As soon as you will start playing Blaster Master, you will be greeted by an opening cutscene about a boy, Jason, and his pet frog who grew to gigantic size after jumping down a hole. So Jason leaps into a battle tank just lying there and proceeds to chase his frog. Yeah... Japanese games sure have weird stories.

Except that this story was dreamed up by the US localisation team. And they weren't trying to match what was on screen: those cutscenes are specially made for the NA/non-Japan version!

In the original Japanese version, the game takes place on the planet Sophia the 3rd, located near the center of the Epsilon Milky Way, in which an advanced civilization flourished. In the year 2052, the emperor Goez, who has conquered the rest of outer space and of whom Goez declared himself as a god, invades and conquers Sophia the 3rd. The only survivor of Goez's raid is the Science Academy's Nora Satellite, who has escaped and plans to build a weapon to defeat Goez's forces. They build an all-purpose tank called "Metal Attacker", commandeered by a boy named Kane Gardner, to take the lead in the counterattack. The game's opening sequence shows Metal Attacker dropped into the battlefield.

No, it doesn't make more sense at all. But why the change at all? No one knows.

Probably more important than the story, is the gameplay: Blaster Master follows in Metroid's footsteps, with a giant labyrinthine map, countless upgrades that augment your mobility and exploration capabilities, and challenging combat. Oh, and caves that "Jason" has to enter without his tank, played from an overhead perspective.

So it's definitely its own beast. But with finite (3) continues, weapon upgrades in the overhead segments that downgrade each time you get hit and a really confusing world layout, it's quite possible that this is one RGC game no one on NW will finish... At least you will get to experience excellent music, great graphics, and overall, solid action.


Why not add Blaster Master to your collection, and indicate you are currently playing it? And don't forget to rate it when you're done!


List of Awesome
Complete the game.

@chrisbg99
@nate38
@X-pert74

List of Awesomer
Complete the game, and draw your own maps! Now that's old school...
@X-pert74


List of Awesomest
Complete the game without using continues.

@chrisbg99

URL to share (right click and copy)

I'll tell you this much though, the worms are god damned pain in the ass in the last world. Half the difficulty with it is just killing those little bastards so you can make tight jumps.

And that is that. Hey my first Retro Game Club finish.

Played through a little bit of it just now. I instantly recognized the music probably from some past AVGN episode. I moved around a little bit and checked out some side rooms as the guy where I fought a thing that shot projectiles by spinning them around itself and two floating heads. The floating heads killed me and forced a continue at which point I stopped playing. So far a bunch of the rooms have had nothing of value in them just an upgrade to your gun which seems to deplete in just a few shots. Am I looking for something in particular or what?

@stephen08

There are a bunch of false doors in each map. Most have gun upgrades and other weapon upgrades. Useful to find ones that you can easily collect the upgrades for later areas.

You are looking specifically for the door that will lead to the boss. In the case of Area 1 it is in the far right lake. You'll go down a path to a long ladder and that is the boss room.

Also if you get hit you also lose one point of the gun upgrade which can be quite a pain. They don't have ammo though.

@chrisbg99 Good job!


I'm currently playing through/making a map of Area 3. So far I've covered less space than Areas 1 and 2 consisted of, as far as boxes on my grid paper go, but this has been taking a much longer time to play through, because there are so many more twists and turns and tiny tunnels/shafts to maneuver through. I'll be so glad once I've done it. Though I'm not thrilled at the idea of later worlds most likely being even more convoluted in design

EDIT: Also since I'm playing on the NES, it sucks that I have to restart the game every time I try again. At least it doesn't take quite as long to play through each level that I've beaten before, since not only do I have the experience from playing through it previously, but I also have a map to refer to I feel like an old-school gamer!

@X-pert74

Yeah good luck. Especially on 6 and 7. You can get turned around really easily in those stages.

@stephen08 A good place to build up gun upgrades in Area 1 is at the far bottom-left part of the lake (EDIT: Actually I misremembered ; the best gun upgrade place in Area 1 is actually one you'll encounter later than that lake place. It's where you go further to the right in the cavern area, after the first section of lake. You keep traversing up the cavern platforms, heading up-right. Then you'll find an opening that takes you to the surface again, with a fork in either direction horizontally. Head left, then jump down the next hole you come upon. There'll be another on-foot hut at the top of a ladder here; this is the on-foot section I meant to refer to). There's a flashing gun power-up, which means it upgrades your gun three levels, if I recall correctly. You can just enter and re-enter it to keep getting to the flashing power-up and you'll be fully-charged up in no time. Also make sure to use your bombs/strafing when in the overhead areas (both done with the A/2 button)! Bombs don't destroy the destructible blocks you come across, but they do a ton of damage to enemies. If you can hit an enemy with them, most of the weaker ones will die in one hit. You also have an infinite amount of grenades to use. The only weapons which have limited ammo are the three that your tank can equip in the sidescrolling sections (activated by pressing down+B/1). You can select which of those weapons you want to use currently in the pause menu

And yeah, the Area 1 music was in an AVGN episode I think it was for one of the platforms he reviewed. Maybe the Atari 5200?

I can start to feel the frustration with this game. After getting Hover, I assumed I would proceed deeper into Stage 3 and find my way to Stage 4. After wandering around the Stage for some time (and it actually does seem to loop, like X-pert mentioned about a previous Stage) I said 'screw it' and looked at a guide.

