I feel like the best way to preface all that I'm about to say is to acknowledge what this game is. A remake of the NES original Blaster Master and a love letter to the golden age of SunSoft. In those aspects, this game delivers. Fans of the original BM will not be disappointed. This game has one of the most captivating, faithful and consistent artstyles out of any retro-inspired game I've played. Even something like Cyber Shadow will every so often push the boundaries of what system its supposed to be emulating with its music, effects and so on. Everything about this game SCREAMS SunSoft in their golden age. Every little sound effect, every piece of music, the color palette for each level, I cannot express enough just how devoted Inti clearly were to finding a style that suited the original developers and running with it

So in terms of a remake, then, it absolutely succeeds. Its faithful to the original while having a fantastic upgraded style. Where it falls apart for me is that its TOO faithful to the original. This is built on an NES game that, while impressive, still FEELS like an NES game. The basic controls for the SOFIA and Jason feel great and satisfying (even if Jason is a little slow), but the level design is so often uninteresting and bland to the point where, combined with the lack of difficulty, I often felt discouraged out of pure boredom.

The first area presents itself as if the game is going to be an interconnected Metroidvania, with a tower to climb up, water to traverse etc. Yet the worlds only connect linearly by the start and end; combined with the lack of fast-travel, 100%ing feels like an absolute chore, and the game isn't satisfyingly interconnected at all.

There is absolutely a good, if very basic, foundation here, but most of the interesting design feels as if it was placed on the top-down Jason segments, which as I described feel a little too slow to live up to Inti's standards of hi-octane action gameplay. I can at least say that the game gets moving at a decent pace, there's a lot of variety in the visuals (which remain excellent) and the little tidbits of dialogue between Jason and Eve are very sweet. I really enjoy these two, and the story and world in general are enjoyable.

It feels as if every aspect of this game was just held back by the devotion to be faithful to the original game, and while I respect that for fans of said original game, it was a decision that left me feeling hollow and bored at almost all points of playing. By the time Area 7 and 8 started having more interesting enemy placement and platforming for the SOPHIA segments, I had enough health to bruteforce it. The bosses in general, with Jason especially, are also a complete joke and dont feel properly balanced. But again, I must stress: the style of this game is incredible, and I'm truly hopeful that most if not all of its faults stem from its NES roots. My disappointment with this game has only raised my expectations for the sequel, but as is this is my least favorite Inti Creates game.

This game was a great way to let Inti's staff pay respects to something they love. I'm just hoping that the sequel lets them do that while also making a good game.

[Playtime: 7 hours]
[Key Word: Restraint]

I'm in a weird boat playing this. While I love the original Blaster Master on the NES, I enjoy it because it's a condensed, bite-sized experience. Its short length gives its level design more to do and makes me feel like I'm actually exploring a robust area ala Metroid with way better controls than Metroid 1.

Zero expanding on Blaster Master should be a great experience for me on paper, but it does NOTHING ELSE. Sure, there's new toys to play with, but only a few like the mortar shot and the homing missiles felt useful unlike the NES game where I found uses for every sub weapon. The controls still feel great for Sophia but Jason still suuuuuuucks.

Let's talk level design. There's a way bigger map to go around, but this does the game no favors. So much of the game is empty space or very simple platforming that it gets boring and mundane quickly. While there are some interesting mobility options that should lend itself to better level design in a perfect world, they're never used in clever ways aside from progress gates and an actually interesting stealth section in Area 7. Area 5 is dreadful though, you go through your weak as balls pilot through a water level with huge enemies and worse level design than usual. It's more tolerable when you get your water mobility upgrade, but bogging down your speed that badly was unnecessary. I do really enjoy Area 1 though even if it's just a promise of what the game could have been with it being a singular area with different branching paths.
Jason's level design is literally nothing most of the time. Just walk in plain corridors and fire your gun. That's all. When the level design is "spiced" up, the designers seem to have an unhealthy fixation on making you wait. A lot. Waiting for water to rush by, waiting for platforms to get to you, wait for a hazard to go away, a bunch of waiting. The worst part of this is simply that Jason is slow as molasses and can only aim in four cardinal directions without walking so everything feels way too stiff and awkward in what's bad to Baby's First Game level design.

