When Claire recommended me this game, I asked if it was a metroidvania and she went "ehh, kind of" and I feel like that's the best way to describe what blaster master zero is.
You get a big levels/areas like a metroidvania and you find multiple "dungeons" within those areas. Those dungeons are a top-down shooter and at the end of it you get a boss and an upgrade. It's a neat little thing that feels.. really great, actually. I enjoyed that mix of genres a lot.

Most of the game can easily be bypassed with the best weapon in the game that is really not that hard to get or lose, but all the other weapons are cool aswell because they interact with a lot of stuff, making it so everything is worth using atleast once.
The bosses are varied and interesting but sadly die too fast if you use the best weapon in the game (which there's no reason not to tbh) so please do your best to not stick with the best option unless you're struggling because the bosses are really fun to dodge and hit but most of those attacks can be easily missed unless you make it fair for the bosses lol

The game's story isn't as deep so there really isn't much to talk there, but the level design is actually quite clever. There's always a way to backtrack from the entrance of an area to the exit without much of a hassle and even without opening the map, it's kind of hard to get lost due to the level design being really good at showing you where to go even when it gives you multiple paths.

The true ending section was really cool and I wish this game had even more puzzles like the ones featured there so I'm looking forward to the next games in the series.