Blaster Master
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Blaster Master, also known as Metafight in Japan, is a NES game that was developed and published by Sunsoft. It borrows many elements from Sunsoft's Bomber King. It received a sequel titled Blaster Master 2 on the Sega Genesis, and a spinoff titled Blaster Master: Boy. It is generally considered to be one of the best NES games ever.
Plot
English Version
Fred, Jason Frudrick's frog, jumps out of his fish bowl and sprints to the door. Jason chases after him, but the frog touches a radioactive chest, which makes the frog extremely big. Fred then falls into a hole. Jason tries to reach for Fred, but he falls into the hole as well. When Jason lands, he finds SOPHIA, designed to fight mutants. It is your goal to beat the Plutonium Boss.
Japanese Version
In the Epsilon Galaxy, 2052, Goez, the "god of the universe", invades the Episilon Galaxy. The NORA Science Academy creates the Metal Attacker to fight Goez. It is your goal to beat Goez.
Why It's a Master
- It has an amazing concept, and it's very well executed. You can control 2 characters, S.O.P.H.I.A., and Jason. S.O.P.H.I.A. is very powerful and can kill things with little to no trouble. However, S.O.P.H.I.A. can't climb ladders or reach tiny openings. So you have to whip out Jason, who is weaker, but who can enter top down sections. In these top down sections, you can explore and find upgrades for S.O.P..H.I.A..
- The graphics are great. They even use lots of tricks that are advanced for the NES, like parallax scrolling.
- Amazing Soundtrack. Every song is extremely catchy, and every area has their own song.
- Decent controls.
- Lots of levels. There are 8 levels which require you to explore them all to beat the game.
- The upgrades are great to use.
- Hyper and Crusher power up your shots. Many enemies die in a couple hits thanks to this.
- Hover allows you to hover as long as you have enough fuel.
- Dive allows S.O.P.H.I.A. to swim underwater.
- Wall 1 allows you to scale walls, and Wall 2 allows you to walk on ceilings.
- The bosses are great. They test your skills, but they are pretty manageable for the most part.
- The ending is awesome. After defeating the Plutonium Boss, you watch a mountain crumble in the distance with sweet and somber music playing in the background. In the Famicom version, you also get a cute shot of Jason and Eve.
Bad Qualities
- Despite being fun to play as, Jason has some major issues.
- There's little-to-no point in using your gun when bombs are not only infinite, but do way more damage.
- The Gun System is way too punishing. Take one hit, and you're down a level. The Gun Power-ups are also pretty rare.
- Jason can take fall damage, which is fine, but it's way too extreme. If you simply jump off a 1-block fall, you take two points of damage. And for a 5-block fall, you might as well be dead.
- Sometimes your bombs can feel inaccurate. You can't hit enemies with the blast radius, you must hit them with the center of your bomb.
- There are limited lives. It's even worse in the NES versions where you only have 4 continues. So, in the NES version, you only have 15 shots to beat the game.
- You can't save. There's not even a password system.
- This doesn't apply to the Virtual Console releases because of the save state feature.
- Some songs are a little repetitive, such as Area 2 or Area 8.
- The frame-rate is inconsistent, and often drops.
- Occasionally, the game can be pretty unfair. For example, falling in lava or water kills you in one hit. Later games would only have you lose 1 damage instead of dying.
- The PlayStation version, while still great, suffers from poor sound.
Reception
Blaster Master was acclaimed by both critics and audiences, and is considered to be one of the best NES game ever made.
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