Blaster Master Zero

Great homage to original Blaster Master, starting out as remake and later giving new paint to it.
Pros:
+ really awesome graphics
+ energetic and catchy OST
+ addicting, but simple gameplay, where exploration feels rewarding
+ good and revamped controls
+ depending on what you are aiming for, first walkthrough will take you 6 to 9 hours
+ different modes to try after beating the game
+ 5€ price is great
Cons:
- up to level 8 it's too easy and mostly a breeze, level 8 and 9 have some difficulty spikes
- most of the bosses are way easier than stages
- good, but not refreshing
Nice little retro refresh of once great but forgotten series. Great on the go with steam deck or other allies. 7.5/10

Blaster Master Zero is a interesting metroidvania based on Sunsoft's 1988 classic game, where you're a guy in the search of his frog, defeating mutants and monsters. There's some places where you must get down your vehicle and do overhead perpective levels with your own gun and upgrades. It's pretty long and challenging, specially the Destroyer Mode. Be warned if you want the true ending you must beat every boss in the game, if you miss something you must go back WITHOUT WARPS and find what did you missed, frustrating. If you didn't obtained everything, you get the Darling in the Franxx ending lol.
Music and pixel art are amazing and the extra content gives you a lot of replayability.

This game is real good, as it was back in the day, but the upgrade makes it really very fun. The level design and thought that went into it is 10/10, much deeper than it might look at first glance. It's such a unique game too. There were some huge frustrations during my time clearing Destroyer Mode, but it was very satisfying when done. Some of that stuff is really tricky to figure out, but after it was over it felt like a labor of love, where I was able to appreciate the game a lot more seeing the 'true difficulty'.
I was surprised to want to give it 10/10 because it took me a while to warm up to this one. But yay.

Cool Metroidvania with tank and frog

I don't have a lot of experience with games from this time period, but I enjoyed this game. The setup for the story is an almost charmingly laughable excuse plot, and how it develops is a good summary of the game as a whole: simple, but it works. I appreciate the pixel art, areas, music, and so forth, as well as time-savers. However, backtracking to find a missed optional item can be too tedious to be worth it, and the lack of any way in the program to control its volume was less than ideal. Additionally, while most of the game is pretty easy, you can at times take an unexpectedly large amount of damage from something or another, and in a dungeon this'll quickly deplete your gun level beyond repair and likely snowball into a defeat, which doesn't feel good. Still, on the whole I got pretty much what I expected: a short, satisfactory retro experience.

Inti Creates has brought us a remake done right. It honors the NES classic without taking anything away and adds to it.

Having beaten this game on the Nintendo 2DS, it's really good. This is a 16-bit ground-up remake of one of my favorite NES games. As a note, Blaster Master Zero's story (and that of the two sequels) does not align with any of the sequels to the original NES Blaster Master.
Pros:
• The visuals are really fresh, smooth re-imaginings.
• The audio sounds pretty good, a decent update to the original.
• The plot has been mashed together and re-imagined from the original NES Blaster Master game, the Famicom Meta Fight game (the Japanese version of the same game which did not sell well), and the Worlds of Power Blaster Master novel.
• The game has been enhanced with optional new more difficult content.
• Some of the boss fights have been moved from the top-down sections to the side-scrolling platforming sections, and a few new bosses have been created.
• Many of the top-down sections have been enhanced with enemy-wave boss areas or small mini-boss fights, and new weapons and abilities have been added to the game to find both in there and around the platforming areas.
• There are more things to find in the tank platforming sections, namely upgrades to your health bar.
• It helps to have a map, and one has been added. Markers show where the top-down area doors are, which of those have boss areas / unlockables, and the presence of upgrades in the world map.
• Your tank's special weapons and energy (used for one of the mobility upgrades) are combined, and the Energy meter now slowly regenerates over time, keeping you from being stranded and encouraging you to use the special weapons more often.
• A special 'shield' can be acquired, protecting you in the top-down sections from losing your Gun upgrades for one hit. The shield does regenerate after a short time.
Cons:
• I'm a little disappointed at the change of Zone 2 from a crumbling castle to a space-age habitation zone, but it does admittedly work better in context.
• Much of the NES music has been dropped in favor of entirely new compositions, which is a shame because the original had such a banger soundtrack.
In short, if you like Metroid-vanias this game should be quite enjoyable to you. There's much more reason to play the other top-down sections, the plot's neat, but most importantly the game is just as fun as the original and there's more of it. It's not expensive ($9.99 US when it isn't on sale), so I'd highly recommend it if you are a fan of the classic or like Motroid-vania style exploration / upgrade games.