Blaster Master

The heartwarming tale of A Boy and His X tank.

"Blaster Master" was a series of action-adventure games created by Sunsoft. The first game, released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988, is recognized as one of the classics for the system. It's originally known as "Chou Wakusei Senki - Metafight" when released for Famicom system in the same year, which had a totally different and loosely put story that existed only in the game's manual. Blaster Master was more popular, and most of the sequels were based on the NES version, and designed for western fans.

The game (and the series) starts off with a young kid named Jason and his pet frog Fred. One day, Fred jumps out of his fishbowl and out of the house and onto a crate containing radioactive materials, which cause the frog to grow larger than Jason. When Fred and the crate fall into a large hole in the ground, Jason decides to jump in after him. Once down the hole, he finds a giant armored vehicle called SOPHIA THE 3RD, which was designed to fight radioactive mutants living Beneath the Earth. He puts on a combat suit and gets inside the vehicle on his way to find his pet frog and to destroy the mutants' leader - the Plutonium Boss.

During the game, Jason will traverse the overworld in his vehicle, and will have to search for the boss of each area by exiting the vehicle and entering doors filled with traps, enemies, and power-ups. Defeating bosses will give his vehicle new abilities (such as the power to shoot down walls, hover, or swim quickly through water), which will become necessary to get to other areas.

This series is comprised of:
 * 1) Blaster Master (NES, and Wii Virtual Console)
 * 2) Blaster Master 2 (Sega Genesis)
 * 3) Blaster Master Boy (Game Boy)
 * 4) Blaster Master: Enemy Below (Game Boy Color, and 3DS Virtual Console)
 * 5) Blaster Master: Blasting Again (Play Station)
 * 6) Blaster Master Overdrive (Wii Ware)

Blaster Master does not, by the way, run Bartertown.

Blaster Master provides examples of:

