I mostly post joke reviews on this site because I’m lazy (the score reflects my own opinion, however). That’s not the case with Blaster Master Zero III, because this game is truly something special. Blaster Master Zero III is a follow up to Blaster Master Zero I and II, succeeding the stories of both. Zero I was a solid game with little wrong with it. It was somewhat short and had issues with its overall challenge, but it was extremely fun to play, being one of my favorite metroidvanias. Zero II was a big improvement, making gameplay and stages more varied, while increasing the difficulty by a lot. The only problems were that the game’s new mechanics were a bit underutilized. Zero III takes almost everything good, as well as its underutilized mechanics about Zero II and then some. There are some pretty big improvements here. For one, Jason is actually really fun outside of his tank! Jason now has a jetpack, allowing him to survive falls, so long as you can time it right. I really appreciate how it's also used in platforming, too. Alone, this is already a great improvement over Zero II, but they didn't stop there with Jason. His top down sections are also improved, too. The gun system has been completely reworked; instead of getting new weapons when you get more gun power, in Zero III, you start with 5 guns to boot, and get more power when you get a gun upgrade. Unlike Zero I and II, you'll always have the ability to exploit the enemy's weakness, but your Gun power makes a big impact on how easy it is. If you suck at the game, it'll be a hellish time. But if you're good, you'll be able to take full advantage of the combat. A change I also like is that the Energy Guard is no longer permanent. In Zero I and II, if you got hit, you lose your Guard for 5 seconds. If you get hit again, you go down a level. It worked, but it was really easily cheesable, especially in Zero I. In Zero III, if you get Energy Guard, it guards not only your gun level, but your HP too. This sounds easier at first, but now it's consumable. You get 4 Guard at a time, up to 16, gradually respawning in the overworld. I wasn't a fan of this at first, but if you know what you're doing, you can easily get 16 guard and just power through this game. There's also Guard for the tank too. I didn't find it as useful (because the tank doesn't have gun power), but I'd rather have it than not. I really liked the weapons here, too. I used the Quad shot, Electricity, and Wave quite a bit. I wasn't really a fan of the pea shooter, or the whip though. Not because they're necessarily bad per se, but in general, I just found the others to be more effective. But, I really liked the top down sections way more than I expected to. Playing around with my toolkit was really fun, and the challenge feels just right to me, unlike Zero I, which was very easy. When it comes to the tank gameplay, it's generally what'd you expect from Blaster Master. Find upgrades that help you progress, find new abilities, travel the world, et cetera. Unlike the other games though, Zero III introduces a new mechanic; the sub SP. Your guns are more powerful than normal, but in exchange, all of your weapons (save for your vanilla shot) now consume an orange SP meter. This adds to the challenge of the game, as you have to now manage two SP systems. If both are drained at the same time, you get killed in one hit. In reality this is only really an issue with the super nuke you get at the end of the game, but watch out regardless. The main weapons are really fun to use. I really like G Crusher+; it's more damaging at the expense of SP cost. There's also this automatically shooting fire bomb thingy that does a fuck ton of damage. And the Anti SF ammo is fucking powerful. The regular subweapons are fine. I find Zero II’s a little better but I can live with these. Not a fan of the dash nerf, TBH. In Zero II it was a bit more practical for fast travel, because if you spammed it, you'd lose less SP overall. In Zero III, the SP cost is the same no matter what. I also wasn't the biggest fan of the super nuke. It's fine, but it's got nothing against Zero II’s Full Acceleration Burst. When it comes to the overall level design, it's great! They all stick out pretty well and I like them all. A thing I really liked about them were the hyperspace sections. By pressing L+R near a weird screen crack, you can enter hyperspace, and these provide an alternative version of the levels. It was a nice change of pace, but I kind of disliked the insta-kill thingies. They probably should’ve toned down on those, but other than that, it’s pretty fun! The bosses are also pretty fun. These are so much better than Zero II’s bosses, because for one, they're not too easy, but also not too difficult. My favorite would have to be the Jason boss, but for that, I'd have to go into a plot summary. So, SPOILERS AHEAD!
Zero III starts off directly after the last game. Jason and Eve were promptly captured once they return to Sophia, the Gaia Sophia completely destroyed in the process. We don't know why yet, but out of nowhere, the Sophia Force who captured Jason and Eve are now under attack, so Jason hightails it out of there with a new tank, attempting to find Eve, only to be stopped by Kane Gardner. Not even he knows where Eve went. It’s a long journey of going to hyperspace, and exploring Planet Sophia. Yeah, unlike Zero II, you only get one world, aside from Stranga. It does make it feel a bit more linear, but I think it works overall here. As the game goes on, they reveal that after the last game, Eve technically turned into a mutant, hence why they were attacked at the start of the game. After Planade G’s downfall, Eve’s mutated cells were still present, and as Eve technically killed Planade G, mutants were left without a ruler, and Eve was crowned as the Mutant Queen, hence her absence. If Eve were to be killed or go AWOL, the mutants would grow angry and cause a rampage on earth. This leaves Jason with a descision in Area 6. You can either let Eve seal herself away in hyperspace, suffering for the rest of her life, or you can intervene. Intervening will cause Eve to look back and cry, revealing her true feelings to Jason. Jason promises that they will reunite one day, and the game fades to black. After this, we cut to Kane in hyperspace with the Sophia III, ordered to kill Jason and Eve as they opened a hyperspace portal without permission. However, the mutants couldn’t attack Sophia if they wanted to, as Eve stopped them from doing so. Even then, Kane still has to kill them, leading to a fight. You can select either Jason or Kane, but the choice is fruitless story-wise. I recommend picking Kane for this, as his boss fight with Jason is AWESOME. It’s really hard, but everything is telegraphed so well. He uses all of the abilities you gained throughout the adventure, which not only shows how far you came, but makes for a chaotic fight. This should be a trope in metroidvanias from now on. Definitely the best bossfight in the series. When it comes to the Kane fight, things are more disappointing. It’s really damn easy. I beat it on my first try, which is insane considering Rising Garuda took more attempts. But like I said, the ending is the same, so pick your poison. After the fight, it’s revealed that Eve and Jason actually had twins, and Kane decided to back off. After saying farewell to his daughter, Eve, the two (and Fred, yeah he’s still here) ride off into the unknown, thus ending Blaster Master Zero III. I’m serious, that’s pretty much it. I love Zero III but I just wish there was more of it. Zero I and II had so much content outside of the main story (alt characters, hard mode, mini-games, etc.), but Zero III has nothing of note unfortunately. We should’ve at least got a mode where we play as Kane or something. That’s literally my only major complaint about this game, because otherwise Zero III is pretty much perfect to me. Zero III is an incredible send-off to the series, genuinely one of the best sequels of all time. And I thought Zero II was amazing; this just blows it out of the water. Play this game. It’s such a great time, but make sure you play Zero I and II, too. The ending of III has a bigger impact because I played Zero I and II first (at least it does to me). Farewell, Blaster Master!

