Blaster Master - NES

Blaster Master for the NES is one of Sunsoft's greatest achievements and a landmark title in the NES library — a hybrid action-platformer that combines two completely different gameplay styles in a way that feels seamless and ahead of its time. The story is gloriously absurd: a boy named Jason chases his pet frog Fred into a hole in the ground after Fred touches a radioactive box and grows to enormous size. Down in the underground caverns, Jason discovers an abandoned armored battle tank called SOPHIA III — and what follows is a sprawling underground adventure to rescue Fred and defeat the mutant leader known as the Plutonium Boss.

The dual gameplay loop is what makes Blaster Master special. In the side-scrolling sections, players pilot SOPHIA III through eight enormous underground environments — the tank can shoot, jump, and eventually climb walls and hover, gaining new abilities from defeated bosses that open up previously inaccessible areas in classic Metroidvania fashion. At any point Jason can exit the tank and explore on foot in a top-down perspective, navigating dungeon rooms to find upgrades and face bosses in tight arena encounters. The two styles complement each other perfectly and keep the game feeling varied across its entire runtime.

The game has no save system and no password — a full clear requires sitting through all eight worlds in one session, which gives it a brutal reputation that has only added to its legend over the decades. The composer Naoki Kodaka delivered one of the most beloved NES soundtracks ever made, with the Area 1 theme in particular considered among the finest pieces of 8-bit music ever composed.

Originally released in Japan as MetaFight with an entirely different sci-fi storyline, Sunsoft rewrote the plot completely for the Western release — and ironically the frog story became so popular it was made the official series canon worldwide going forward. The game spawned a long-running franchise including Blaster Master Zero and its two sequels by Inti Creates. The original NES cartridge remains the definitive starting point for one of gaming's most inventive action series.

Japanese Title: 超惑星戦記 メタファイト (Cho Wakusei Senki: MetaFight)
Language: English
Rating: N/A (pre-ESRB release)
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Genre: Action Platformer / Metroidvania
Players: 1 player
Developer: Sunsoft
Publisher: Sunsoft
Release Year: 1988 (North American release: November 1988)