I'm a Blasting Master

Okay, being a retro-gamer, I've obviously played Blaster Master for the NES. It's one of the more popular games for the NES that never seemed to make much of a splash at the time. If you haven't played it, you definitely should, since it's awesome. I'm a huge fan of the game. I've beaten it several times. I sometimes draw my rendition of SOPHIA (the tank), have read the A.L. Singer (Worlds of Power) novelization of the game, and have even named my car SOPHIA the 3rd. Okay, that's a lie. I don't have a car. So I've named my bus pass SOPHIA the 3rd instead for the time being.

The NES game was a clone of Metroid, except that it had (in my opinion) tighter platforming controls. It varied the gameplay by forcing you to leave your tank and wander around as Jason (a cute little bite-size Jason) and fight the bosses in an overhead mode while you were out of your tank, exploring random caves and structures. It's got a great soundtrack, awesome graphics for its time, and one of the more catchy "game over" tunes. Seriously, even when I was frustrated at having died, that little tune would make me feel just a little better. (Especially that little noise at the end that sounds kind of like, "Browser") In short, it's one of my favorite games. I even had designs for a reboot of the series in the works until someone beat me to the punch.

Unfortunately, the game's franchise has been terrible. It's had a variety of sequels, including one for the Playstation (which I may review at a later date.) A gameboy color release, which was more or less a remake of the NES version with a few alterations, and a rip off of Bomberman. But none of these were as terrible (save the Playstation version, perhaps) as was the Sega Genesis version.

This just screams "Trying too hard"

The game picks up a few years after the events of the first game. I should point out that I mean the American events, because apparently Americans prefer a backwoods farm-boy chasing after his mutated frog as the story. The Japanese version was a bit more simple.

I don't honestly know or remember the story of Blaster Master 2, but that's okay because neither does the game. Or if it does, it doesn't factor in to the ending in any way. (Much like Mass Effect 3.) I had high hopes the first time I found out that this game existed. My first warning sign that things were going to be bad when instead of just taking me straight to the game or showing a quick little intro, the game instead brought me to an options menu where I could choose how many continues I could have and configure the button scheme. This has rarely, if ever, been a good sign of things to come.

The game begins...

And you can immediately deduce that everything is trying to kill you. I couldn't make it past the first level without having to use a variety of cheat codes. Now, my playing experience was made worse, admittedly, by the emulator I was using. I can't reassign the "save state" and "load state" shortcuts, and therefore am forced to use the F5 and F8 keys respectively. This normally isn't a problem, except that I'm playing on a laptop, and that means that those F-keys are always doubled up with another function, forcing me to press the "function" key before being able to press any of the F-keys. This really sucked later on. But for now, suffice to say that the game is rediculously hard at the get go. Most of the enemies take more than three shots to kill. If you're making a video game, please, please, for the love of all that is holy, never have baddies in the first level that take upwards of three hits to kill. And if you're dead set on it, at least make them rare and easy to hit.

The first level is kind of like a forest, although the color scheme reminds me of Angel Island Act 2.

It's been years, but I still can't figure out how Tails can fly...

After a little while, you fall down a pit and enter the underground. The underground is a woefully tragic story of robots, deadly dripping water, and fireballs that will kill you if you don't keep moving.

Rush hour traffic would greatly benefit from that last one.

Now, the gameplay itself hasn't varied all that much from the original NES version, except for how they've made it more retarded and difficult to do anything. Jason can still get out of the tank and has to if he wants to explore doorways that lead to boss fights. The height that he can jump has improved a lot, though.

You'd think that ladders would be kind of unnecessary in his world...

However, Jason still suffers from falling damage, which is a terrible thing to have if you happen to be in a platformer. Sadly enough, if Jason dies from falling, his body just kind of breaks apart and scatters, as though you had the "Bloody Mess" perk from Fallout turned on. This tends to happen a lot if you play as Jason and the game designers must have loved level 4 from the original Blaster Master because not only do you spend a lot of time on foot as Jason, but 1/4 of the game's rewards are keys to access a door to the end of the level.

