Blaster Master/YMMV


 * Adaptation Displacement: When the PS1 sequel Blaster Master: Blasting Again was released in Japan, instead of following the original Metafight plot (see below), it actually followed the plot of the American version.
 * Americans Love Blaster Master: Metafight is not particularly well-remembered in Japan, probably due to the somewhat non-linear action-based gameplay. For the same reason, Blaster Master is beloved by gamers who cut their teeth in the NES era, as the game practically out-Metroided the original Metroid. The awesome tunes helped this.
 * This is so fantastically prominent that while Metafight practically fell by the wayside, America got a UK-developed exclusive sequel, a novelization, inspired several Game Boy ports, and by the time the Blasting Again rolled around, the American plotline superceded the Japanese one, even in Japan. And the game got a re-release on the Virtual Console due to, you guessed it, American pressure.
 * Anticlimax Boss: Enemy Below's third boss. Considering he was fairly hard in the first game... Here, he's a complete joke and can be dispatched without him getting a single hit against you.
 * Awesome Music:
 * The first game has lots of it.
 * For example, this frenetic, yet catchy tune from Area 7.
 * Or the classic theme from Area 1, or the Area 3 techno theme, or... hell, just call it an Awesome Soundtrack, really.
 * Cult Classic
 * Demonic Spiders: The searchlight enemies in Area 7 of Zero. The overworld enemies are normally docile, but if you walk into their cone of sight or attack them, they'll suddenly become aggressive and start leaping at you while firing lots of bullets. Not only are they crazy fast, they also have much more health than most non-boss enemies, which means it can take a while to kill them if you decide to confront them head-on. The dungeon versions are similar to the previously encountered soldier enemies, but if one spots you, every single one in the room will converge on your position and start attacking with a bullet storm. These guys also have ridiculous amounts of HP, and they can only be stopped by leaving the room or killing them all, which is easier said than done considering they're aggressive damage sponges.
 * First Installment Wins:
 * Good luck finding any fans of 2, Enemy Below or Blasting Again.
 * Zero is well liked and led to this page getting plenty of Wiki Magic. Still falls under this trope as a remake of the original.
 * Good Bad Bugs:
 * The "grenade-pause" trick in the first game.
 * The UK version goes even further, pausing can prevent death Jason failing, getting trapped in a wall now shoots your upwards and combining these two with the door glitch allows you to complete the game without fighting the first seven bosses and leaving SOPHIA at the start of the game.
 * Macekre/Woolseyism: While the American version was about a boy looking for his pet frog, the Japanese version was about a young space soldier named Kane Gardner who is sent to to the planet Sophia III with his tank the Metal Attacker to defeat the alien overlord Goez. Whether you prefer the cliched space opera plot in the Japanese version or the silly story about the boy and his pet in the American version seems to be a matter of taste.
 * An explanation of the American plot: there were plans to make an arcade cabinet version using Nintendo VS arcade system. One problem with that is that Meta Fight never had an eye catching intro scene or even a self playing demo so they had to be added, and considering mutated reptiles had just exploded in popularity, well, put two and two together. Unfortunately the arcade cabinet never happened due to how long you could live off a single quarter. This also explains "Authentic Arcade Editon!" on the box cover.
 * The Famicom version, Chō Wakusei Senki (Super Planetary War Chronicle) Metafight had a pretty standard space opera plot and setting. The game was set in the distant future on an alien planet and instead of a young boy looking for his missing frog, the main character was a space soldier sent to destroy an alien overlord. However, most of the plot is detailed only in the manual, and only the opening and ending are actually different.
 * Player Punch: The seventh boss battle, if one reads the aforementioned Scholastic Publishing tie-in, becomes one, as it turns out that the boss is Jason's escaped pet frog, Fred. But when you beat the game, you see Jason and Fred sitting on SOPHIA's roof watching the enemy's stronghold crumble, so either Fred turned back to normal after being defeated and the game never bothered to show it or neither of the frog bosses was Fred and Jason found him somewhere between beating the final boss and escaping the enemy stronghold. The Worlds of Power novelization explains that the frog boss' appearance was merely a disguise, meant to torment Jason psychologically. The real Fred was alive and well.
 * Sequelitis: Blaster Master 2 is notoriously bad, to the point where it just feels like a cash-in on the original game's success. The games that followed weren't nearly as terrible, but fell into So Okay, It's Average territory until Zero.
 * So Bad, It's Good: The voice acting in Blasting Again is so atrocious, it's actually somewhat hilarious to listen to.
 * So Okay, It's Average: Part of the reason the sequels aren't particularly well remembered is that they weren't really outstanding in any degree like the NES game was. Sure, they're far from terrible games, but they aren't great either.
 * Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The sequels to the original are generally So Okay, It's Average. Zero, on the other hand, rivals the original for the title of best game in the franchise.
 * That One Boss:
 * In the first game, the sixth and seventh bosses. Not to mention the fifth boss if you didn't enter his room with your gun fully powered-up.
 * Ancient Freeze can be trivialized by Jason with the Flamethrower and Wave Gun, Gunvolt's Flashfield lets him focus more on mobility once the nodes are tagged, and Ekoro's charge shots stop for nobody, allowing her to pop the bladed discs without wasting shots on the boss. Shantae and Shovel Knight, on the other hand, have their work cut out for them. The room is perpetually covered in ice, which Ancient Freeze can renew with ice spikes at any time, and since their fiery options consume magic, that means you will have to endure the ice at some point. Also, their main form of damage is melee based, and you have to bust this boss to get the Ultimate Shovel Blade, meaning you have to play footsies with the nodes' lasers and the bladed discs at the same time while trying to avoid Collision Damage. Shantae's Storm Puff lets her passively damage the boss while Shovel Knight's Phase Locket lets him mitigate damage, but since these use magic as well, unless you're willing to drag out the fight and risk getting shredded by something, they won't last forever. The fight gets easier as the nodes get destroyed, but see about lasting that long first.
 * Tough Act to Follow: The soundtrack for the original game is pretty hard to beat. Despite Ippo Yamada's best efforts, renowned Inti Creates music director as he is, some fans are disappointed about the soundtrack of Zero in comparison to the NES classic.