The bosses are...there. The Sophia ones are obviously more interesting just from being in a better control scheme, but they're only just okay unless you wanna see the Area 7 boss shredded by a giant laser. Same goes for Jason's bosses, they exist. There's some decent puzzles you can do, but on the whole they're not good. The final boss specifically is both the best and worst Jason boss, he can drain your health way too quickly to react to but he also has the most robust attacks out of any boss. One step forward, two steps back.

The aesthetics are wonderful, killer combo of the usual Inti aesthetic with some really REALLY good pixel graphics. The Jason sections in Area 5 are gorgeous with the ability to see the water's reflection shining upon you and the shadows casting down from the areas above you. It lends itself to a really cool moment when the Area boss shows up out of nowhere and spears a humpback whale and you're treated to the blood pouring down around you as it flies off to the boss room. I really wish there were more moments like that. I also wish the aesthetics in the Sophia sections were more robust as well, aside from Area 8 I can't really think of any levels aesthetically that popped out aside from simply being in the killer art style.
The music is nice too, although most of it isn't very memorable. My favorite track is the remix of the original Blaster Master's Area 1 you hear in Area 1, it's a great remix that made me pumped to play this game.

The story, uh...it's there? I don't really care about the characters at all, they're given nothing to do aside from just talk about helping each other and killing mutants. I don't get a feel for who these characters are aside from The Good Guys. Eve is more interesting just from having a cool background (and the standard ending being brutal to her, ouch) but Jason is very VERY uninteresting. I guess the novelty of trying to save a frog for the plot could be funny, but I'd have preferred no story over barely a story. Seriously, who ARE these people???

I'd recommend this only if you really REALLY like Blaster Master on the NES or if you can tolerate bland level design and bad top down sections for having fun with Sophia's controls. On the whole, I did not enjoy my time and man I hope the sequel lives up to the expectations I had for this game.

This game feels like a road trip. I guess it's a road trip where you shoot monsters while in the car, and then make pitstops to shoot more monsters. There are parts that can feel slow, but they also feel like times to just enjoy the scenery. I think the aspects of this game that bothered me would bother me much more if I didn't know it has two sequels, which to my understanding greatly remedy these flaws.

Addendum: Destroyer mode is an interesting alternate mode for those who thought the main game was too easy. Very trivial tasks like traversing a single screen can become serious challenges. Having to rely on your entire available arsenal to clear the game makes it a lot more fun, in my opinion. Still retains some of the same frustrating features though.

This game is exactly the kind of thing that I like to see out of a retro "refresh" type game. It's a fairly well designed Metroidvania, with some cool power-ups and interesting split side-scrolling and top-down sections. I do think that the boss design is a little weak, as most of them go down pretty rapidly, and I'd also say that some of the on-foot side-scrolling sections feel a little janky in terms of controls (I swear I was holding up to get onto that ladder). Overall, solid game, and excited to check out the rest of the Blaster Master series.

Blaster Master Zero is a decent game. But that's all it really is. The format of having both top down and sidescrolling sections is what makes the series unique but this game suffers in particular by having the top down sections be fairly boring due to the overreliance on the Wave/Level 10 gun. It is the answer to literally every problem in the game and it should have been balanced much better. Additionally, Jason just moves slow as sin in the sections and there's a lot of waiting. The tank sections however are much more enjoyable, giving you a more diverse moveset and generally being more snappy. There's a lot to be desired but all in all BMZ is still "good enough."

On a replay I finally get this game.

This is definitely a remake of the original Blaster Master. Very faithful level design philosphy, enemy behavior, and even your controls are extremely similar to the NES original. Where the game differs and really shines is in the tools you get to play with this go around.

Every weapon (except the stupid wide beam) has a lot of ways to use them effectively and well, it's pretty neat how versatile each tool can be for different situations. Weapons I used way more on the replay were the Mortar and Dash, but all the weapons are pretty fun honestly. Even the on foot weapons are all useful due to variable enemy weaknesses so you're never at a true disadvantage unless you're TURBO boned.

I also really like the small optional bits of story and dialogue you can have between Jason and Eve. It's really nice and cute, and it helps solidify their relationship to make the end of the game pay off better.

Still can't believe his last name is Frudnick though.