Well, Level 1 has two bosses. In these boss battles, they've done away with the overhead view of the boss fights, as well as the originality of the first game's bosses. Here are the first two bosses.

At least Jason is all grown up now, for some reason.

Now, at this point, I should point out the counter-intuity (probably not a word) in the control scheme. To make Jason leave the tank in the NES game, you press Select. To make him walk through a door, you pressed up. That makes sense. To make Jason leave the tank in this game, you must press down and C (or whatever you've mapped the "Special Fire" button to) which would be all fine and dandy except that on your Sega Genesis controller, you have this nice little "Mode" button that isn't being used for anything in the game. You must do the same thing to enter the tank, which makes entering the tank a tad bit difficult if you parked over a ladder. And then you have the doors. I was literally stuck in that first boss room for fifteen minutes trying to use that damn door. At first, I tried pressing up, because that's what I seemed to remember doing to get in. Nothing. Maybe I'm not standing right? Adjust. Nothing. Down? Nope. Down and C? Nuh-uh. I pressed just about every combination of buttons there were and started to panic that the codes I had put in had made the game unplayable. I deactivated the codes right as I stumbled upon the secret of the doors. Up and Shoot. I had apparently stumbled on this combination as I entered the room by mistake. I don't know why they felt the need to add the shooting part to make it work. Especially if I'm already accustomed to the "Special Fire" C button as what lets Jason in and out of things. This was pointless, and maybe I'm being nit-picky about it, but I literally couldn't find any help in getting out of that room. I even looked at GameFAQs.com to get some help, but couldn't find any walkthroughs or codes. The only one they had didn't tell me anything but an intro, some "Frequently Asked Questions" (that I doubt were ever actually asked) and a bunch of "Don't steal this!!!" disclaimers that most FAQs and Walkthroughs on GameFAQs tend to be noted for.

Well, the horror was over, the quest for whatever the hell I'm doing in the game could finally continue. I pass through a door and enter the world of overhead view...

The horror... THE HORROR...

These parts were extremely stressful and unnecessary. First, controls. For the first time, I actually regretted not changing anything in the options menu at the beginning of the game. You see, the designers had the novel idea that since SOPHIA is a tank, you should be able to pivot her gun separately from her treads. Good idea on paper, but terrible execution. Here's why. In the standard set up, A button fires the cannon, but the B and C buttons rotate the canon counterclockwise and clockwise respectively. It seemed more natural that B should turn the cannon to the left (being further left on the controller) and C should turn the cannon right. Not so. The enemies move fast here, and before you leave the first level's top-down mode, you'll have encountered a spawn point for infinite enemies. You take heavy damage everywhere you go and thanks to the amount of detail provided by the designers, you lose a lot of control trying to accelerate, decelerate, or even just turn thanks to your treads having to reposition. You bounce off walls like they're made of rubber, often times throwing you back into the same danger that you'd just avoided.

"But what are you complaining about?" I'm sure you're wondering, "You've got cheat codes!"

First of all, interrupting is very rude. I was talking about the difficulty of this part of the game and you came in here all, "Hey, I'm gonna interrupt you with my interrupty-ness. Derp de derp." and it totally threw me off my groove. Don't do that again.

Second: for some reason, I couldn't find any cheat codes that worked for this part. I don't know why. Infinite lives code? Doesn't work on overhead mode. Invincibility? Doesn't work on overhead mode. I don't even get any special weapons in this mode to help defend myself. You'll notice in the screenshots that I actually lose lives in this part of the game. That's because between the difficulty of these areas and the convoluted way that I have to go about making save states, I got stuck in some very nasty situations. I was always lucky if I ended any one of these sections with any life left in my health bar.

After trudging through what could only be described as hell from above, I finally made it to level 2.

I'm honestly just as confused about what that thing is as you are.

First of all, I felt the need to ask something. Why do so many Sega games have skulls in them? Kid Chameleon alone had like, a bazillion. It just seemed like any time Sega wanted the game to be edgy or dark, they'd throw in a couple of skulls in the scenery like Martha Stewart throws flowers into a centerpiece arrangement.

