beginning of the level. You have unlimited continues in this one but only one life but you’re really only punished with losing hover energy for game overs which isn’t a problem. If getting the key wasn’t annoying already, by Area 6 you’ll have to get 2 of them! The game really wants to drag out the experience. Hope you love turrets you can’t react to in later levels to be fun along with fast droids you also can’t react to!
The bosses aren’t much fun either because again the control isn’t good. You can’t do the pause trick here either so you better learn the patterns. God my hand starts to hurt after a while with all of the strafing and mashing. A lot of them I don’t really try on because the gun already sucks anyway. Why even try to keep it up? Well at least Leonardo get’s a new secondary weapon which is this new short range gun that shoots a small area in front of you. I didn’t really get much use of it but it does seem strong. You also get an upgrade that ups the gun level…WAIT! You mean to tell me the gun stuff was in here but I had to wait till I was 75% done to EVEN USE IT!? This angered me so badly. You mean to tell me this whole time it was all here but you had to unlock it. What a stupid way to give him a new upgrade. Kane had it since the start of Metafight, what is his excuse?? Sure the sections still suck anyway even with the upgrades but could I have just not had that at the start?
I could explain the level design of the game in general but it’s really more of the same. Like do you want me to praise the Area 5 water level again? It has the same exact concept but now the swimming controls are worse. The ice area was more memorable but only because the ice physics are so atrocious. Here’s a tip, tap the d-pad if you don’t wanna slip everywhere, especially in the top down sections. I guess it’s nice there’s no more instant death in top down sections but now the hitbox for them to hurt you now feels way too close to the wall. Despite the game being a remix of the original, it means almost nothing will surprise you or even impress you. I know it’s not all a bad thing but this game is also longer and feels way more tedious for me. They at least give you a password feature this time. To me my logic is, if I’m not having fun then I find it worse than the Famicom game which I did have fun with.
At least the final area isn’t a pain anymore. Sure you still have to do some annoying key hunting but the area is pretty simple to travel in compared to others so it’s for the most part one of the easier areas to find your way around. You’ll finally meet with the final boss which is a lot lamer this time being this weird slimy enemy with many blobs. I think that’s what it is. It’s weird because that first form was sort of reused for an earlier boss though his moves were different. That 2nd form of the Famicom game’s final boss though isn’t anywhere in this game. The final boss’ 2nd form in this was so lame I just rushed in and spammed and he only got to hit me twice. I was very confused but glad it was over. The enemy is defeated, the Metal Attacker is sealed and Leonardo will be remembered as the hero who saved the world. Now how about next time you do combat, you learn how to move in more directions!
Graphically a lot of it is about the same as before though the colors are different and some sprites have changed like Leonardo having a completely different sprite compared to Kane. There’s not too much to say about it, at least the intro and ending slideshow looks neat. The music on the other hand is just the Famicom tracks but sound worse. It seems the people I showed the OST to were pretty mixed. I was on the negative side because it just sounds off in some areas and when the game is a lot longer, it gets more obnoxious to listen to. The only interesting thing I have else to say about it is that the 2nd boss theme in the original is now just the final boss theme instead of just using Area 7’s theme.
For a little bit I’ll talk about the US release, Blaster Master: Enemy Below. This one once again stars Jason and it has him come out of retirement to fight the mutants again. The intro actually has different screenshots and even some redrawn art to make it more fitting to the US canon. No sign of the frog though which is odd. The ending is also different too. Otherwise the game is pretty much the same. Though there is one fact I want to share. BMEB lets you play on a Game Boy, Metafight EX doesn’t. This means Metafight EX uses a translucent cartridge while Enemy Below uses a normal black cartridge. The reason for this is unknown but it seems to have happened late into development because you can still reactivate the Game Boy and SGB support in the Japanese version via Game Genie codes. Though I assume you’ll have to use an emulator for it.
To me, Metafight EX is a disappointment. It has a few nice changes to it like the Wall item change and trying to change level design to make it stick out. Those negatives however really hurt the game for me, I know I might sound really harsh but I just wasn’t having fun at times which is a shame that it’s those top down sections that bring it down. They were already flawed in the original so why make it even worse? I never want to replay this game, I’ll just stick with the Famicom game if I want some fun. Should you play Metafight EX? Honestly I still think it’s worth a try but I don’t blame you if you wanted to give up. I probably would have if I wasn’t doing a review for it. The game would get a rerelease on 3DS VC but that has been delisted with the Eshop being dead. Though it is at the moment one of the three third party games to be available for NSO's GB/GBC line of games if you pay for the online. This also marks an end to the Japanese canon for the series for now at least. The next game that would show up on the PS1 would adapt the US canon for the Japanese release. Next time I’ll be reviewing Blaster Master for the PS1. The first and only attempt at bringing the series into 3D. I rarely see anyone talk about this one so it’s going to be interesting for me. So long Metafight! At least for now…
Part 1: Chou-Wakusei Senki Metafight for Famicom
Part 2: Bomber King: Scenario 2 for Game Boy
Part 3: Blaster Master 2 for Genesis
We’ve really been all over the place with the series so far and only one of these has really been a Japanese game so far. Well Japan as well as everywhere else finally got the true sequel to Metafight. It took until the year 2000 for it to get released but we now have Metafight EX for the Game Boy Color. I’ve never played this one before like the past two games but I knew a small amount of it so I went in hoping for something on par with the original. Well enough talk, let’s get on with it.