This review was originally posted on The Legend of Dark With Wiki, prior to it's closure and my retirement from said wiki, and is now fully archived on Backloggd. I do not condone NAN-A nor Inside System's actions. They have participated in morally grey actions within the community and inside the franchise itself. As such, these reviews can no longer be considered recommendations, and do not have any formal scores to them. I stress that you do not take these reviews at face value. Any content within this review is subject to being broken, questionable, outdated, low quality, or at times, unreadable. Additionally, these were made from a different point of view compared to my writings of today, so I please ask that you disregard any positive statements about NAN-A or Inside System. All of these articles may be found, in their original, intended form here, alongside their numerous revisions. Additionally, these reviews are liscensed under CC-BY SA 4.0, under wiki policy. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the review.

Returning from her slumber, the mistress rises once more and hands Blad Brave Dungeon, after reviewing the first game. Blad rises to the challenge once more, and so the story continues...

Brave Dungeon is quite the fan favorite in the series. If you ask someone "Rank the Dark Witch games", many will but BD up with the likes of 2 and 3. I was definitely a little surprised to say the least. My first play through didn't leave the best taste in my mouth. I thought it was repetitive as all hell and the combat was too easy. But that was a couple years ago, and my opinions on the Dark Witch games have shifted around a lot. So today we'll be reviewing Brave Dungeon for the Nintendo 3DS. We'll also take a look at the Switch and PC half-port, half-new game, Brave Dungeon + Dark Witch's Story: COMBAT. Gah, what a silly name. Apologies for the small rant, but Dark Witch games have always had really awesome titles. The Price of Desire, Wisdom and Lunacy, The Meaning of Justice, etc. And no, Break Rock Syega Crystal is not a good title. So why did they feel the need to add "Dark Witch's Story: COMBAT" to the title? Why not just call it "Brave Dungeon + Combat", or more simply "Brave Dungeon+". In fact, you know what? From here on out, I'll just refer to it as "COMBAT". I won't be mentioning it a whole lot anyways. As a final note, I played this game on Lunatic in a New Game+ save file. New Game+ is really cool in this game for reasons I'll explain later, but you'll absolutely want to use it as soon as you get it. Just make sure not to overwrite your original clear file. Anyways, lets get into the best part, the music!

