I’m skipping about the alphabet today somewhat, not merely for the sake of variety, but also because I’m irrationally excited about the strange but interesting news that Victor Ireland is playing Liaison to the West for Sunsoft and is kicking off this process with an enhanced Virtual Console release of Blaster Master. Exactly how they’re going about this enhancement is a mystery for the ages, but he promises it will be worth everyone’s while to actually finish the game. Which will take some doing! Back in the days of actual gaming (i.e. before emulation and even before Game Genie), back when I was an idiot savant gamer who could beat anything on NES, Blaster Master thwarted me. I made it to the final boss a few times, but the limited continues ensured I never finished the game. So I never witnessed this scene…
…under my own locomotion. I did watch a friend of mine finish the game, which just made me feel worse about myself. Anyway, I’m looking forward to the rematch. Man versus machine and all that.
And, of course, a GameSpite Quarterly 3 write-up to accompany it all:
- Jason, hero of Blaster Master. Or was it Meta Fight? It is also a mystery for the ages. In any case, I have compiled a dossier recounting his known history.
In the meantime, I’m just gonna hold out hope that the new “enhancements” to the Virtual Console version of the game don’t make it even harder. ‘Cause that’s just not kosher.
Victor Ireland? He’s still alive?!? Ugghhhhhhh….
Lemme guess, the thing to look forward to in the new ending is an animated panoramic scene of Jason singing to his frog. That or he’ll be making obscure NES era references to Ken Lobb in the credits. Or a Bill Clinton joke that ruins the game? Hmm. Master Blaster is a magnificiently flawed game that offers some delicious opportunities to tinker with its source code to make it a more gooder game.
Also, Sunsoft? Really! He had to go digging them up for any hope of business? After he self-destructed Working Designs himself and blamed it all on Sony and Goemon to basically go on and own his own company that, really, is exactly the same as Working Designs under a different name and a new owner this is the best that afroed douche can do?
Wow.
Much anger I sense in you.
All they really need to do to make Blaster Master playable is add unlimited continues, which would fix 80% of the problems with the game. Fixing the other 20% would require them to do something about the gun powerups in the on-foot sections, but that would be a little trickier.
I can’t help but be a little wary, given his reputation of unbalancing games (see: Silhouette Mirage).
Fun Facts: Jason’s Japanese counterpart is named Kaine Gardner. Plutonium Boss is merely the pet of the head honcho Underworld Lord. Sophia III is the name of the planet in which Meta Fight takes place; Metal Attacker is the name of the fuchsia-colored tank.
You know, I can’t diss so heavily on the guy. They put out some quality translation at a time where said translations were few and far between. Puerile humor aside, WD did a great job with most of their stuff.
Nice X-files reference in the Jason article. Blaster Master is on that increasingly large list of games I need to track down for my NES.
i don’t even know who this guys is.
Blaster Master THO I KNOW THAT YES. It truly is one of my favorite games ever, and it’s so much better than NES Metroid. Wish it would have taken a similar path that Metroid took.
it’s a mystery that’s a mystery for the ages.
They could tweak BM pretty easily and fix the major issues. An option for hard saves after each boss fight would be the simplest and fastest.
A bit harder but still not complicated would be to get rid of the gun weakening when you take damage. It just involves changing a couple lines of code I would think.
Harder and most likely to not happen would be some form of in game map.
Still, its good to see this one appear on the VC. Doubtful, but I wouldn’t mind seeing some actual WD games up there if ol Vic is working with companies again (and still has rights to release said titles obviously).
A fixed version of Exile 2 is probably entirely too much to ask for though.
Is a Fester’s Quest enhanced edition not far behind?
Didn’t Sunsoft also create the Gremlins 2 game? Call me when that gets remade.
I’m being serious.
There’s a lot of love for NES Gremlins 2 out there – I remember visiting some friends who worked at a library 10 years ago and everybody seemed to have NESticle and a copy of the Gremlins 2 ROM running on their office computers.
Just some definitive corrections to Jeremy’s description of the FX Nine side of things:
The hole and dumpster was basically a waste disposal vent from the Plutonium Boss. The alien fighting vehicle was not unaccompanied. It was accompanied by an alien female human whose homeworld the Plutonium Boss had destroyed. Jason accompanies her in the tank and she shows him how to use it. She gives him the protective suit and laser blaster, he fetches power ups for the vehicle, etc. The alien is a woman and love interest for Jason, and they hook up by the end of the book. Her precocious speech impediment is that she cannot get Earthly puns correct, to comical effect.
This story WAS adopted by the creators of the Playstation game Blaster Master: Blasting Again. You play as the son of Jason and Eve, with your sister as your “operator” support character, and guided by the spirit of Eve.
Just to recap, some of that stuff that was called “spiral of illogic” is really just “spiral of bad writing,” and I think it should be known.