Blaster Master

Blaster Master has two modes of gameplay that depend on the situation and location of the player: the first mode is where the player controls Jason; either on foot or piloting a tank named SOPHIA in a two–dimensional platform mode; the second mode is where the player controls Jason on foot in a top-down perspective. Gameplay in the top-down perspective consists of a series of labyrinths in which players navigate and defeat enemies along the way. Gameplay is non-linear, and players must return to earlier levels in order to advance to later levels in the game. The objective is to complete all eight levels and destroy the mutants and their bosses with various weaponry such as guns, grenades, and special weapons.

While Jason is inside SOPHIA in the 2D platforming mode, the player can attack the mutants with the main cannon (which can shoot up, left, and right determined by the orientation of the tank) or with one of three special weapons. Special weapons have limited ammunition which must be collected from exploring the game. They include the following: homing missiles that, when fired, shoot 1 missile at each enemy on screen up to 4; "Thunder Break", which fires a high-damage lightning bolt downward; and "Multi Warhead Missiles", which simultaneously fires a set of three missiles at enemies in front of and diagonally up and down. Players select their special weapon and monitor the amounts of each special weapon left by accessing the Menu Screen by pressing the Start button.

In the Japanese version of the game, the plot is only explained in the manual. The game takes place on the planet Sophia the 3rd, located near the center of the Epsilon Galaxy, in which an advanced civilization flourished. In the year 2052 of the space age calendar, the Invem Dark Star Army, led by the universe's most feared tyrant Goez, invade and conquer Sophia the 3rd. The Science Academy of NORA, a satellite orbiting near Sophia the 3rd that somehow managed to avoid the invasion, built a weapon, an all-purpose tank called the "Metal Attacker", in a last-ditch effort to defeat Goez's army.

A young soldier named Kane Gardner is chosen as the pilot of this weapon. The game's opening sequence shows Metal Attacker being dropped into the battlefield.

Blaster Master was created by Kenji Sada (credited as Senta), who also led the development of The Wing of Madoola and wrote its main code. The game was made by a part-time development team of about five people, which included team leader and main programmer Sada, sub-programmer Kenji Kajita (Kanz), character designer Hiroyuki Kagoya (Fanky), art designer Yoshiaki Iwata (PGM F-1), and sound programmer Naohisa Morota (Marumo). Iwata, who would later direct the reimagining Blaster Master: Overdrive, did the game's opening sequence and designed the map, overall layout, and bosses. In a 2010 interview, Iwata said: "We were trying to make the best action game to date, with all that entails.

With SOPHIA (the game's vehicle), we wanted to bring to life a sense of action that incorporated all 360° of the environment in a way that players hadn't really experienced up to that point. Along with that, we wanted large, expansive maps so that we could support that vision".

Blaster Master received praise from reviewers for its gameplay. Steve Ryno, writing for Electronic Game Player (later known as Electronic Gaming Monthly), Steve Ryno lauded the concept of combining two "radically different" game genres into one continuous game. He added that the top-down portion contributes further to the depth of gameplay and said that "everything works well without the game becoming crowded or unbalanced". The game was featured as one of the "Truly Awesome" games in Game Players' 1988 buyer's guide.

In a 1992 review in UK magazine Mean Machines, Julian Rignall praised the overall gameplay and the tank's control and movements, while co-reviewer Matt Regan enjoyed the game's fast-paced gameplay and abundance of rooms and bonus areas to explore. com praised the gameplay, saying that the player can explore the map "Metroidvania style" in a large, responsive tank while occasionally having to leave the tank to explore on foot, which he compared to the Warthog sequences in Halo: Combat Evolved. Nintendo Life's Corbie Dillard praised the game's responsive controls and non-linearity. In 2012, GamesRadar ranked it as the 21st best NES game ever made and felt that it was ahead of its time.