Blaster Master: Enemy Below Review

I was incredibly excited when the Sunsoft brand came back onto the scene two years ago, bringing back an absolute NES classic with it -- Blaster Master. The vehicular platformer/shooter was one of my favorites from the 8-bit era, and I thought it had held up wonderfully well when I played it again for review on the Wii's Virtual Console. Now, almost exactly two years later, Blaster Master is back again.

Blaster Master: Enemy Below isn't the exact same game as the NES Blaster Master, but this Game Boy Color sequel from 2000 is very similar to it -- the graphics are nearly identical in many areas and the overall gameplay is the same. You're once again playing as Jason, the young hero who drives around in a giant rolling tank named S.O.P.H.I.A. the 3rd and blasts his way through a maze of subterranean tunnels.

The action takes place on two fronts. The first is side-scrolling tank sequences, as you drive S.O.P.H.I.A. around through an interconnected, Metroidvania world -- you get upgrades for the tank over time that let you explore more and more of this environment and reach places you can't get to from the start.

The other half of the gameplay happens when Jason hops out of the cockpit to investigate special chambers on foot. There, the perspective shifts to a top-down, old-school Zelda-like viewpoint and you direct him up, down, left and right around the screen while still blasting everything in sight.

So Enemy Below looks like Blaster Master and plays like Blaster Master. It's a solid, unsurprising sequel. And that might be one negative to level against -- that it didn't try to do more on its own. Enemy Below feels more like a Second Quest of the original than its own game at times, and some fans might've wanted a little more variation from the source material.


The game is made better on the 3DS Virtual Console than it was as a Game Boy Color cartridge 11 years ago, though, as the built-in emulator features make this adventure more accessible than it's ever been. Being able to suspend your progress at any point is nice, and the save-state Restore Points can really help you overcome the toughest sequences -- that's a blessing for brutal games, and Enemy Below doesn't like to take it easy on you.

The visuals are also sharp and attractive here, which merits particular mention since this is only the second Game Boy Color game to be released on the 3DS VC -- prior to this The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX was the only one available for over six months straight. Hopefully this release is a good sign of things to come, and more GBC greats will follow along soon.

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