Disapprove: Blaster Master Zero 2

It’s been just a few months since I’ve played Blaster Master Zero, a game that I didn’t expect to like as much as I had. It was a really fun exploration focused reimagining of an 8-bit classic with some unique ideas and very few annoyances. So when Blaster Master Zero 2 got a PC port as well just 2 months after my review of the original, I was excited to play and enjoy that game as well. Enjoyment wasn’t part of the process of playing it, turns out.

At its core, Blaster Master Zero 2 is the same game. You have 2 main modes in the game. One is a side-scrolling platformer mode where you mainly play in the tank on wheels G-Sophia (which is slightly different from Sophia III from the original) or can exit the tank and run around on foot, except that is extremely risky because you die from tiniest amounts of fall damage. And another is an isometric shooter mode where you enter “dungeons” as a pilot to find upgrades or important story unlocking items, usually after fighting a boss. Two modes have their own control schemes and Zero 2 biggest changes concern the pilot in a dungeon mode.

The base concept of weapons in these dungeons is the same – you get progressively cooler weapons when you pick up power ups, but getting hit once (or twice with one upgrade) will knock your weapon power up one notch. Meaning that your goal is usually to try to get to the highest power level and then avoid getting hit. Two huge changes here are in what weapons you get per each level, which was done seemingly in an attempt to balance them out instead of making top level straight up overpowered, and the addition of the “counter” system. In Blaster Master Zero these dungeons were not often “challenging”, apart from the really hard stealth focused ones in the late game, but rather they were often about this careful planning of power ups and attempting to keep your pilot at max weapon level. If you did, bosses were not a problem and while this wasn’t particularly “balanced” it had a “glass cannon” kind of fun to it. This game, however, decided to make combat “challenging”. It made it infuriating.

The concept behind the “counter” is simple enough – when an enemy is going to attack, you can counter them with a counter move (you get new ones as the game goes), as long as you energy for the counter which is a new concept entirely. When successfully countered, a lot of enemies will go into a stunned state where you can deal more damage to them, and the counter itself is also often dealing more damage than the base attack. Problem is, to “balance” this move, most of the enemies in the game are now fast either in movement or in their shots, which requires you to counter, instead of simply motivating you to. And if you’re in a fight where lots of fast moving enemies who tend to always stay at odd angles that goes against your slow 8-direction movement, you may often get in a situation where you simply run out of counter energy because it regenerates slowly, while you can’t hit anyone without a counter (which also regenerates energy), or hitting someone makes them counter with attacks that are hard to doge. Making the whole process a huge annoyance where it’s either extremely easy, or “you died”.

In addition to that, these dungeons are now almost consistently combat focused. There are no longer any cool little ideas, like using flames on ice, avoiding waves or other little things that favored exploration and adventuring and the only “similar” concept here are that some levels require you to find keys in gigantic open levels, which are full of annoying enemies. And it’s just not the same.

Though, to be fair, the exploration is tedious in general here. There are barely any movement upgrades and which you get are mostly boring (flaming dash is the only one that felt fun). There are optional “side-quests” (required for good ending), which essentially mean that you need to revisit the levels you’ve already visited and go to places which you could explore before and find absolutely nothing, except now you will find something. Which means that exploring on your own is sometimes actively discouraged – you’ll need to do it again at a “correct” time. Platforming on foot is as infuriating as before with your pilot landing safely on some distances but add 2 pixels of height and you instantly die. Of course, there are “challenges” built around that too. One of the planet is designed around insta-killing you if you mistime your jumps or dashes ever so slightly. One boss is a chore and is repeated twice. And also puts you on foot after each phase and if you forget it you jump, break legs, restart the whole fight again. And the whole ending section for the true end is just obnoxious. Oh yeah, and the story that was simple but serviceable in the original just goes full on shonen tropes here to a degree where it’s just horrible to read and look at.

What Blaster Master Zero 2 does well, the first game has already done and done much better. What it adds or changes is what makes it all infuriating and unfun to play. If when you’ve played Blaster Master Zero you thought “I wish there was less exploration and more combat and combat was more annoying”, definitely give this sequel a go. Otherwise, don’t even bother, just play that game again instead.