Let's Talk About Blaster Master Zero 3

When it comes to retro styled 2D platformers, few companies do them better than Inti-Creates. Hell, given that they developed Mega Man 9, they arguably started the modern trend of retro styled games to begin with. And they’ve proven time and time again to be a solid developer, Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 1+2 are great games in the style of classic Castlevania, and their Gunvolt series offers solid action in the vein of the Mega Man Zero series, which they also helped create.

But of all their games, my personnel favourites are the Blaster Master Zero games. For those who don’t know what a Blaster Master is, it was an NES game developed by SunSoft that was a weird mix of side scrolling action, exploration and top-down dungeon crawling. It was an innovative game for its time and went on to become a cult favourite on the system.

It spawned numerous sequels, and a lot of them were terrible. Some were ok, but even the better ones were never able to recapture the magic of the original. The series laid dormant after the 3D entry, Blaster Master: Blasting again, before SunSoft rebooted it with Blaster Master Overdrive on Wii Ware.

Sadly, that game ended up being a commercial and critical flop. And with it being a Wii Ware title, there’s no legal way to play it anymore. After that it looked like the series was all but done.

Luckily, Inti-Creates would step up to the plate and develop another reboot in the form of Blaster Master Zero. A remake/reimagining of the original Blaster Master, the game released in 2017 on the Nintendo 3DS and was a launch title for the Nintendo Switch to critical acclaim.

I loved the game. It had the same unique gameplay that made the original a cult classic, but updated with modern conveniences that made it way more fun to play. It's one of the best remakes/reboots I've ever played.

The game was a success and 2 years later we got a sequel. And for as good as the original Zero was, Zero 2 was even better. It had a much larger world to explore, the combat was faster and flashier, and it had big tiddied anime waifus. What's not to love.

And with it being 2 years since Zero 2’s release, we’re about due for a sequel. And we got one right on cue, Blaster Master Zero 3. I was ecstatic when this was first announced. I loved the first 2 games and this one looked like it would continue the series standard of excellence.

Blaster Master Zero 3 is being billed as the final game of the series, and after playing it, that’s pretty much what it is. It wraps up all the storylines and plot threads, and the gameplay is as refined as you could possibly get. It's obvious Inti-Creates have done all they possibly can with it, and it makes sense why they would want to end it and move on to other projects. But the question is, does it end the series on a high note?

Before we get started, if you’re thinking about jumping into this series with this entry, don’t. While the game is still perfectly playable without playing the first 2 games, Zero 3 assumes that you have as there’s a lot of story elements you’re going to be lost on if you didn’t play them beforehand.

There is a recap at the beginning, but even with that most newcomers will probably be confused with some elements of the plot. This is the grand finale of the series, and a lot of the big emotional moments won’t have much impact if you didn’t play the other games first.

The game picks up right where the last game ended. After freeing Eve of her mutant infection, Jason and the gang have finally made it to Eve’s home planet of Sophia. And upon arriving they are promptly shot down, imprisoned and their battle tank G-Sophia is stripped of all the upgrades it got in the last game. Not the most inviting of welcome wagons but who am I to judge an alien culture.

Actually, the real reason for this is because Sophia’s military detect that Eve might be a threat. Confused by this, and with the help of a convenient mutant invasion, Jason escapes, hijacks his G-Sophia SV tank and set out to find out what’s going on.

He's aided in his journey by Kane Gardner, a fellow Metal Attacker pilot and Sophia’s “father”, and Leibniz his rival from the last game who is just a total dick. I'm not kidding, Leibniz is a total asshole and just tags along to watch Jason fail. I love them, they’re like a parody on the edgy rival trope.

One thing I liked about Blaster Master Zero was how it took various narrative elements from across the Blaster Master series and meshed them all together into a cohesive plot. And that was sorely needed given how convoluted the timeline is.

You thought the Zelda timeline was convoluted, wait till you get a load of this. Not only do the original Japanese version and the American version have completely different plots, but the novelization of the American version is also considered canon. That's right, a frigging novel is canon in this series. Not even Kingdom Hearts would do something like that, and they make everything canon.

Anyway, the Zero series takes all of this and tries to simplify things. Not only does that make the story easier to follow, but it also adds fan service for long time fans of the series. That Kane Gardner guy, he’s the main protagonist of the Japanese version of the first Blaster Master game. And the planet you’re on is the same one from that game with that game's events implied to have taken place prior to the first Zero game. So, technically, the first game is still in continuity with the Zero series.