 * All There in the Manual: The backstory to Blasting Again, specifically the character of Eve and the origin of the Plutonium Boss, does not appear in any of the previous games. It does, however, appear in the Worlds Of Power novelization of the original Blaster Master, making that the only Worlds of Power novel to be in any way canonical.
 * Awesome but Impractical: The grenades in Blasting Again look great coming out, but they're nigh useless on Mooks that aren't clustered together due to their triangular placement. Enemy Below's grenades also have a pathetically short range.
 * Big Creepy-Crawlies: The series has a lot of maggots crawling on the floor.
 * Blunt Metaphors Trauma: In the novel, Eve's understanding of the language results in several funny manglings of popular phrases.
 * Broken Bridge: The layout of the game is nonlinear, but various obstacles railroad you through the levels in a specific order, eg. locked doors (between Stage 4 and 5), gravity barriers, (need Hover, Dive, or Wall powers), insurmountable waist height fences (some barriers are indestructible until you're powered up), and beef gates (the Mini Boss between Stages 1 and 2 is unbeatable until you get the Hyper upgrade).
 * Chain-Reaction Destruction: Bosses in the series have more explosive components than a common sense would assume.
 * Continuity Reboot: Overdrive was billed as a "re-imagining" when announced, but certain details within the game suggest that it's a Prequel.
 * Convection, Schmonvection: 7th area, 1st game; and the third area of Blaster Master 2.
 * Cool Car: The S.O.P.H.I.A., in all of its incarnations.
 * Cores and Turrets Boss: Photophage, the third boss of the first game.
 * Down the Drain: Stage 4 in the first game and in Enemy Below.
 * Drill Tank: An upgrade turns the S.O.P.H.I.A. into one in both Blaster Master 2 and Overdrive. Also, the second boss of stage 2 in Blaster Master 2.
 * Eldritch Abomination: The Big Bad of Enemy Below, a towering amoeba that's about half of the GB's screen.
 * Eternal Engine: Area 3 of the first game and in Enemy Below.
 * Evolving Weapon: Jason's gun, and the S.O.P.H.I.A.'s main cannon with the Hyper and Crusher upgrades.
 * Excuse Plot: The first game.
 * Eyeless Face: The frog bosses in the first game have mouths, but no eyes.
 * Falling Into the Cockpit
 * Flash of Pain: Enemies which take multiple hits to kill, tend to briefly change color when damaged.
 * Frogs and Toads
 * Gaiden Game: Blaster Master Boy, a hybrid of the top-down sections of BM and Bomberman, with music from Bomberking.
 * Giant Enemy Crab:
 * 5th boss, 1st game.
 * And the 3rd and 6th bosses of the 2nd game.
 * 1st and 3rd bosses of Overdrive.
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: The Final Boss battle in the first game. After you defeat the Plutonium Boss, your true final opponent is...some armored knight with a plasma whip.
 * Graphics Induced Super Deformed: In the first game at least. The protagonist is in rather normal proportions in cutscenes but in game he looks like a toy.
 * Grappling Hook Pistol: An early upgrade for SOPHIA in Overdrive.
 * Grimy Water: Present in Blaster Master 2. Droplets and small pools of water will damage not only Jason but SOPHIA as well. As an immediate subversion, Stage 5 is a completely submerged level that's harmless, but all encounters with water after this level are of the grimy variety again.
 * The water in the overhead areas of Stage 4 also counts.
 * Hubcap Hovercraft: The Sophia 3rd is a prime example.
 * In Vehicle Invulnerability
 * Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Both in Blaster Master and in Enemy Below. Area 7's overhead stages use recoloured water from the first Blaster Master game as lava. Touching it deals two points of health damage.
 * Lethal Lava Land:
 * Area 7 in the first game.
 * And in Enemy Below, with recolored water as lava.
 * Loads and Loads of Loading: A recurring theme in Blasting Again.
 * The Lost Woods: Stage 1, first game.
 * Malevolent Architecture: Spiked pillars in the overhead stages in Enemy Below.
 * Metroidvania: It was this type of game before the subgenre became popular.
 * Mission Pack Sequel: Enemy Below has new maps, weapons, gameplay and bosses, but similar graphics and music to the NES game.
 * Mirror Matches: A Boss Battle in Overdrive, which ends in a shout out to the Gaiden Game in a Make My Monster Grow moment.
 * Nintendo Hard: The Blaster Master games are quite challenging, even if you've gotten used to playing them and can get to the later levels with ease. One difference between Blaster Master and Meta Fight: The end of level 4 in BM was a platforming segment to unlock a door. The end of level 4 in MF required you to jump off a cliff and catch yourself on a single tile of ladder to unlock a door! Alternately, you could aim for the lock on the way down but this kills you in the process.
 * Not the Fall That Kills You: If Jason falls his own jumping distance, he takes no damage. One block more than that deals one point of damage (and adds a hilarious 'bounce'), and one block more than that is fatal.
 * Novelization: Scholastic Publishing wrote a book based on the game as part of its Worlds of Power series. While it takes several liberties with the plot of the first game, parts of it were elevated into canon for Blaster Master: Blasting Again, particularly the character of Eve (who becomes Jason's wife and the mother of his children, Roddy and Elfie).
 * Palette Swap: Bosses two and six in the first game are similar in appearance, as are bosses four and seven (which may explain why the grenade glitch (see Pause Scumming below) only seems to work on them.
 * Pause Scumming: It's possible to beat some of the bosses by hitting them with grenades and pausing at the right moment. If you do it right, the boss will keep taking damage while paused.
 * Power-Up Letdown:
 * The upgrades for Jason's gun in Enemy Below. He can only collect three, but good luck collecting more than one due to losing them quickly to enemy attacks.
 * And in Blasting Again, where the max weapon upgrade transforms your gun into a largely useless short-range flamethrower.
 * Real Is Brown: In Blaster Master: Overdrive.
 * Shielded Core Boss: The Area 6 boss in Overdrive. Damaging the boss's feet eventually disables it, leaving its core vulnerable to attack for a short time.
 * Shout-Out: The protagonist and his frog are named Jason and Fred...
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
 * 6th area, 1st game.
 * Keeping with tradition, 6th area of Overdrive.
 * Sound of No Damage: Hit an invulnerable (part of) enemy? That sound is heard in that case.
 * Spikes of Doom: Everywhere in the last area in the original and in Enemy Below.
 * Stationary Boss: The Plutonium Boss of the first game. Only its head moves around.
 * Super Not-Drowning Skills: In the "overworld" sections, Jason has no problem swimming through water -- much more so than S.O.P.H.I.A. until it gets the "Dive" upgrade. Inverted in the "on-foot" sections of Areas 4 and 7, where falling into water/lava means instant death.
 * Temple of Doom: Stage 2 of the original.
 * Turns Red: The crab boss from the first game fires more and more bullets at you as you damage it, and the Photophage's turrets move faster as more are destroyed.
 * Under the Sea: 5th area, 1st game.
 * Area 5 of the 2nd game, as well as the 'Water' area in Blasting Again.
 * Underwater Ruins: 5th area, 1st game. Some turquoise pillars.
 * Unwinnable By Mistake: You get a weapon upgrade for your tank which allows you to blow away certain walls, which will respawn after a couple of seconds. However, should you get out of your tank and walk through the passage, once it respawns you have no way to get back to your tank. Also, since you can't shoot downward, you won't be able to go back in any case when blocks respawn below you. There are a number of places where you also can't kill yourself, leaving you totally trapped, forcing you to reset.
 * Voice with an Internet Connection: Elfie in Blasting Again.
 * Wake Up Call Boss:
 * The first boss of Overdrive. Only Alex's grenade launcher can reliably strike its weak point, and it has barely enough range to avoid touching the boss in the process.
 * Enemy Below's second boss teaches you why dodging is useful.
 * Same for the first boss of the original.
 * Womb Level: The final stage of the first game, may appear in others.
 * Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: The lightning attack in Blaster Master is definitely the yellow variety. Subsequent games have moved directly to blue lightning.
 * Zerg Rush: The Final Boss of Overdrive.