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If you see my Avatar now, you will know now that I had a blast and loved every single bit of the game I just beated recently. That's right! This is my review of Blaster Master Zero. Now I would like to say that at first I was sceptical but its not the game that I was afraid of but rather that it was the developer that gave me an eye sore which is Inti creates. I played Azure Striker Gunvolt but I didn't like the game very much and was overall, a bland experience. So from that point, I didn't buy anything from them for a long time until Blaster Master Zero showed up. Somehow looking at the footage of the game got my attention. It was an IP that was one of the classics that was under a Nintendo console. The fact that it is remaining a Nintendo exclusive game as of now just proves that this was one of the methods to get old school Nintendo fans into the Switch. At first, I was kinda reluctant to get the game on the 3DS(its what I own) I could end up with another disappointment or I could possibly end up playing one of the best metroidvania games ever(spoilers it is the best metroidvania games of this year) But somehow looking at the gameplay prompted me to get the game eventually and did it do right? Story: 3/5 This game is basically a retelling of the original game Blaster Master. Now I haven't played the original Blaster Master. But I do know that the original doesn't have any scripts or cutscenes. It only has one intro and nothing else...ok the ending also counts but that's about it. This one does more than that and tries to modernise the original story by simply changing things. Now there are cutscenes, you now have dialouges that happen in between the game. Granted, there are only three characters in the entire game but it is still better than the original nonetheless. As for the overall plot in itself, like the original, you play as Jason whose goal is to find his frog whom he examined upon finding it and it escaped all of a sudden. He comes across a tank Sophia III. Without further ado, he decides to ride it searching for his frog named Fred. it does fine. The only issue that the game does not have much of drama during the game as it is short and typical for the most part. Graphics:4/5 This game has great pixel art visuals that got me hooked. I love the Sophia tank as it looks like the original only more modernised. Everything here looks vibrant in pixel art fashion and I couldn't have it in any other way! Now the reason why its not perfect is because in the 3DS port, the game suffers from some art being blurred a bit when moving Jason around. And the game only runs at 30fps on the 3DS. This may not mean much considering that the game does not have any slowdowns but it can be slightly annoying nonetheless. The other issue is that the cutscenes are almost static with no animations whatsoever. Now some might argue that this is suppose to make it faithful to the original as even that game had static images but then again, you see games like Ninja Gaiden that had cutscenes that were doable on the NES so this is somewhat of a downside. But it overall looks colorful and vibrant. Music: 4/5 The music is overall nice. Familiar songs are remixed in this game and they sound fantastic. The only problem here is that there are not as many remixes from the original as a lot of the songs are brand new. Some songs also don't necessarily fit into the game worlds such as the Area 4 music in Area 4. Overall a solid soundtrack with minor disappointments. Gameplay: 5/5 Now the real meat into the table is the gameplay which is easily the best. Again, you play as Jason riding the Sophia tank which can run, jump shoot, fly and climb. Within a few moments, controlling the Sophia tank becomes fun to use and the game ensures that you use the tank throughtout the entire course. The objective of the game is to explore and find the next area. To do this, the player must guide Jason to dungeons that not only will grant him items but also powerups that are needed to reach certain areas. Sophia cannot go inside dungeons which means that Jason has to get out of the tank and go inside the cave. You then have a new gameplay where you play as Jason in a top down perspective world. In these sections, the goal is to simply guide Jason to the level searching for clues needed to progress further or fight bosses. Jason in this form can obtain powerups that allow his gun to perform various techniques all of which have their own merits. Later on, Jason will have subweapons which can help him during these sections of the game such as a flash bomb which lights up dark areas for example. The same can also be said for Sophia as well as some of the powerups are hidden within the area which requires exploring. The game at times will want you to eject Jason so that he has to move barefoot inorder to solve basic puzzles to progress the tank further as the tank cannot access certain areas. However, he cannot hit enemies that well on barefoot which forces you to go back to Sophia to deal with them. The original's problem was lack of save points or a password system and while this game doesn't have a password system, it does have a save feature which is a sign of relief as newcomers can play the game with little to no issues. There's also the option to configure the controls as well which is a bonus. All of this combined with how you have a fairly balanced difficulty gives the game variety as you never always do the same thing over again even if the process feels the same. Sure, there are some flaws such as some dungeons being empty, Jason dying from falling damage during the overworlds and the game not having much of content(well you unlock various modes upon 100% the game but only a few of them) except unlocking the true ending but all the positives outweigh the negatives and considering the game's price, it is worth the investment. All in all, Blaster Master Zero is a game that should be played. Its fun and is very faithful to the original. Here's hoping for a sequel!