In a day and age where reboots are throwing the original under the bus to elevate themselves, it’s nice to see one that actually shows respect to the original. They didn’t have to throw in all these callbacks, but they did it anyway. Inti-Creates are clearly fans of this series and that’s refreshing to see.

As for the actual plot of Zero 3, I'm torn on it. For the first 2 thirds of the game, I was enjoying it. I liked the character interactions, particularly with Leibniz, and I was interested in seeing where the story was going. There’s a mystery in what happened to Eve that gets built up throughout the game and they do a good job of slowly drip feeding you information to keep you invested in finding out what exactly happened.

And then you find out what happened, and it all falls apart. I'm not happy with how the story turns out in this game. A lot is due to the ending, which I can’t talk about since I would go into spoiler territory. So I'll have to talk about it in a more general sense.

The ending tries to be a bittersweet finale to the series. I like a good bittersweet ending, but the only way an ending like this can work is if it feels earned. It needs to make sense why the story would end this way otherwise the audience will feel cheated. Zero 3 doesn’t do this as the ending is based on things they pulled out of their ass, some of which contradict elements from the previous games.

Like the entire impetus for the plot. Blaster Master Zero 2 ended with Jason and Eve landing on Sophia with no issues at all, but here they’re shot down and imprisoned upon approaching it. In other words, the only reason this game even exists is because of a massive retcon. I hate it when sequels do this.

And there are some plot points that don’t go anywhere. You spend an entire level trying to get a herb and it ends up contributing nothing to the plot. It's pure filler designed just to have a larger appearance from the big tiddied plant girl. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I wasn’t a big fan of how the plot ended up. There were things I liked about it, I liked the characters and some of the plot twists were interesting, but the ending really left a sour taste in my mouth. It just doesn’t feel like the ending we were building up to over the last few games.

I will say that the ending was very emotional, and I will give them credit for once again trying to tie into the larger Blaster Master series with it, I just don’t think it was the right path to take with it. It's a disappointing finale for the series story wise.

But this isn’t a story centric game. Its primary focus is on the gameplay, and thankfully that’s just as fun as it’s ever been. The game is split between two different perspectives, side scrolling action sequences where you control the G-Sophia SV and top-down dungeon crawling stions where you play as Jason.

The side scrolling sections are similar to Metroid. A lot of it is spent exploring to find various upgrades to explore more of the level with some areas being inaccessible until later. It is far more linear than Metroid with only one path to progression and no sequence breaking, but the element of exploration is still there.

There's a plethora of side areas and optional dungeons to complete that will reward you with health, SP or weapon upgrades that aren’t necessary for progression but are rewarding to find. You will need to backtrack to get some of these, but it isn’t so bad here.

The backtracking is thankfully kept to a minimum. There's only one part of the game that requires it, which makes it a good time to get any remaining upgrades, and the fast travel system makes it painless.

Sophia is a well-equipped tank. You'll find a lot of weapon and mobility upgrades that make it a force to be reckoned with. A lot of what it was capable of in the previous game it can do here, once you find the upgrades for them anyway. Wall jumping, wall climbing, hovering, it’s all here and just as fun as it always was.

The only new movement upgrade is the Spider Legs, which allow you to walk over hazardous terrain and give you slightly better control. Sophia does control well enough, but it is a little slippery. Especially when you compare it to other action game like Metroid or Mega Man. Then again, you are in a tank, so maybe they were trying to emulate what that would feel like to control.

The lack of new movement upgrades sans the Spider Legs is a little disappointing. The upgrades you get are still great, but we’ve seen them all before. Plus, you don’t get the wall climbing ability until way late in the game and that was always one of the most fun upgrades to use. Very disappointing.

In terms of weaponry, again most of it is reused with some slight modifications. The Burn Chaser for example is now a water-based charge attack that doesn’t deal damage but does make you invincible while it’s active.

Sophia has 2 types of weapons it can equip, the main canon and a sup weapon. The main canon has a variety of different shot types to choose from, while sup weapons consist of missiles, homing lasers, ground sparks, screen nukes and block creations. If that last one didn’t clue you in, some of these are used for environmental puzzle solving as well as killing enemies.

