So this was always a kinda weird series. The first game was mostly a retelling of the original NES game, with some extra stuff (specifically more characters). 2 had its own original story, where Jason, Eve and Fred the frog go to space to fight the mutant problem, joining up with more tank pilots. Generally I found both games to be quite good. So I was excited for the third one.

So because NEO TWEWY was so long it took me a while to finally get started with this game. And then it was over in what felt like an instant.

So let’s go and see if it’s as good as the last two!

Developer and Publisher: Inti Creates
Release date: July 29th 2021
Platforms: Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone (Switch version played)
Genre: Side-scrolling platformer+top-down action game

So this is the third in the series, and at this point you kinda know what you’re getting into. I’d say not too much has changed since the last time as far as functionality.

The story starts not long after the second game, where you defeated Drolrevo, the mutant cocoon, and cured Eve’s mutant corruption… OR DID YOU! You land on planet Sophia where you’re captured and separated from Eve and Fred. Seems the army of Sophia, the Sophia Force, sees Eve as an enemy, and the mutants are back as well despite the cocoon being destroyed. Leibniz’s Metal Attacker Garuda is also shot down. So Jason sets out to save Eve, first teaming back up with Fred and Leibniz. As you go through, you find out why there’s dimensional portals all over the place, why the SF sees Eve as an enemy… and overall what’s even going on with Eve in general, as you try to save her. The game does have 2 endings, and I will say it’s somewhat bullshit because it requires you to do something in a dialogue sequence that you wouldn’t really think to do since you don’t usually have agency during dialogue. I figured it out after getting the bad ending, but it’s a bit oof. Once you do that thing, it brings you to a bunch of extra boss battles (including the only hard boss in the game, which is the one before the final boss) which leads to the true ending. I will say it’s probably the end of this series, or at least this “arc” in the series. It’s an okay story. It makes no sense but that’s mostly fine, it’s not really about making sense. I’m mostly fine with it.

So this game is split up in 2 gameplay styles. There’s side-scrolling where you control the Metal Attacker G-Sophia SV, with the option to come out of it (as Jason is obviously smaller than a tank, so he can pass through spaces the tank can’t), and there’s some caves only Jason can go into, which lead to top-down shooter action levels. They both have a map system, though obviously the map isn’t that useful in the top-down levels since very few of these levels have items that aren’t just at the end of each floor (there’s one mandatory item that is hidden in a different part of a level, but that’s about it). The map system does show where EVERYTHING is in the side-scrolling areas, as long as you find the local area’s map item, so there’s not much exploration there. And some of the items are useless anyways, for both types of gameplay. Also both gameplay styles allow you to lock the aim angle, so Jason can strafe, while the tank can stick to diagonal or vertical.

In side-scrolling, G-Sophia SV can shoot (up to 3 bullets at once on-screen, you have to wait for a bullet to hit a wall/enemy/get out of the screen to shoot another), aim up and diagonally, jump, wall-cling (and eventually wall-jump), use subweapons, sprout legs to pass through poison, and hover. There’s a few other upgrades you get that do useful stuff as far as progressing through the game, but don’t have a massive effect on gameplay. G-Sophia SV is equipped with the gaia system, which allows you to recover energy by falling from a bit higher than the normal jump range (otherwise using all your energy makes it have to recharge for a while until it’s full… and if your max energy is higher, it takes longer to recover). You have a separate energy bar for your main weapon as well. The main gun uses no energy, but any other guns you can switch to do. If you empty your energy, in addition to having to wait for it to come back, all guns including the starter one that uses no energy, is replaced with a really shitty gun that hardly deals damage. In combat, getting close to an enemy is very useful since you can shoot faster. You can also set other main guns to shortcuts on ZL and ZR to shoot more types of guns at once. And some specific guns are quite useful for combat, specifically how strong the piercing bullet is. There’s a good variety of subweapons as well, some that are entirely useless in combat or that have uses outside of combat. One of them for example makes the lights turn on for a few seconds… though that one is also broken as hell in combat.

Side-scrolling is all about navigating the environment and finding the next cave you want to go to, pretty much. There’s retry points all over the place, which you use to save and they become your respawn point as well. You can use the retry points to teleport to other retry points you have activated. Some very big retry points are teleports to different sectors of the game. There’s not really much exploration though, as the map not only shows where all items are, but also it highlights the square in the map that you need to get to. This isn’t always super straightfoward, sometimes there’s puzzles or combat situations to get through, but it does mostly remove the need to even take note of places you’ve been to before that you may need certain powerups, just go where the game tells you to go. In the map screen, each area is separated in its own tab, which has sub-tabs to navigate through as well. If the top tab is orange, that means you have a place to go in that area. Generally progression items are in the top-down maps, so let’s talk about those.

