Bob

Blaster Master NES to SNES

Developer Rumbleminze has just posted an official release (v1.1) of his NES to SNES conversion of Blaster Master.  This release takes advantage of the SNES’ extra buttons and “X” button will act as if you pressed both Down and Y, which will fire your selected special weapon while in the tank.  This version also includes quality of life features, but should play identically to the NES game (other than the X button) if you turn all the features off.  One big improvement, is it supports saving your progress!  I posted a full list of upgrades after the link:

Download Here:  https://mega.nz/folder/4th1UYoa#ZIQqbn0UbCwGlovXxCOZrw

Here’s the full list of Quality of Life options that were added:

  • Choice of two palettes, the default Mesen2 NES palette, or the default FCEUX palette
  • Turn on hover recharge while idle – this will slowly fill your hover gauge as long as you’re on the ground not moving.
  • Gun Degrade – FULL (1 bar lost per hit), or 1/4 (lose at 1/4 the rate, although the first hit will drop you down a level)
  • Continues – either unlimited or the original limit of 4
  • Lives – either unlimited or the original limit of 3
  • Saving – The game will automatically save periodically, including when you reach a new area or pick up a key item. You can choose to load this save when you start the game, which will start you at the beginning of the area you were in, with your items, lives, continues, and sub weapon counts in tact. You can also choose to change any of the QoL options when you load your save.

UPDATE 01/2025: v1.2 is now available.  The same link above gets you the latest version which adds MSU-1 support, along with a few fixes and the following Quality Of Life features:

  • You can press SELECT on the options screen to preview all the MSU-1 tracks and individually turn them off, if you prefer the 2A03 music.
  • The “X” button will act as if you pressed both Down and Y, which will fire your selected special weapon while in the tank.
  • The “R” button will mirror the NES “A” button (the SNES B button), which shoots grenades and jumps. This allows you to hold R to strafe in the overhead levels.
  • The “L” button will temporarily disable Wall.2 for the purposes of climbing down the corner of a wall. This allows you to more easily jump off ledges rather than accidently clinging to the wall and falling to your death.

If you’d like more details as to why these NES -> SNES ports are such a big deal, I already covered this in a previous post and discussed it during Weekly Roundup #361 at the 12min mark:  https://youtu.be/rviGb9gS_CA?t=721  While the previous post/podcast was talking about the developer Infidelity’s conversions, all of that still applies here:  You basically get the same exact game (or more!), just without some of the NES’ limitations.

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