Both types of weapons, outside of your most basic shot, require SP in order to use. And unlike last time, they both have separate SP bars, so now you can go ham with your main weapon without running the risk of being completely drained. Once one of them runs out it’ll slowly regenerate though you will be in a much weaker state, and if both run out you’re useless. Try not to let that happen.

The easiest way to recharge SP, besides picking up SP items, is by using the Gaia system that returns from Zero 2. Whenever you fall from a tall height or get hit you’ll recover a little bit of SP, and there are plenty of opportunities to use it so you should always have SP so long as you don’t spam like an idiot.

The side scrolling sections are still a blast to play but there isn’t much in the way of significant improvements. The lack of new movement upgrades and similarity in the weapons make things a bit too familiar to the last game. I like the split in the SP bar, but that’s the only noticeable improvement.

Things change when Jason gets out of the tank. For one thing, Jason now has a jet pack that makes platforming a lot easier, no more tricky platforming leading to falling to your death. But you won’t spend much time in the side scrolling as Jason, you’ll do some platforming and puzzle solving but the main reason to have Jason leave Sophia is to enter a dungeon.

At this point the game switches to a top-down dungeon crawler style of gameplay. Think classic Zelda mixed with a run and gun. These sections play like they did in the previous games. He still has access to a variety of sub weapons, his gun has multiple different modes, and he can still use Blast Counters and dash to avoid enemy attacks. However, these sections also feature much more recognizable differences.

Blast Countering now charges a lot faster and can be chained together to hit multiple enemies at once. You still need to get the timing right, but it’s much more satisfying to pull off especially when you take out multiple enemies at once. You also don’t need to equip them, the kind of counter you can do is dependent on the situation. There are fewer options this time, but they’re easier to pull off since you don’t have to constantly swap them out.

But the biggest difference is in the weapons system. Like the tank, Jason has a sub weapon and a main weapon. The sub weapons aren’t as much fun, but they are different from last time at the very least. The main weapon has various modes it can switch between. They all return from the last game, but the way it works has changed significantly.

In previous games, the weapons you could use were tied into your weapon level. Every time you picked up a power up you gained a new weapon. This had some issues. For one, you lost weapon levels when you took damage, and since your weapons were tied to your weapon level, well I'm sure you can figure it out.

The biggest problem for me though was how overpowered the final weapon was. Once you got the wave beam you didn’t need anything else. So you had multiple types of weapons with different strengths and weaknesses, and one weapon that acted as the win button. It wasn’t exactly balanced.

Blaster Master Zero 3 fixes all of this. Now you always have access to all your weapons, weapon power ups merely makes them stronger. While you only have 5 weapons as opposed to the 8 of previous games, this is still a much-needed improvement. Not only giving you more options in combat, but also in puzzle solving as some switches require specific weapons to activate them.

You can add weapons to a shortcut on the left or right triggers, this applies for the Sophia weapons as well. Swapping between weapons is easy enough, but having shortcuts is just more convenient. It’s also much better than having to swap between weapons in the middle of a fight, which does happen frequently.

And the weapons themselves are much more well balanced. While the wave beam is still a good weapon to use it is nowhere near as overpowered as it was before. The game even encourages experimentation as enemies now have specific weaknesses to certain weapons.

The top-down sections are easily the best they’ve ever been. We may have lost a few things, and the sub weapons aren’t as good, but the refinements more than make up for this.

The gameplay of Blaster Master Zero 3 keeps the same standard of excellence found in the last few games. The problem is just how samey it all is. We've seen a lot of what it has to offer in the previous games and there isn’t much in the way of innovation.

There is, however, one element that gives Blaster Master Zero 3 its own identity, dimension shifting. This is the big new mechanic of Blaster Master Zero 3. you’ll find dimensional ruptures that allow you to shift into another dimension. A lot of the game revolves around this with you having to swap in and out of dimensions to solve puzzles and gain access to areas you otherwise couldn’t.

It’s an interesting mechanic that leads to some fun level design. Stuff like this can often be a little confusing, but Zero 3 manages to keep things simple enough so as not to make things too convoluted.

My only issue is that they didn’t go far enough with it. While some areas do shake things with the alternate dimensions like shifting the gravity, most keep things straight forward. It's not as creative as it could be.