We are back in the Metafight canon for the plot as it now takes many years after the events of the original Metafight. It takes place in the year 2107 with enemies trying to destroy the planet. Though I’m very confused why it shows two things that look like Kaijus. With Kane being dead and all, who will save the world now? Enter Leonardo Gardener, a descendant of Kane. He gets into the Metal Attacker and is ready for the fight. That’s about it. While it’s not much, at least we got an intro this time and it even has the music from Blaster Master that was never used in the original Metafight.
Right off the bat you’ll realize something about the game once you begin playing. This is almost the same as the Famicom original in terms of gameplay. That’s right, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel or doing stuff like 2 did, we have more of a remix game here. What do I mean by remix? Well it shares a lot with the original but with new level design and even mechanics to change the game up. You’ll be going through 8 areas with the same themes as last time with the same Metal Attacker sidescrolling exploration and the top down action sections with just Leonardo. So for this review, I’ll just be discussing the changes and see what they improved or even made worse.
When it comes to the Metal Attacker, it’s mostly what you expect. The controls aren’t one to one the original but they aren’t awful. The only problem I had was sometimes it feels awkward to turn, especially in midair. Your special weapons are also the same from the Famicom game but changes have been made. Homing missiles are weaker and you also can only shoot one at a time. They still can be reliable at times so don’t be hesitant to use them. Lightning has been buffed tremendously! The hitbox actually works this time and it kills pretty much any enemy in one hit making it a great weapon. Triple Missiles feel pretty useless in this game sadly and I only really found myself using them when I felt like it. At least they only use up one ammo in this game. The Metal Attacker also gets all of the previous upgrades though I don’t know why it even lost them. You can also get an upgrade to up the max health by 2. There’s also one big change they fixed. You can now turn off the Wall item! This is a big game changer as it fixed one of the worst issues with the original game with Wall 2 making platforming a lot worse.
Level design in this seems to be mostly new with a couple of familiar setpieces. Some sites mention the game is harder than the original when it comes to this but to me it didn’t really feel harder but it does have a big change. If you read my review of Metafight, you’ll know I wasn’t a big fan of the backtracking even if it wasn’t too bad. Well Metafight EX has a lot more of it because you now have to get upgrades for Leonardo that can be found in specific catacombs that have the item. Speaking of Leonardo, he also has more stuff to do in EX in these sidescrollers. One of the newest things is several block sections where you’ll have to make a path to get into a catacomb and I do not like these at all. It doesn’t help that making a bad mistake could end up giving you a game over in just a second. It doesn’t help that all of them are in the 2nd half of the game. They do hint at them early on but you aren’t able to interact with it at the time. Going back to the backtracking thing, I’d argue this game does it a lot better. It now doesn’t feel like it’s done just to not make Area progression linear. It now feels like a reward for remembering to use a new upgrade in a section to get stronger. While nothing inventive, it gives more incentive to backtrack instead of the game just doing it for the sake of being different.
Though now we need to talk about those top down sections with Leonardo. They are pretty bad in this game. Let’s just rip the bandaid off now and I’m going to say the control is a lot worse now. You can no longer do diagonals which makes movement feel awful and this really hurts the game. Going through these sections feels so much worse with the four directional movement and it never once felt good. You can at least still strafe and use grenades. They also nerfed the gun as it now only has three levels. This is really lame as it doesn’t fix the problem I had with the hitboxes being a bit funky. It also makes some enemy encounters a pain in the ass, especially the health spongy ones. Even worse the game has a big problem with enemies just coming in and shooting you immediately. You get little to no reaction time and it’s frustrating! They even brought back those enemies that just shoot at you up close when you enter a new room. How freaking lovely.
So you might be asking, Arle, why not just ignore them? You can already easily grind refills and weapons to begin with so why go into the catacombs? Oh you thought it was just like before where you just need to find the boss? Nuh uh, you need to find a key! Remember that key item from the original that was just there so one boss could give you something? Well now it’s in every level and you need it to enter the lair of the boss. It’s doing these that have made me despise doing all of this searching inside. All the problems you had will get worse knowing you’re forced to do more of it. The game doesn’t even teleport you to the entrance when getting a key. You know what I did a lot of? Killing myself to take me back to a checkpoint or the beginning of the level. You have unlimited continues in this one but only one life but you’re really only punished with losing hover energy for game overs which isn’t a problem. If getting the key wasn’t annoying already, by Area 6 you’ll have to get 2 of them! The game really wants to drag out the experience. Hope you love turrets you can’t react to in later levels to be fun along with fast droids you also can’t react to!
