Ever since Shovel Knight, a lot of Indie and Triple-A developers are trying their best to cash-in on nostalgia as much as many studios trying to cash-in on television since then internet is literally absorbing them. While games like A Hat in Time and Yooka-lale are two of the most anticipated Collect-aton Adventure games, one by the orignal rare devs and another by a huge fan, two games grabbed my attention. These games are the kickstarted game River City Ransom: Underground and the reboot of Blaster Master known as Blaster Master Zero. An indegame and a Sunsoft masterpiece as a return of an underrated company who made challenging and classic third-party games.
River City Ransom: Underground takes place years after the first game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES for short.) where a new generation of teenagers have to deal with a break-out of gang violence as they are framed with kidnapping the mayor's daughter. The characters then get ambushed by the swat them as well as Abobo who is currently the principal of the school! The teenagers escape the school only to meet the old protagonists in their auto shop, where the old double dragon's base use to be. Did the double Dragons move on to a new place? Anyways, the teenagers must fight to defeat the gangs, stop the leaders in their tracks, and discover the truth behind all the violence that is happening within the undergrounds of River City.
This game plays as much as the first River City Ransom game for both better and worst. The players collect money from their fights to buy food that they can use to, not only heal cautiously, but to boost their status and increase your endurance, learn moves so the characters can perform longer combos, adopt cats, go to a sauna, and everything anyone expect from a River City Ransom. It's fun to play with other players via local or online through the steam network system. This game is a blast to play with a group of associates and friends alike.
However, this game still needs patching and tweaking as this game cannot be recommended just as yet. For one, the netcode is per-to-per, meaning the connection can be either hit-or-miss depending on who is hosting the current game and whether or not the game will side with the players. Another issue is the game is very vague, while it dose recommend a controller, the game describes the controls as a numbered controller instead of the Xbox controller as if they were lazily ported to multiple systems. Another major gripe is the key map points are obnoxious , as some parts of the game's story happens in places that feels like place-holders until the developers place them into a proper place. Everyone know about the hidden place behind the metal fence as the biggest example. Finally, this game could have been polished over-all. It's still a fun game overall, but this is why Q&A exist, especially in the independent market!
This is why I recommend Blaster Master Zero to those who loved the orignal game or to those who want to play the game but hate sprite flickering of the old, dated NES games. One plays as Jason as he is looking for his android frog pet named Fred and stumbles on the battle tank called Sofia III, which he finds an underground world inhabited by mutants. On the way, Jason save this girl with amnesia who is the key to helping him on his adventure. This game is a great way to introduce newcomers to Metroidvania for those who are imitated by big games like super Metroid and Castlevania's DS games that rewards players for playing good. Get new weapons for your tank, gather power-ups and updates by killing kill the boss mutants, explore the map while listening the revamped music and well pixelated backgrounds,and save the underworld, save your pet frog, and return home.
There are only fewer issues with this game. For one, there is fall damage that can lead to cheap, instant deaths. This can be annoying for small, minor platforming sections which are needed for some portions of the game where Sofia III cannot reach to. Even if it seems not too far, death can come to those who are not cautious within this game. Another issue is that the game has one stealth section that feels like it was added just for difficulty spike where it doesn't belong. This can be true for most Metroidvainas, and it's far worst in those games as well. However, the other complaints can be solved depending on the version of the game as it is available for the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo 3DS. The map will appear on the bottom of the screen and hazards that are upcoming can be predicted by the ruble on the Nintendo switch. It all depends on which version that the players choose.
In the end, they are both good games to play for those who love retro and retro-inspired games. I do recommend Blaster Master Zero for now until River City Ransom Underground gets a big update that fixes the majority of it's issues. Hopefully, this means that Sunsoft has returned so many of their orignal IPs like that one awesome fighting game that no one has heard about...and many more? Besides that, there are plenty of good games coming out this year. Maybe Toejam and Earl will be good? Until then...
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