How am I supposed to figure out or remember there was a high platform at the very start of the game?? I can't imagine how long I would have spent trying to figure that out on my own if I didn't look it up (and I didn't bother making my own map while playing through the game, I'm not as hardcore as X-pert!).

Anyway, when reaching that location, I see I don't have enough H power, so I go back several screens to find a cave to stock up (since the enemies around here don't seem to drop any H icons), then head back to the high platforms. Unfortunately I am knocked several times by the guards of the ledges, and I run out of H power again. Time to stock up again, and retry, oh so carefully... just so I can at least enter Stage 4.

@X-pert74

Yep, that's hardcore, considering you're playing on the NES! I think everyone else is playing this on Wii VC (including me)...

@roykoopa64

You've probably already got up but I found the best way to get up there and avoid the enemies as you go was to take a wide berth and let the monster jump at you, miss you and then land on its platform. The flashing Hover power-ups should give you enough to keep going.

And to keep you from that frustration if you want it:

Area 7 - Go to area 2 and you will find a room after a destructible barrier that goes up off screen. You'll need the wall climb ability to get up there.

Area 8 - Go to area 3 and when you get to the main part go right up the ceiling and to the left and keep going. You'll find an area full of spikes that you'll be using the ceiling climb to bypass. Just keep going.

And yeah finding hover refills are a pain in the ass after you get hover. For whatever reason the game can't help but give you hover prior to getting the power-up but afterwords it becomes rare as hell.

Made it to Area 5. The challenge is tough but fair so far. I can't say I love either of the two gameplay setups, but switching between the two does keep either from getting stale. Though it does kind of suck when you find an on-foot building and rush through it only to be rewarded with a couple of subweapons or an unnecessary full health refill...

My first time through each area, I only go through each hut for the purpose of making my map. The hut which I deem to hold the best items in an area I put a checkmark next to, so that when/if I ever revisit the area and need to quickly grind for items, I can go there and get it done with quickly. Aside from those instances, when playing through older levels again (after resetting!) I only head straight to the boss hut.

Yeah, sometimes I stumble on the boss hut first. Those are good times.

I am having trouble finding the hut in Area 5, though. I sank my tank all the way down to the bottom, and now I can only swim everywhere. I'm pretty sure I checked the small amount of paths open to me but am finding nothing... EDIT: nvm, found it

@nate38

Yeah area 5 is a bitch because not only do you not get your tank but you have to swim the whole time. And not only that the boss is an evil creation. Stupid bubble crab.

I just reached the Area 5 boss, but I exited before it finished loading the boss battle, so that I can try and upgrade my gun again. It's so annoying though to have stuff lower my gun level in one hit It's like Legend of the Mystical Ninja, though I suppose not quite as bad as the downgrade mechanic was in that game.

EDIT: I finally managed to keep my gun at full power when making it to the boss lair, and I beat him my first try. That wasn't tough at all, since my gun shot down all of the bubbles the boss kept spitting at me. I imagine it would be harder if I had a weaker gun though. By far the most frustrating part was trying to make it through the on-foot segment just prior to the boss battle, without getting hit once.

@X-pert74

I had to beat it with the crappy gun that loops around. Found an excellent strategy of shooting of to the side and letting a bullet loop back on it. Took forever but it worked and I didn't get hit.

I have done it with just grenades as well. Very taxing.

I just beat the Area 7 boss. It's getting really late though, so I should call it quits. But will I?!

And yeah, Area 7 is a bitch to map. So annoying. I'm glad I started a new sheet of graph paper for it.

EDIT: I found Area 8, but it just seems to be a dead end after exploring two rooms. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but I think it's time for me to take a break. I'm gonna leave my NES on overnight (or... overmorning), which is something I haven't done since I was a kid. It never had any problems before, so I'm sure it'll be fine

@chrisbg99 Yeah, I had to use that gun, too. Honestly, it's worse than the straight-shooters below it.

Actually, I ended up taking out most of the bosses at Level 1. I always make a string of mistakes right before the bosses. I actually made it to the Stage 6 boss with at max gun, but it still killed me. I've used another continue (2nd or 3rd, I think), so I guess it's time to be more careful from here on out. At least I know how to get through Area 6 this time and won't take the one-way path back to the beginning by accident...

EDIT: WOW, Area 8 is annoying. The last upgrade is just...I can't stand the way it affects platforming through those tight spaces. I have to hop to the ledge to be able to make those sensitive jumps. What a pain.


EDIT 2: Finished! Took just under six hours, according to the Wii bulletin board.

I cheated a little and consulted GameFAQs to find out where to go next after getting the last couple upgrades, but most of the traveling was actually done from memory. The map is pretty well laid out, actually.

Cool music, neat gameplay, good challenge level until that damned Area 8 (and that would be manageable if it weren't for that stupid final upgrade). I can see why people still love Blaster Master.

Good job nate!

I figured out that the door I skipped by was actually a different door, not just the same door I entered the room in So I can now make progress in Area 8 again. I have class in about half an hour though so I'm gonna leave the NES on again

@nate38

Yeah the wall/ceiling climb ability is awesome except in a places where you get stuck on walls where you'd use to just drive off and do an edge jump. But as long as you keep with the slow and steady pace and not try to barrel through you'd be fine. Congrats on finishing it.

Motherfucker! I lost my last continue at the final boss! At least I now have 99.9% of the game mapped out at this point, so when I try to tackle the whole game again, I won't have to bother with constantly retracing my steps in order to get my map just right. I also know exactly which huts contain bosses, so I can avoid superfluous on-foot action.