The second level is much like the first. The exploration that you had in the first Blaster Master game is long gone by now. There is no back-tracking, no Metroid-esque exploration. Your path is pretty linear with a few branches that lead to dead ends, sometimes with goodies other time without.

Well, I guess now is a good time to explore your equipment screen.

Two of these options are set to 'ON' and I've yet to see them do anything. Wanna know why? Because everything to the right of the controller is actually a power-up you haven't gotten yet. I suppose that you would already guess that you'd get the hover ability, but it takes the anticipation away when you know that it's an eventuality. If we compare this to the first game's inventory screen:

Each dash represents a component that you would get for the tank, plus one for Jason. It led an air of mystery and kept you on your toes. It didn't just tell you outright what you were going to get. In fact, the only clue you'd have that there was a hover ability at all were the 'H' pickups that didn't do anything until you got the hover module. What's more, there's nothing special about Blaster Master 2's screen at all. Everything is in an ON/OFF position which is cool and all, but we really don't need a full position for "HOVER ON" and a full position for "HOVER OFF". The lights going on or off would do the trick. Greying out the boxes until you'd gotten the add on would help you feel like you could track your progress in the game.

But, I digress: Bosses...

Tanks for all the memories.

Eeeyup. Around here I've started to realize that each boss is just a rebuild of the previous one for the level. Here you get some armor which protects you from an electrical conduit (the only one in the game) and the other nets you the drill arm. (Which you will use exactly twice and has no other applications) Already, the game is setting up extra doodads and macguffins to pick up to pad the gameplay experience.

After some more exploring, you get another overhead portion (HATE HATE HATE)

World 3 is a world engulfed in flame.

This game is the harbinger of the apocalypse.

This is a fun one, since I got lost here for a very long time. The most confusing part was walking through a far away door as Jason only to come out of one that was closer. Upon trying to backtrack through that door I got:

He was also revved up like the roamer in the night.

I discovered that I'd need another pointless powerup that wouldn't directly affect the rest of the game: sunglasses. After a boss fight, I got the glasses, backtracked through the door, only to discover that there was no point to it at all. If I'd already gone the long way around, I didn't need to go through that door at all. To make matters worse, the boss will die over a fire pit, dropping your new power up in fire that hurts you.

Post-humus douchebaggery at its finest.

Both of the bosses will do this. The second drops fire armor which, to the best of my knowledge, is completely pointless after this level anyways. At this point, it's kind of like if Samus got the Ice Beam after a lot of exploration only to discover that its only use was to open the door from the inside of the Ice Beam room. Most of these powerups have been failing to do anything useful. I'm sure that the armor actually affords Jason some extra protection against attacks, but it still seems really pointless.

More overhead sections and then level 4.

He even is starting to look like Samus now...

Level 4 had an interesting premise, that there were dozens of doors to choose from. Choose the wrong one and get sent to some random place. Unfortunately, that random place was probably just one door south of the first door you walked through. The third door gets you a boss battle and the hover upgrade.

"Jason, your tank is the tank that will PIERCE THE HEAVENS!!!"

The boss is the only thing worth mentioning this time around, since the second rendition of him has him teleporting around like Nightcrawler from X-Men.

Incidentally, it's good to see that Master Chief wasn't always a big-shot.

I think they were trying to recreate the boss from level 3 of the NES version. Photophage, but as we called it in our family, Miss Madame Block. (I'm not being cutesy here, that's literally how we referred to the third boss)

If you never cried in frustration because of this boss, then you aren't a man.

The only problem was, because of his teleporting, the boss from Blaster Master 2 is a lot easier to beat, since he will teleport, move to ram you in a random direction, then disappear again. He won't always hit you with the ramming move, but will frequently jump in front of your line of fire.

Well, more overhead portions (I didn't get many screen caps since I was trying desperately not to die.)

