Blaster Master Zero 2

That's right, they added a "2" next to the "Zero".

Shortly after their last adventure Jason and Eve travel through all of space to cure Eve's mutant infection on the way to her home planet but keep crossing paths with other quirky MA pilots based on characters from Sunsoft's back catalogue.

Also, watermelon breasts.

Unused Graphics#

A placeholder warning graphic for an eight boss (the game only has 7 main bosses, and second phases are accounted for as the same boss).

A placeholder warning graphic for a second mini-boss in Area F called "Comet Maker (Temporary)", as well a placeholder warning for a second phase of the same mini-boss.

A warning graphic for "Spark Salamander Sou", presumably a rematch of the mini-boss from the previous game meant to appear in Area C according to its filename. Interestingly, the idea won't be revisited until the third game. The name itself could be a reference to Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 (known in Japan as "Armed Blue Sou") considering the boss fight in Blaster Master Zero 3 features two Salamders with the colors of Gunvolt and Copen.

Partially obscured#

During the boot up intro, a image of Jason and Even is panned across diagonally behind a 256x144 overlay window, leaving many details from inside the SOPHIA unseen.

Regional Differences#

Title Screen#

Japanese	English

Boss names#

Like in the previous game, couple of the bosses saw their names changed between the Japanese and English versions. Interestingly, the underlying katakana transcription of their name was altered to match. All of the other languages have their own set of localized names but use the same katakana as the English ones.

Japanese	English

Additonally, while most boss descriptions are identical between Japanese and English as they're written in plain English, some of them had to be touched up to make gramatical sense.

Japanese	English

In the Korean language, the kanji descriptions are replaced by hangul while the bosses' names don't have any underlying transliteration are only presented in plain English using their Japanese names. Traditional Chinese does this as well while retaining the kanji.

Weirdly enough, when fighting against a Metal Attacker there's only English text in both Korean and Chinese.

Japanese	Korean	Chinese (Traditional)

Kanna's dialogue#

In the Japanese version, Kanna uses plant-themed emojis for punctuation. This is lost in all other versions.

Punctuation mark	Emoji
! (Exclamation mark)	Leaf
? (Question mark)	Curled up vine
。 (Full stop)	Flower

Japanese	English

Oddities#

• The game contains duplicates of all its graphic and stage data in various subfolders named after the codename of each platform besides its own: "Win", "NX", "ORBIS" and "Durango". Despite of still remaining relatively small in filesize, this bloats the game up to 4 times its actual size in the worst-case scenario.
• Copen's files refer to him by his English name instead of as "Acura". Amusingly, the Japanese sprite sheet for his menu screen is misspelled as "Sub_Pl03_Copne".

Version Differences#

Blaster Master Zero Trilogy: MetaFight Chronicle#

Physical release of all three games and their respective DLCs for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 released on July 29, 2021 exclusively in Japan. It includes one exclusive DLC which adds voice acting to all of the games and has not been available for any of the digital versions of the game regardless of their platform.

Revisional Differences#

Ver.1.1#

Released on March 20, 2019.

• Various types of bugs have been fixed.

Ver.1.2#

Released on April 1, 2019.

• Various behavior and stability issues have been fixed, including the following:
  • Fixed an issue where control configuration would be reset.
  • Fixed an issue where the map and various enemies in Area F would disappear.
  • Fixed an issue where the game would not auto-save when entering some top-down planetoid stages.
  • Fixed an error where collecting some items would not be properly reflected on the mini-map.
  • Fixed an error where the player could get stuck in Dungeon 4 on planet Montoj under certain conditions.
• The difficulty of planetoid C-2 has been adjusted.

Ver.1.2.1#

Released on April 19, 2019.

• An issue where the player could get stuck and become unable to progress on planet Stranga in Area E after entering Dungeon 1 while separated from G-SOPHIA has been fixed.
• Other various issues have been fixed.

Ver.1.2.2#

Released on April 26, 2019.

• A sequence that makes it easier for players to understand how to use the Blast Counter and how to return to GAIA SOPHIA when outside the tank has been added to the starting area of the game.
• In addition to fixing the following issues, a bunch of small fixes and stability improvements have been implemented:
  • An issue that caused the game to crash when the weapon select menu is opened at the exact moment the player dies has been fixed.
  • An issue that caused the game to crash when "EXIT GAME" is selected from the pause menu after starting the battle against Gathervira has been fixed.
  • An issue that allowed the player to jump during a cutscene has been fixed.
  • An issue that allowed the player to return to SOPHIA in side-view mode when the player dies or has a screen transition has been fixed.
  • An issue that was fixed in Ver.1.2.0 that was supposed to fix an issue with the control settings was insufficient, so additional adjustments have been made for this patch.
  • Various other small fixes have been implemented.

Ver.1.3.0#

Released on November 29, 2019.

• The "EXTRA" sub-menu has been added to the main menu.
• DLC character Copen (from "Luminous Avenger iX") has been added.
• Color has been added to Kanna's emoji (Japanese text).
• Various issues have been fixed.

Ver.1.3.1#

Released on January 9, 2020.

• Various issues in the base game have been fixed.
• Various issues regarding the DLC character "Copen" have been fixed along with errors in the game's text.

Ver.1.4.0#

Released on February 13, 2020.

• An issue where the game could end with an error message when using the Hexa Missiles has been fixed.
• Various issues have been fixed.

Ver.1.5.1¹#

Released on April 20, 2020.

• DLC character Empress from "Dragon Marked for Death" has been added.

Ver.1.5.2#

Released on June 29, 2020.

• DLC Mini-game "Kanna Raising Simulator" has been added.
• The following languages are now supported:
  • FRENCH
  • ITALIAN
  • GERMAN
  • SPANISH
  • PORTUGUESE

Ver.1.6.1²#

Released on June 16, 2021 for Steam and July 28, 2021 for Nintendo Switch.³

• The following languages are now supported:
  • Traditional Chinese
  • Korean
• And various issues have been fixed.

References#