The bosses aren’t much fun either because again the control isn’t good. You can’t do the pause trick here either so you better learn the patterns. God my hand starts to hurt after a while with all of the strafing and mashing. A lot of them I don’t really try on because the gun already sucks anyway. Why even try to keep it up? Well at least Leonardo get’s a new secondary weapon which is this new short range gun that shoots a small area in front of you. I didn’t really get much use of it but it does seem strong. You also get an upgrade that ups the gun level…WAIT! You mean to tell me the gun stuff was in here but I had to wait till I was 75% done to EVEN USE IT!? This angered me so badly. You mean to tell me this whole time it was all here but you had to unlock it. What a stupid way to give him a new upgrade. Kane had it since the start of Metafight, what is his excuse?? Sure the sections still suck anyway even with the upgrades but could I have just not had that at the start?
I could explain the level design of the game in general but it’s really more of the same. Like do you want me to praise the Area 5 water level again? It has the same exact concept but now the swimming controls are worse. The ice area was more memorable but only because the ice physics are so atrocious. Here’s a tip, tap the d-pad if you don’t wanna slip everywhere, especially in the top down sections. I guess it’s nice there’s no more instant death in top down sections but now the hitbox for them to hurt you now feels way too close to the wall. Despite the game being a remix of the original, it means almost nothing will surprise you or even impress you. I know it’s not all a bad thing but this game is also longer and feels way more tedious for me. They at least give you a password feature this time. To me my logic is, if I’m not having fun then I find it worse than the Famicom game which I did have fun with.
At least the final area isn’t a pain anymore. Sure you still have to do some annoying key hunting but the area is pretty simple to travel in compared to others so it’s for the most part one of the easier areas to find your way around. You’ll finally meet with the final boss which is a lot lamer this time being this weird slimy enemy with many blobs. I think that’s what it is. It’s weird because that first form was sort of reused for an earlier boss though his moves were different. That 2nd form of the Famicom game’s final boss though isn’t anywhere in this game. The final boss’ 2nd form in this was so lame I just rushed in and spammed and he only got to hit me twice. I was very confused but glad it was over. The enemy is defeated, the Metal Attacker is sealed and Leonardo will be remembered as the hero who saved the world. Now how about next time you do combat, you learn how to move in more directions!
Graphically a lot of it is about the same as before though the colors are different and some sprites have changed like Leonardo having a completely different sprite compared to Kane. There’s not too much to say about it, at least the intro and ending slideshow looks neat. The music on the other hand is just the Famicom tracks but sound worse. It seems the people I showed the OST to were pretty mixed. I was on the negative side because it just sounds off in some areas and when the game is a lot longer, it gets more obnoxious to listen to. The only interesting thing I have else to say about it is that the 2nd boss theme in the original is now just the final boss theme instead of just using Area 7’s theme.
For a little bit I’ll talk about the US release, Blaster Master: Enemy Below. This one once again stars Jason and it has him come out of retirement to fight the mutants again. The intro actually has different screenshots and even some redrawn art to make it more fitting to the US canon. No sign of the frog though which is odd. The ending is also different too. Otherwise the game is pretty much the same. Though there is one fact I want to share. BMEB lets you play on a Game Boy, Metafight EX doesn’t. This means Metafight EX uses a translucent cartridge while Enemy Below uses a normal black cartridge. The reason for this is unknown but it seems to have happened late into development because you can still reactivate the Game Boy and SGB support in the Japanese version via Game Genie codes. Though I assume you’ll have to use an emulator for it.
To me, Metafight EX is a disappointment. It has a few nice changes to it like the Wall item change and trying to change level design to make it stick out. Those negatives however really hurt the game for me, I know I might sound really harsh but I just wasn’t having fun at times which is a shame that it’s those top down sections that bring it down. They were already flawed in the original so why make it even worse? I never want to replay this game, I’ll just stick with the Famicom game if I want some fun. Should you play Metafight EX? Honestly I still think it’s worth a try but I don’t blame you if you wanted to give up. I probably would have if I wasn’t doing a review for it. The game would get a rerelease on 3DS VC but that has been delisted with the Eshop being dead. Though it is at the moment one of the three third party games to be available for NSO's GB/GBC line of games if you pay for the online. This also marks an end to the Japanese canon for the series for now at least. The next game that would show up on the PS1 would adapt the US canon for the Japanese release. Next time I’ll be reviewing Blaster Master for the PS1. The first and only attempt at bringing the series into 3D. I rarely see anyone talk about this one so it’s going to be interesting for me. So long Metafight! At least for now…