This is all for the side scrolling sections, the top-down sections do things differently. In those, the level lay out switches to a randomly generated map akin to a rogue like. These are fine, but again I would have liked to see more creativity here.

There is one thing about the dimension shifting that I really like. Throughout the game you’ll run into optional dungeons called SF bases, multilayered dungeons with some of the hardest enemies that reward you with some upgrades if completed.

What's cool about these is that there’s a dimensional rupture on every floor giving you an option in how you approach it. Do you take the set path with harder enemies or take the unpredictable path with slightly easier enemies? I like when games give you a choice in how you want to play it.

The dimensional shifting is a fun mechanic, but I personally prefer the intergalactic travel of Zero 2. it was just a lot more fun exploring the different galaxies. I also felt like the levels were a lot more interesting and diverse compared to Zero 3. That’s kind of how I feel about Blaster Master Zero 3, it’s a lesser Zero 2. it’s still a great game, and in some cases it’s better, but it doesn’t innovate enough from its predecessor and is a step back in certain respects.

The world for example is so much smaller this time. Zero 2 had small levels but it made up for that with multiple galaxies and plenty of optional side areas and challenges. Zero 3 has gone back to how things were in the original Zero, which is still fine, but it still feels like a step backwards.

On its own terms, Blaster Master Zero 3 is still an excellent retro styled action platformer, but it’s lacking as a sequel. The sad thing is that I can’t recommend it as a stand-alone game because it’s clearly designed for people who played the original game. Not only because of the story but also because of the difficulty.

Blaster Master Zero 3 is a pretty tough game, easily the hardest in the series. It's never unfair, you have infinite lives and checkpoints are frequent enough so the punishment for dying isn’t too bad. But this game can get hard, especially near the end. The entire end game is especially difficult because the game takes away your upgrades. That was a dick move guys, I get what you were going for and I liked the callbacks to the first game but seriously, what the hell?

The main platforming and combat aren’t so bad, it’s the bosses that are the real pain. They are well designed for the most part, though some of the end game bosses were a bit too much. The bosses also have multiple phases that take advantage of the dimension shifting which is pretty cool admittedly.

But to get back to my original point, I can’t recommend Blaster Master Zero 3 as a stand-alone game. You can still have fun with it even without having played the first 2 games, but you would get the most out of it if you played those first. I can still recommend Blaster Master Zero 3 as a solid action game. It has its flaws, and I don’t like it as much as Zero 2, but it’s still an excellent game with tight gameplay and an excellent presentation.

If there’s one thing, I can’t be negative on, it’s the presentation. Inti-Creates have mastered the 8-bit art style and Blaster Master Zero 3 is some of their best work. Great sprite work, a vibrant colour palette and smooth animations, this game is an utter treat for the eyes.

They don’t just use the 8-bit style as a crutch. The result is a mix of classic retro style with new visual techniques that take advantage of modern hardware. The perfect blend of old and new. Even the anime styled cutscenes and character designs are well done. They won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I personally love it. You got to respect a game where one of the characters is a plant-girl waifu with literal melons on her chest.

And, of course, there’s the awesome music. I mean it has to be awesome, the original is one of the greatest, iconic soundtracks on the NES. This series was built on good music, and Blaster Master Zero 3 lives up to the series’ strong musical legacy.

It's catchy and upbeat when it wants to get you hyped up, but also tense and atmospheric to create an imposing feeling when it needs to up the ante. It's a nice balance between the two and there’s even some great remixes of classic Blaster Mater tunes. This soundtrack kicks ass.

Blaster Master Zero 3 is a decent ending the Zero trilogy. While I'm disappointed in how the story turned out and it could have been more innovative and creative with its ideas, I still had a of fun ton with it. It’s gameplay maybe a bit too similar to the other games, but that just means it keeps the same high level of quality.

At the very least I'm glad the series is ending now while they’re on top rather than continue and see it gradually get worse. I've seen it happen to far too many game series. Inti-Creates have crafted a solid trilogy of games here and I would recommend each of them to fans of retro games, or people looking for good action games in general.

I don’t know what’s next for Blaster Master. With Sunsoft not really existing it's hard to tell what will happen to it. I hope we see this series again because it’s such a unique series. As for Inti-Creates, well they’re still going strong and making excellent and I'm sure I'll play more of their games in the future. Except Gal Gun, I’m not nearly enough of a pervert to play that.