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Blaster Master: Enemy Below
Game Boy / Color
A Thottled Back Version of a NES Classic
4/5 stars
Blaster Master: Enemy Below may not live quite up to it's NES predecessor, but it's a good action/adventure game that is worth playing years after its release.
If you've played the original Blaster Master on the NES, I can tell you this is pretty much a direct sequel. If you haven't played Blaster Master before, here's a brief rundown. You control a character named Jason and his tank Sophia. There are two types of game play. First, there's a side scrolling part of the game where you are in the tank searching for dungeons in each area. At times you do exit Sophia the tank to climb latters and swim, but it's easy to die so for the most part you stay in your tank unless you absolutely have to. When you enter a dungeon, the gameplay turns into a top down 3rd person shooter. You eventually take out bosses with your gun or grenades. When you do, you upgrade your tank which allows you to find the next area of the game.
Here are the similarities to this game compared to the NES version. What you can do with the tank doesn't change. You can jump and adjust in mid air. You have a gun you can shoot and find an upgrade for as well. There are the same secondary weapons for the tank that you can find ammo for (lightning, homing missiles, and tri-rockets). There's a hover, swimming, high jump, and wall climbing upgrade too. There are still 8 areas to the game with dungeons at the the end of each. The game is still huge and maze-like and the bosses can be difficult. In fact, the game in general is pretty difficult.
There are some differences in the game, a few good and a few bad. First, it's quite evident that this game in general is definitely slowed down. Roaming in the tank is definitely slower, and when you're in dungeons it is too. This can be frustrating because it feels like it takes forever to get places sometimes, but it's understandable considering the game boy's lack of power and display size. The screen doesn't show you as much as the level at any given time either. But, once again not a surprise. One frustrating aspect is that when you're in dungeons with Jason, you can't move diagonally. Considering you could in the NES version, this makes things even more annoying. It's much more difficult avoiding hits and holding onto your gun upgrades which can be angering. Early in the game you can only upgrade you gun three times before it's maxed. I thought this was just the design until I found the upgrade later in the game. Then you can upgrade your weapon as much as the NES version. It's a must if you want to beat the game in my opinion.
There are a couple improvements. First, there's an actual password system so you don't have to beat the whole game in one sitting. It would have been better if it had an actual save system, but this is still good. Plus, if you download this in the 3DS shop you can save it exactly where you stop. Second, now in order to enter the boss dungeon in each area you have to find either 1 or 2 keys. This makes you explore the levels more and makes the game last longer. Also, there's a shotgun upgrade you can find for Jason as well as a grenade launcher.
While not as good as the NES version, this game holds true to the Blaster Master formula and is a fun play many years after its release.
4/5.
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