There is plenty of justified concern over the Nintendo Switch’s anemic launch lineup of games, but the consensus seems to be that Zelda: Breath of the Wild will be enough to sell the system in its early months. Well, if “classic but slightly difficult Nintendo games” is the sort of thing that hits you right in your nostalgic heart, let me give you the best news: Blaster Master Zero launches on March 9th on the Switch.
It’s also coming to the Nintendo 3DS, if you are somehow lucky enough to buy that system.
For the uninitiated, the original Blaster Master was an action game on the Nintendo Entertainment System that I genuinely thought had been lost to time. It featured several different modes of gameplay that were intermixed in interesting and clever ways: you drove a tank around a 2D environment, but sometimes had to get out of the tank and control an itty-bitty person in that same world. Some stages switched to a zoomed-in, top-down perspective. It required a lot of exploration to find power-ups, which allowed you to return to previous levels and unlock new zones. It looks like Blaster Master Zero, a reboot of sorts, will build off this playbook.
Of all the games that I recall fondly from the NES, few hold me as strongly as Blaster Master. Sure, the unwashed might consider it just another Metroidvania game, but they know not of what they speak.
Also, just listen to this music and tell me it doesn’t amp you up to dash into the world in your little bubble tank and mess some enemies right up?