Music
I'm going to run this joke into the ground, and yeah, Brave Dungeon's soundtrack is great. Interestingly, they remixed Dark Witch 2's main theme and intro, and that became the series' main theme. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed going into 3 that this was the case, but I don't mind it all too much. Brave Dungeon's soundtrack is intresting as it's half Dark Witch 2, half Dark Witch 3. It's a bit hard to explain in text, but Brave Dungeon doesn't feel as sequenced as Dark Witch 2, and whether that's good or bad is up to you. Personally, I don't mind it, but everyone's different. Even then, you can tell it's sequenced, even if it's less obvious. I don't really have a lot to complain about, but that's mostly because the soundtrack is 21 songs long. If I have to sum up most of the issues with Brave Dungeon's soundtrack, is that it's pretty repetitive, not helping that the song repeats when you leave a battle (Seriously? FFVII got that right years ago.). This game is one of the longer Dark Witch games to beat, and will take a while, especially on your first playthrough. But other than that, I'm not really a fan of some songs in the game. The first dungeon's music was far too repetitive for my tastes, the battle theme... eh. And Bajel's fight wasn't that good in my opinion. The rest though? Easy songs on repeat. My favorite song is Zizou's battle theme, which has an incredibly long build up, but just pays off in the end. So all in all, Brave Dungeon's OST is great! Now, lets get into the story.

Story
The story starts off with Al fucking dying.

Just kidding. The story kicks off in the Old Islands, where Al is searching for a magic item. She enters Godshill, and gets knocked out by several enemies. This is where we're introduced to Lugli, an innkeeper who saves Al. She gives her advice, and from here, Al is off to the races, and with a couple friends as well. Together, they traverse the dungeons of the Old Islands. After that, there really is no dialogue. But in the end, the girl who holds magical item named Bajel, fights Al for it. Al ends up winning, but Bajel teleports the item to Nightmare, where its reputation precedes itself. Al fights Zizou, and Al wins, and she now holds the magical item. And that ends Brave Dungeon. Yeah, a rather bland story for an RPG, isn't it? It doesn't really infuriate me, but it's just so boring, I couldn't care about it. The only part I really cared about is Bajel, who looks awesome. I'm a big fan of pixel art, and she looks amazing. Her movements are fluid and look great. But yeah, other than that, this is the only game in the series where I always skipped the cutscenes. The story really is just that bad.

Gameplay
Brave Dungeon is quite the abnormal RPG when it comes to progression. You don't earn stats when you level up, save for HP. In Newport, you can buff your character with Tres earned. Think SMT IV, for example. It's an intresting system that I like a lot, as harder difficulties give you more Tres, but lower difficulties give you less Tres. My only issue with this system is that you can only do it outside of dungeons, and that would've been really useful to have. Other than that, you can craft many accessories, some of which are really good, like the parry ring, or the 50% ring, which gives you 50% more HP. That's awesome! You can also buff your skills with lunch tickets, which are always decently useful. Annoyingly, it's random, but you can drop out party members if you want to buff a specific character. You can also use Class Change to get a new skill, alongside a big buff to your stats. You select your skills (you get them all in the long term), and then you change your class. Your stats also stack for each class change, so there's no real reason to not change your class. You can also change your character, all of them having various advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I use Mari, Al, and Stoj. Mari debuffs enemies, Stoj heals but packs a punch, and Al is an all around character.

Dungeons
Starting out, you have 5 dungeons. These dungeons have 4 floors each, save for the final dungeon, Godshill, which has 2 more. The last floor is reserved for the boss in Nightmare, and you can go for any dungeon at any time, save for Nightmare, which you unlock after beating Bajel. While this sounds special, in reality, there's only one true order, as most enemies above your level will mop the floor with you without a fight. However, if you're brave enough, you can go to another dungeon, fight monsters, and get more EXP and Tres than at your current level, which is neat. However, the dungeons in this game are unfunnily unremarkable. Like, if you think Dark Witch 1 and 2 had linear levels, Brave Dungeon blows them out the water and into the atmosphere. No joke, it's literally a straight line where you hold one direction at a time. It's not fun at all, and the only real point of the alternative paths is to get more accessories and materials (which you use to craft accessories). Even then, you get materials from battles, so it's kinda pointless. Once you hit Nightmare, this is where it starts to get really bad.

The Never-ending Nightmare
Yes, Nightmare is THAT bad, so it gets it's own section. The first person who gets the header's reference gets $5 in Steam credit.[Notes 1]

