Blaster Master for the NES stood out for its variety of gameplay by containing both overhead levels with side scrolling Metroid-like maps and upgradable powerups. The sequels that followed weren’t known for staying true to the original game, and the series has been dormant since Blasting Away released on Playstation.
Blaster Master Overdrive for WiiWare brings back Sunsoft into the public’s view and makes for a worthy sequel (or reimaging) of the original. Does it have an upgradable tank for exploring interconnected maps? Yes. Does it have overhead sections where you get out of the tank to look for powerups and fight bosses? Yes. This is Blaster Master.
The story of the game eschews previous canon of a boy and his frog in favor of a polymorphic virus plaguing the earth, mutatating animal life, and causing affected humans to fall into a deep sleep. It’s up to Alexander, a virual biologist whose family was recently infected, to take his tank, S.O.P.H.I.A., recover technology the mutants stole, and put a stop to the virus… or die trying.
The game revolves around driving the tank through side scrolling levels, searching for caves to enter on foot where the game changes to an overhead perspective. During the tank portions you’ll make use of the various upgrades such as the hover wheels that let you glide slowly across long chasms and a drill that can destroy blocks in the way that doubles as the best weapon. Each area is self contained, but connects to one another as a larger map, backtracking for example through Area 1 to get to entrances for areas 2-4. Upgrades to the tank from defeating the area bosses are needed to enter new areas as you search the map and get a sense of becoming stronger.
Searching the caves in the overhead sections yields upgrades to your health and upgrades that can be applied any of the three weapons. Pressing A switches through your normal rapid fire gun (you’ll be using this the most), a homing gun, and bombs. The homing gun does less damage and fires slow but can clean up when upgraded, and the bombs take a moment to let you fire when switching to them. Unfortunately getting hit lowers the weapon currently in use down a level and you can quickly find your level 5 gun back down to 1. You can reenter a cave as many times as needed to get the gun power ups over again though(hint: You can easily get all the weapons to level 5 in the early areas if you take the time).
Although it stays true to the original, Overdrive doesn’t feel as polished as it could be. While the overhead areas are easier to navigate than the original, the layouts and graphics get repetitive. Enemies feel like they just disappear when destroyed, like it’s missing that oomph that you get from destroying them. There’s little reason for Alexander to leave the tank other than to enter a cave you’ve pulled up to, and even when he’s out he moves slow, in fact the whole game feels slower than the original. Once you get the drill ability, you’ll be using that to take out most of the enemies, as it does a great deal more damage than the projectile that never receives an upgrade.
The game uses the Wii remote only and works fine except for the odd choice in using the B button for strafing, something you must do constantly in the overhead sections. By the area 7 boss my hand was cramping from holding B while trying to fire diagonally. Classic controller support or at least the option to change the button configuration for strafing to 1+2 to mimic the original’s method would have been great.
What you’ll find here is a modern sequel for $10 that takes the core of what made the original Blaster Master good, adds necessary save points, and has the charm of a hard NES game, while leaving room for an improved sequel.
Grade: B+