The top-down levels are pretty straightforward. You start in one part of the map, then generally go straight through each screen until you get to the last part of the map where there’s usually some sort of reward, like extra max HP, extra max Energy, less costly dashing and such. Sometimes it’s mandatory progression items of course, some of which are power-ups for G-Sophia SV like subweapons or guns (though the guns aren’t progression at any point). Jason is pretty swift, as he can dash in any direction (and that dash can be upgraded with less energy cost and the ability to reflect enemy bullets during a dash). You can aim in all 8 directions, and you can hold R to lock the direction you’re facing so you can strafe around. Jason has access to 5 different weapons. The main gun sucks balls. There’s a piercing gun that’s really good. The shotgun is okay but I’d rather use the piercing gun in most cases. The whip is mostly useless. And there’s a wide-range lock-on gun that then shoots lightning to all locked-on enemies, which is useful in some cases. There’s a red pickup you can grab from block and enemy drops, those make the guns better. This can increase the damage, add attacks to the whip, let you shoot more bullets at once, let you lock-on to more enemies (from a further range) and such upgrades. You do mostly want to be maxed out as much as possible. Getting hit lowers your gun level, so you have to be careful. In addition to guns you have counters, which uses energy to either shoot back at enemies shooting at you, or counter enemies trying to hit you physically. This is occasionally useful. And you have subweapons… I basically never used those other than the main bomb one, except for the one time you need to use a specific one for a specific boss battle. There’s really not much to talk about with this gameplay style, it’s pretty fun but it’s also a bit weird.

Early on in the game you start seeing those dimensional distortions. Turns out Jason’s helmet has the VRV system, which enables him to go into these dimensional portals. And G-Sophia SV is just able to get into them too. They bring you to super-dimensional space, which is basically a parallel dimension. There’s some of these in top-down levels and side-scrolling levels. In side-scrolling levels, this changes the layout of the world, allowing you to get to different places. It can also change some gameplay elements, like reversing gravity, or have obstacles/enemies that aren’t in the normal dimension. In top-down levels, super-dimensional space is basically easy mode. There’s gonna be a start point and an end-point, but in-between those you’ll get random rooms. There’s basically no reason not to use super-dimensional space in top-down levels, because while normal dimension levels will have puzzles to solve and the enemies are really strong. In super-dimensional space, most enemies are useless, there’s no puzzles, and you can generally just skip through every room without having to even care about enemies. There’s one instance in the game where you have to specifically not use super-dimensional space in a top-down level, the rest… just use it if it’s there. There’s no reason not to. The occasional locked-room where you need to kill all enemies to progress are hardly an obstacle.

And that’s about all that I need to talk about. It’s basically a really straightforward, self-solving Metroidvania. You have a spot to get to, you have to figure out how, and that’s it. You get upgrades to get to the next spot the game tells you to… it’s very simple. It’s fun, shooting shit is always great in Blaster Master games, but it’s not the thinking man’s Metroidvania. Also the ending is a bit of a weird one as far as gameplay though I won’t spoil why.

I will say difficulty-wise that this game is easy as shit. There’s one top-down level that gave me trouble because I got in with level 1 guns and it was really long and had no upgrades, and super-dimensional space makes every top-down level into a total joke (and there was no super-dimensional portal in that one). There’s one boss that was difficult at all (before that boss, only one of them managed to kill me more than once). This game could do with a bit more difficulty.

Overall

So I liked this one. But I feel it’s the weakest of the Zero series. While the previous two had a level of linearity, this one is a bit over-the-top on that with very little as far as sidequests, and the easy mode map system that just tells you everything all the time. There is some extra exploration (which you essentially do by looking at the map) to find powerups like extra HP and SP and powering up Jason and G-SOPHIA SV, but since you can just look at the map to know where you’re missing stuff, it’s pretty straightforward. And a lot of these upgrades are honestly not worth it, especially by the end.

Super-dimensional travel is an element that I’m conflicted on. In the top-down areas you tend to have to choose between the normal world or the super-dimensional space, and I found that just going through super-dimensional space is just easy mode 99% of the time. In side-scrolling levels, I do like it, as it adds some puzzle-solving to it. I don’t feel it’s a big change, but it’s fun enough.

Otherwise, this plays very much like the other games in the series, and the combat and movement gameplay and such is as solid as ever, as are the really nice graphics the series has always had. Even if I find it not as good as 1 and 2, it’s still a good game. I also found it to be quite short. I’m fine with that, just pointing it out for people who think games are only valuable if they’re long.

So I do recommend this one, but only after you’ve played the others. It’s not as big of a recommendation either.