Sunsoft's Blaster Master franchise has been largely dormant for years.  Having first achieved prominence in the Nintendo Entertainment System era, the vehicular shooter with on-foot platformer segments also landed on the Sega Genesis, Nintendo Game Boy, and even the Sony PlayStation over the years in sequels and remakes.  It was last seen in 2010 as a WiiWare title, but now the series is coming back as Blaster Master Zero for the Nintendo 3DS.  Due out in March 2017, developer Inti Creates is taking the reins to create something new using what appears to be the best elements of something old.

Using the original Blaster Master game as a base, we are setting out to create a fully 8-bit experience in a way that both hearkens back to the golden age of the NES and uses the current generation hardware to optimize and power up the game for the players of today. This of course includes new areas and bosses, and new gameplay elements such as extra sub-weapons, improved gameplay when battling outside of your SOPHIA 3rd tank, a more robust scenario, refined and expanded exploration mechanics, and more.

I'm always happy to see a famed property from yesterday return, so I'm glad to see Blaster Master is coming back.  The first screenshots show us an artistic design similar to the old NES game which is fine by me.  The more polished looks of later games in the series never did quite sit right with me.  Some games just need to have that 8-bit style.  They work best in that format.  Inti Creates has a record of strong releases including work on recent Mega Man and Shantae games, so I trust them to get this right.  Bring on Blaster Master Zero!  And while we're waiting, how about bringing the original NES game to the Virtual Console so newcomers can see what all the fuss is about?