Not only do you not have a map, not only is the difficulty astronomically hard, not only can you not jump floors with an item, not only is there large floors of poison which suck your HP up (other dungeons have poison, but this dungeon is loaded with it), not only are the first 5 floors randomized, but the floors are extremely large and non-linear, and can easily take up to an hour on your first try. And don't even get me started on Zizou, who hits like a truck, and has a move which heals over 40K goddamn HP. And if you die at any point, it's back to square one. I'm a fan of marathon stages in games. Mega Man's Wily Fortress stages are great, I really like the late game of Dark Witch 1 and 2, Gunvolt 3's D-Nizer Mode is great, and the Blood Stained Sanctuary from Cave Story is almost perfect in it's design. But this just went WAY, WAY, WAY too far. In fact, I still haven't beaten it yet. Because I got to Zizou, lost, and nearly destroyed my 3DS. THIS isn't fun. Not one bit. Fuck this dungeon. You cannot physically tell me how this is fair. One guy pointed out how it gives you over 3 million Tres so you can power up your character. OK, fair point. But that doesn't make this dungeon any more fun. If I wanted to grind, I'd go to literally any other dungeon. Also, some of you may point out that you should play it in New Game+, which I agree with. But it should've been very clear from the start. I have no idea what NAN-A was even thinking here. And you know what also sucks? This dungeon returns in Brave Dungeon 2, so I'll have to play it AGAIN! Although 2 is a lot easier, so I'm not sure about if it's gonna suck, but still! Didn't NAN-A know when to pump the brakes, maybe just a little? The only good aspect of this dungeon is it's music, which is an awesome rock song. Too bad you never get to hear it in full due to the...

Battles
The battles are your typical turn-based combat affair. You attack, they attack, you (de)buff, they (de)buff, and so on. So there's not much to explain. One annoying thing is that you can't run from fights unless you 100% the map. And that's not even a great thing anyways, as the enemy doesn't despawn. You might as well bite the bullet as battles aren't all that difficult. Not mindless or anything, just not that hard. Boss battles will be the bulk of your playthrough, and they can get kinda tough at points. They do really strong damage, so you'll want someone who can debuff enemies. Some also inflict lots of statuses, so watch out. And that's really it for the battles. So lets move onto the postgame.

Postgame
The postgame is pretty interesting in my opinion. It expands on what Brave Dungeon already does. You can unlock buffs in-game, and even unlock Zizou when you've beaten the game, who is really overpowered, but to compensate, she can't have any other party members. Brave Dungeon really pushes NG+, but to be honest, I'm probably not going to beat the game again, even if I think the game is decent. I haven't 100%ed the game yet, but I probably will, as it seems really easy to do. I'll update this blog when I do. Before I close out the review, I'll talk about COMBAT.

COMBAT
COMBAT is a rerelease of Brave Dungeon, and also sports a new game, Dark Witch's Story: COMBAT. Let's cover the new stuff in Brave Dungeon, and really, there's not a lot. Klinsy and Nevile are playable, and at the time, 3 was the game everyone cared about, so it's kinda cool that they added Nevile here. There's some new graphics for the dungeon, and the UI has been updated for the lack of a second screen. The game also has an enemy mode on PC, where you play as Hiroto, and accumulate monsters to fight with you. You can also reverse the maps on PC, which kinda messed with me, but it's still a fun feature. I'd say this is the definitive version of the game, so play this version if you're new to Brave Dungeon.

Anyways, COMBAT. It's a card game, where you play 2/3 matches against your opponent. You climb the ranks and earn Tres to power up your cards. The card-battling is rather simplistic and requires little-to-no player input. You can't even cheer your card on, which would've been cool. So I wouldn't even bother with this game, and as far as I know, you don't have to even play it for 100%. The card art is the only good part about this game. Seriously, why did they make Kinnopi so adorable?! But other that that, yeah, this mode sucks.

Overall, COMBAT is a nice upgrade, but it's asking price is a bit contentious. Brave Dungeon was $5, and COMBAT is $9, and $13 on PC. I think it's worth it (particularly for the postgame), but if you don't agree, I can understand that.

Conclusion
This review might seem pretty negative at first. Some of you may think I hate Brave Dungeon, but in reality, that couldn't be farther from the truth. Brave Dungeon is a decent game, at least in my opinion. Hell, you might get a kick out of the game if you enjoy the fundamentals. One guy I know (Oersted) loves the game, and he knows it in and out. But unfortunately, it's just not my cup of tea. But it might be yours. Even then, I'd still recommend the game, even if its flaws are really annoying. As for COMBAT, I think it's really nice, but I wouldn't double-dip unless you really liked Brave Dungeon on the 3DS. If you're a newcomer, the price is a bit steep, but I think it's still worth a purchase. Overall, I'll give Brave Dungeon a 7.5/10. The Switch port doesn't do much, but I guess it didn't do anything too bad. I'll give it an 8/10.

And that's another review in the bag. Normally I would host a voting session, but there would really be only one choice. Next time, we're covering the spinoffs. And then after that, the review series finale, Brave Dungeon 2. And that's a special case, so that's going to be last. I'd be a bit hesitant to review a game that's technically not even finished, but I'll explain my motives when I get there. But thank you for all of the support again, and have a good day. Take care.

Blad abandons the mistress, but soon, he would come to regret that. But that's a story for another time...