Blaster Master Zero

having never played the original blaster master games, only knowing about them tangentially, i was pretty excited when i heard about these. i actually only got reminded of its existence when BMZ2 was revealed in a nintendo direct, and immediately went to go download both of them. seeing as i'm now reviewing these games on steam, with 11 hours of play time on this one alone, you can probably tell just how highly i think of them.

movement is great, very fluid, combat is reasonably tough to a point, not rage-quittingly hard and there's plenty of strategies to git gud. this game's freakin dynamite... and honestly? weakest of the trilogy in terms of gameplay, it only gets better from here. and that's saying a whole lot. cause i love how this game plays.

really i just love this game.

So I played the entire trilogy and decided to leave thoughts on what made each one good while it is all fresh in my mind as someone who only saw bits and pieces of the original NES game and dabbled with Blaster Master Overdrive on the Wii (fucking ew). I had a little bit of hesitation going in to BMZ1 due to my prior experience, but I had more confidence after hearing the first area theme and seeing the layout.
While you could play each BMZ game separately, there is a recurring plot for each game so you should start with 1 and play the trilogy in order proper. BMZ1 is a good entry point for anyone as it serves as a bit of a "remake" of sorts for the first game featuring similar area layouts as the NES game. Perfect for newcomers and those who haven't played since NES, most of the game will end up being pretty manageable to get through and 100%. There is no fast travel in this game much like in the NES game, but no limited continues that may have haunted some old school players. The one gripe I can legitimately give is that as long as you remained power up, the game is extremely easy to the point that several bosses won't do anything by the time you kill them and only a couple will potentially put up any kind of fight. It's a good game to get your feet wet and see if you like the general premise, and if you do should definitely move on to continue to the next two games as they are much better than 1 and build off of the first game's mistakes.

Blaster Master Zero is an excellent remake of the original Blaster Master, with improved graphics, controls, audio, story, and everything. It feels like the original game, but improved, and does so without a bunch of extra, unnecessary "stuff" added onto it. If you enjoyed the original on the NES, or if you just enjoy platformers in general, I have no doubt that you'll enjoy Blaster Master Zero!

So glad they got this on the PC Steam. I had the Blaster Masters series before i sold off my Nintendo switch since i got the Steam deck. Now i can play the series all over again!!! On the better system of course!!! :)

Blaster Master Zero is very enjoyable. It feels quite video-gamey and very anime, rather like a lot of classic NES games, while being fun and quite accessible to play. One thing I would prefer, though, is if it was possible to change the volume.

Nostalgia hits me hard when I play this game. Works great with my controller, too!

Fantastic remake of the original NES game. The only problem in my opinion Is the red flashy boss intro every time you're about to fight a boss, which seems like a waste of time. Wish there was a setting to turn it off.