Level 5 is the water-themed one. Only there's not that much water. It took me forever to find out where to go because I wasn't aware that Jason could shoot down. (Knowing that would've shaved 30 minutes off of Level 3) The boss is a giant fish that tries to ram you. He actually becomes less deadly the closer you get to beating him, since you get hit twice when he's slow (since you're still in his hit box as he swims past you) but only once when he's fast and near death. Then, just like so many fish before him, he turns red and explodes.

I'm not sure that this is physically possible...

It's at this point that I realize that the game is requiring me to get all of the bosses, because the powerup from this boss wasn't anything special (the ability to use rockets like the tank, but as little Jason). But beating him inexplicably caused a wall to disappear allowing me to move on. Onto the water part of the stage where SOPHIA can't jump. Just like Level 5 in the NES version. Only in the NES version, you got a sweet submarine attachment for SOPHIA. In this one you get...

A toy Scuba-SOPHIA?

Which allows you to...

Jump.

The worst part about this, again, is that it would be useful... If there were ever any use for it afterwards. Once again, Samus is given the Morph Ball for the sole purpose of escaping the room where the Morph Ball is stored. This is the first and last instance in the entire game where your vehicle is completely immersed in water. It's also the first and last instance in the entire game where water doesn't inflict damage to your body.

This part would've been hell without cheats.

Alright, so I skip over the overhead parts because there is nothing cool to see there and they were insanely hard. The safest place was right near the entrance of the overhead level. I still died there more than 3 times.

For that one guy who will not shut up about the overhead parts.

Level 6 is indistinguishable from previous levels. It lacks creativity and just proves that the creators were just trying to pad the game to a good round number of 8 levels. Around level 3, I was hoping that there would only be 5 levels. This was the last nail in the coffin for that dream. (Of course, the fact that I hadn't figured out what the white backpack thing in my inventory was is another good clue)

It's never a good sign if the creators are recycling bosses. I can't remember what I got here, but I honestly think that it was just two keys to doors to continue on to the next level.

Level 7 is another place holder level. The only thing worth mentioning is that by now you have the jetpack for Jason which eliminates falling death. The downside is it seems to burn up more hover fuel than the tank does. (And they somehow inexplicably draw from the same fuel tank...)

I know it's not clever or witty, but damn that's a big key...

I can't remember anything else about this place. The bosses were repeats of the bosses of level 2, which means that they've literally just added two levels of filler for no other reason than to prolong the game. But finally, through perseverance and a helluvalotta cheating:

I was born ready...

Level 8 is red, as you would expect from a game like this. It seems like a staple of early 90's games that the last level had to be red. This one has an interesting gimmick where any door you walk through will put you back at the beginning of the level. I would like to point out that you've gotten one or two gun upgrades for SOPHIA by now, but all of the enemies still require like, 6 or more shots to kill.

Finally, after abusing save states to avoid backtracking, I stumble upon the correct door.

Nothing prepared me for this...

This is the big bad of the game. I have no clue who he is. I'm more confused than in the first Blaster Master, after I'd blown up Fred the frog, why I was still progressing through other levels. Leave it to the Sega Genesis to come up with a boss like this. Honestly, I think they might have ripped this guy off of Kid Chameleon.

Another game known for it's repetitive levels, recycling bosses and nightmare fuel.

Well, just like any other boss, after a million shots, several changes of fighting style and shades of red later:

WHO ARE YOU? WHY WERE YOU SHOOTING ME? WHY AM I EXPLODING?

He blows up and the game ends. Roll credits while SOPHIA rolls on out...

And flies away...

...Um... Yes?

Well, unfortunately, I know that it's not the end. Blaster Master: Blasting Again continues the story. The only interesting thing to note is that the Worlds of Power novelization of Blaster Master is the only legitimate backstory you could get for Blasting Again. They ended up using the story that he created originally as filler since Blaster Master had little to no story for 90% of the game. It deals with Jason and SOPHIA's creator, an alien girl named Eve. They fell in love during the course of the book and have a son named Roddy... But that's a story for a different time...

Still a better love story than Twilight