I was just curious if there were any Inti Creates fans around here. If you don't know, Inti Creates were the developers behind the Mega Man Zero and ZX series, Mega Man 9 and 10, and as of right now, they are best known for the Azure Striker Gunvolt series, which is basically their flagship series at this point. Other Inti Creates works include Gal*Gun, Blaster Master Zero, Mighty Gunvolt and Mighty Gunvolt Burst, and they are currently working on Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and Dragon: Marked for Death, the latter being a Nintendo Switch exclusive. As for my experience with Inti Creates, it's a fun one. I remember back in 2014 when Shovel Knight came out and everyone was talking about how amazing it was. And then there was me who was like "cool" and ended up buying Azure Striker Gunvolt on the Nintendo 3DS eShop instead. Why? Literally because the anime artstyle caught my attention. I basically bought the game on a whim. That turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I instantly fell in love with the game. The game was short but had a ton of replayability. and the vocal songs were top-tier. Then the sequel was announced. I was hyped. And while i waited for Gunvolt 2's release, i borrowed the Mega Man Zero collection from my friend, who's a huge Mega Man fan. At this point, Inti Creates had become my favorite Indie game developer, and i have enough faith in them that whenever a new game by them gets announced, it goes on the top of my priority list. When the first Nindies Direct aired a week before the Switch's release, there were a lot of great Indie games shown, but the one that caught my attention the most was Blaster Master Zero. The same thing happened again in the most recent Nindies direct, where Dragon: Marked for Death was the highlight for me. Oh yeah, and despite owning both Gunvolt games on the 3DS, i still went and downloaded the Striker Pack on the Nintendo Switch. The Switch version is definitely the best version of the Gunvolt games. And can i just say. the way Inti Creates has been handling DLC recently is probably the best method i have ever seen. For both Blaster Master Zero and Mighty Gunvolt Burst, Inti Creates has released several DLC characters for these two games such as Gunvolt, Ekoro from Gal*Gun, and even Shantae. And they are all faithful to the source material. The best part about them is, for the first two weeks after their release, you can purchase each DLC character for free. This gives incentive to buy the games early. If you miss the free period, you can buy the characters for $2, which, considering how faithful they are to the source material, is a very good deal.

http://inticreates.com/azure-striker-gunvolt-steam/ Inti Creates has announced that Azure Striker Gunvolt will be released on Steam on August 28th. The game was first released exactly one year ago on the 3DS, and has a sequel on the way (though there has been no word of it since announcement). That's all right and good, but you may be wondering what the "Salty" tag is doing there? Well... They're giving the Steam version exclusive gameplay features. There's a Time Attack mode and reportedly (according to the Mega Man Network; Inti doesn't list it) a Hard Mode difficulty option. Feeling jealous yet? They're also restoring the Japanese voice-overs. And they're translating the cut dialogue, a.k.a stuff that was in the Japanese 3DS version that was cut for whatever reason from the international release. And as Inti emphasizes, that stuff is exclusive to the PC version. I'm not happy about this. Not happy at all. EDIT: Somebody asked on Facebook if the 3DS version will receive these updates. Inti confirmed that due to "space limitations", it won't.