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.
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.