Current Events > After first playing Blaster Master 35 years ago, I beat it (Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

As a kid, I always liked the game, but never put much into the it beyond the first stage. Randomly decided to give the game a shot on the Switch NES Online a few days ago. The game is much longer than I thought it would be, and as a result, the world is a lot bigger than I thought it would be.

I thought things were fairly easy for the first 5 stages - the biggest difficulty up to that point was just finding my way around some of the tunnels in the tank. The parts where you control Jason are easy if the gun is fully enhanced.

The boss of stage 6 (rematch against the crab) was a bitch to beat. The difficulty spiked a lot for that fight - Id say it was easily the toughest of the game. Boss 7 (frog rematch) was easy once I learned the patterns - just long. The final boss was easier than I expected.

Also, once you get the tank enhancements to climb walls, I thought platforming got a lot tougher. Id try to jump from one platform to another, only for the tank to latch onto the wall and drive downward along the wall. Hated that.

Anyway, it took 35 years, but I saved my frog.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/cf5d639a.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c4648eaf.jpg

Such a great game. My dad actually ended up beating this before I ever could, which I wouldn't have been able to do until several years after. We also had a black&white TV to play this on, so I thought the frog in that image there was just the helmet of the guy, since he doesn't have it on.

Edit: One time when I was playing in Area 3, the music glitched to Area 8's, and it creeped me out. My dad jokingly said, "Maybe aliens are trying to contact us" and that just freaked me out because I was like 8 years old and I couldn't tell he wasn't being serious.

Only ever rented it back in the 80s and early 90s, so didn't have enough time to learn enough to beat it. Bought it at a flea market while in college and finally managed to beat it. (Same with Bionic Commando.)

Did they fix the pause / bomb trick that worked against some of the bosses? IIRC, it worked against 2, 4, 6 and 7.

I don't remember everything about the original game, but when I played through Blaster Master Zero, it felt like a lot of the layout was borrowed from the original.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


I just started it a bit ago. Beat stage 1. Didnt realize at first that you dont have unlimited grenades like in the NES game. Thought my game was glitching for a moment. I like that you can strafe with Jason and lock onto diagonals when shooting with the tank.

I never played Blaster Master, but as a kid I remember reading a novel based on the game.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f309e16c.jpg

MLBloomy posted...

Only ever rented it back in the 80s and early 90s, so didn't have enough time to learn enough to beat it. Bought it at a flea market while in college and finally managed to beat it. (Same with Bionic Commando.)

Did they fix the pause / bomb trick that worked against some of the bosses? IIRC, it worked against 2, 4, 6 and 7.

I don't remember everything about the original game, but when I played through Blaster Master Zero, it felt like a lot of the layout was borrowed from the original.

The Switch Online versions are generally unchanged from the originals, so the glitch should still be present. I certainly know it was on Wii Virtual Console where I beat it, as I used that glitch regularly for those bosses, except for 2 where I could beat it easily enough without. World 5 boss was thus the most difficult boss for me.

Awesome! I absolutely love that game, and would make decent progress but I never have completed it. If I find the time, I'll have to play it again and be more persistent this time.

I remember playing this when I was very young and thinking area1 was the entire game. then when I finally beat the "final" boss after many attempts and the game did not end I got totally mindblown

mullettron posted...

I never played Blaster Master, but as a kid I remember reading a novel based on the game.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f309e16c.jpg

I had this one and the Ninja Gaiden one.

The main character in the Blaster Master one gives a Vader-like "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" when he beats his frog boss.

mullettron posted...

I never played Blaster Master, but as a kid I remember reading a novel based on the game.

mybbqrules posted...

I had this one and the Ninja Gaiden one.

The main character in the Blaster Master one gives a Vader-like "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" when he beats his frog boss.

Found an audiobook version of it on YouTube, if you wanna take a trip down memory lane

https://youtu.be/JwxEJwITC3c

Literally my favorite NES game. I have such fond memories of that time frame of gaming where for the first time games felt good enough to want to stay home and skip the arcade. It was such a jump up from Atari/Colecovision/Intellision.

This game in 1988 and Ninja Gaiden in spring of 89 dominated my play time in junior high. Mastered both games about time I hit high school in 1990. Also small correction, crab is level 5. Level 6 ice level boss is rematch of the level 2 scorpion.

Man that time frame from like 1987 through 1989 had so many amazing games for me on NES. I still pull up the music for this game at work and listen to it. Im partial to that chip tune music from the era. I like it more than a lot of modern OST. Nostalgia is strong for me in this era.

archizzy posted...

Also small correction, crab is level 5. Level 6 ice level boss is rematch of the level 2 scorpion.

My bad. Thought it was a crab because of the pinchers. And the fact that its called Crabullus - that name is a bit confusing.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/11dbe293.jpg

And yeah, looking back, this is clearly the crab.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/42621fd4.jpg

I honestly feel like I spent more time on Ice Crabullus than all of the other bosses combined, so I dont even remember some of the 2-5 bosses all that well (I played the level 1 jellyfish a bunch as a kid, so I remember that one).

Truly, you are.... a Blaster Master.....

Well done

The_Popo posted...

My bad. Thought it was a crab because of the pinchers. And the fact that its called Crabullus - that name is a bit confusing.

And yeah, looking back, this is clearly the crab.

I honestly feel like I spent more time on Ice Crabullus than all of the other bosses combined, so I dont even remember some of the 2-5 bosses all that well (I played the level 1 jellyfish a bunch as a kid, so I remember that one).

As much as I played that game I never even realized it had a name. Also while Im sure you wanted to beat it legit you can totally cheese those two bosses and both frogs by pausing a grenade on them. We even knew that trick back then. I remember talking about it at school.

Nice, it's a tough game.
I feel like it would be especially annoying to traverse it without maps. The bosses also don't play around.

A couple years ago I tried to replay it myself on my NES... and got softlocked in a wall about halfway through the game. Lol. Oh well. I think I was in the water section and got knocked into it.

I did go back and beat it on... NSO, I think? I think I save stated some lategame stuff there though, can't remember.

archizzy posted...

As much as I played that game I never even realized it had a name. Also while Im sure you wanted to beat it legit you can totally cheese those two bosses and both frogs by pausing a grenade on them. We even knew that trick back then. I remember talking about it at school.

I mentioned the grenade trick earlier. It was one of the common tips in the Nintendo Power fliers that were included in games back then.

And I have beaten Blaster Master Zero now. Interesting on how it is more polished and there is an actual story, but man, it is really easy.

Play The Guardian Legend of NES, it's awesome

Now you got to beat Festers Quest

YoungMutual posted...

Play The Guardian Legend of NES, it's awesome

Oh yeah, I just played this last month!
It's like, a hybrid between Blaster Master's top-down sections, and a shmup. Actually incredibly good.