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Blaster Master Zero II
Nintendo Network
A Fine Sequel That's Not as Good as the First
3.5/5 stars
Blaster Master Zero 2 holds onto the great aspects of the first game in the series and even makes it easier to have fun but in the end the story along with the level implementation ends up making it feel like it's taking a step backwards.
Blaster Master Zero 2 is a sequel to Blaster Master Zero which debuted on Nintendo Switch in 2017. Blaster Master Zero is actually a reboot of the original Blaster Master that came out on the original NES. In Zero 2 you still control Jason who pilots a tank. Nothing has changed when it comes to the basic game play. It's a 3rd person side scrolling adventure while you're in the tank and you can go into dungeons where you then take on a top down perspective as Jason who shoots a gun from one arm. Along the way you will encounter bosses while you're both in person and in tank form.
The game play is still solid and enjoyable. You'll find many of the same abilities that were in the first game are also in this second game but there are differences. For example, secondary weapons like missiles and homing missiles are still around. The hover feature for the tank is still an upgrade you can get. But, then there are a few features that are missing. The ability to drive up and down vertical walls is gone and so is the upgraded cannon. While I understand the idea of changing things up so you can have a different variety of puzzles I still instinctively wanted to drive up a wall in a couple places and needed to rethink of how to tackle obstacles.
There are couple new "innovations" in the game play that are worth mentioning. First, the SP that is consumed while using secondary abilities is much much easier to recharge. All you have to do is fall from a great distance in the tank and the energy absorbed from the impact is but into the SP meter. Not only that, but when you run out of SP it will recharge completely after a time but your tank will be significantly weaker during that period of time. Then while you are in control of dungeons with Jason a new counter ability is available. When an enemy is about to attack, a symbol will appear over them and if you hit the counter button and you can either do a counter attack or a couple other things assuming you get the upgrades. These two things especially make the game easier and thus less frustrating and I think are good additions.
The story is not a strong part to this game. Eve, who joins you in the first Zero game, is ill and you go on an interstellar journey to try and cure her. I'm not going to go any deeper into it because it's really unnecessary. I found the dialogue to be poorly written and often hard to understand. Keeping tack of all the robots and people who pilot other tanks becomes overwhelming and it's just better to play the game, beat the bosses and be done with it instead of truly trying to understand what the heck is going on.
I thought the level design in this game was not as good as previous Blaster Master games and in general a bit lazy. In other Blaster Master games you are in one big world and you have to find new areas to explore after obtaining new items and it feels like the whole thing comes together towards the end. In this game however, you go from planet to planet exploring much smaller areas and it's much much easier to find where you are going almost to a point where it's boring. There was no real exploring or find cool secrets and nooks. I thought it was lazy designing.
All in all I enjoyed playing this game though. The game play is still fun, the bosses were a joy to figure out and take down and it was never really difficult. It takes roughly 10 hours to take this game down and if you go through and make sure you get everything you can get an extra level and the good ending. It's totally worth doing because that extra stage was different and quite enjoyable. While not as good as the first game in the series (and also other Blaster Master games before it) this is still a good game to play if you're a fan of the series.
3.5/5
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