Blaster Master

The story of a young boy chasing his radioactive pet frog into the depths of the earth, where he finds an ancient battle tank.

Stage Select


Game Genie code activates a Stage Select. There's two different "sets" of places to go; One that starts you off in a particular world with the tank, and the other starts you off right before the boss.

In the Japanese version (Metafight), the Stage Select itself works fine (but you need the code to use it), but in the US version, some things were altered so it turned into more of a demo viewer than anything, unfortunately.

Debug Features
The Game Genie code enables a couple of minor debug features:
 * Pressing Up on Controller 2 freezes the game on a black screen. Probably linked directly to development tools.
 * In Metafight, using the stage select code allows you to pause and teleport to wherever you wish. Start returns to the game.
 * In top-down areas, your gun points will instantly be maxed out.
 * If at any time you run low on Gun Power, pressing B on Controller 2 will refill the Gun Power meter.

Spike


Subscreen and item graphics for an unused Spike item, which was to be acquired in Stage 8. It is guessed that this item would have been dropped by the Plutonium Boss upon defeat, and made the tank immune to spikes (many of which appear there), as such a function had been utilized in a hack of this game.

If this were actually true, then it is also possible that:
 * The two bosses of this stage were to be fought in separate areas instead of in succession (which would explain the great difference in their rooms' features).
 * The entrance to the Underworld Lord's lair was to be blocked off by a large amount of spikes, thus requiring said item to safely access.

Intro Cutscene Blinking Animations
Graphics for blinking animations for both Jason and Fred are loaded among the other cutscene graphics. Since these are the only blinking animations for the cutscene, Sunsoft must've figured it was weird to have it for only one scene.

Unused English Title Screen Graphics
An unused set of tiles for an English "MetaFight" logo, possibly meant to be used on the title screen. Unfortunately, no tilemap data remains in either the Japanese or international ROMs.

Title Screen
The title screen was completely changed for releases outside of Japan. The Japanese title translates to Super Planetary War Records: Metafight (超惑星戦記メタファイト: Metafight). The American and European versions have the title and Sunsoft logo flash. The European version, appearing similar to the American version, changes the cyan color to white and has less copyright information.

Intro Cutscene
An intro was added to versions outside of Japan that completely changes the plot.

In this somewhat ridiculous intro we see the hero, Jason Frudnick, a senior in high school, playing with his pet frog, Fred. Fred then escapes, hops outside, and encounters a mysterious box of radioactive waste. Upon touching it, the frog grows large, and then jumps down a nearby hole. Jason accidentally follows his frog down the hole and finds a tank, Sophia the 3rd, that is conveniently designed to attack radioactive mutants. Thus, Jason's adventure begins to find Fred! In Jason's journey to find his frog, he will destroy mutants and overthrow their leader, the Plutonium Boss.

In Japan, the plot is completely different and was only explained in the manual. Instead of taking place on Earth, the game takes place on a planet called Sophia the 3rd in the year 2052. An evil emperor called Goez calls an invasion on Sophia the 3rd with his army Inbem Dark Star Cluster. By conquering it, he will have conquered the whole universe! Nora Satellite, one of the few survivors, builds a weapon, Metal Attacker, to stop the evil tyrant's invasion. Kane Gardner must control the weapon to stop the emperor's evil army!

Intro
The area where the tank speeds off in the introduction to Level 1 was changed to a cave in the American version to fit with the new intro.

Area 4
The top-right section of Area 4 was changed. This is the section that leads to Area 5. To quote an interview with game designer Yoshiaki Iwata:

"[T]here was a part of the map in Area 4 where the player was forced to control Jason and make a desperate suicide-leap for a ladder suspended in mid-air. We reluctantly changed that [...] following complaints from the U.S. staff."

Ending
The ending also has some changes between versions.

The tower, only shown during the ending, is different between regions.

The frog buddy doesn't exist in the Japanese version, so he was added to the game's ending.

The Japanese version's ending shows chibi-style versions of Kane Gardner (who was changed to Jason Frudnick in the US version) and Nora Satellite. Nora only seems to appear in that image.