Hello, ladies and gentlemen.

Today I will do a review about Power Blazer, the Japanese equivalent of Power Blade.

Is it worth it to buy Power Blazer?

Read on and you will find out.

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Graphics - 10

All right, Power Blazer's graphics are about the same as Power Blade's - that is, they are great-looking with lots of detail and stuff like that (although the HUD and some of the graphics are different from Power Blade's).

Sound - 10

The sound is just as good as Power Blade's, so there's not much to say here (aside from the fact that Power Blazer has THREE soundtracks that are not in Power Blade).

Story - 3

I can't read Japanese.....however, the goal is to stop the villain (as usual) from destroying (or taking part) whatever part of the world it's on. Some Mega Man-like person decides to throw a boomerang.....and that's it (yawn).

Depth - 5

OK......this is where Power Blazer starts to falter. You can select the first 6 stages in any order you want.....BUT the levels are linear (just like ANY Mega Man game), so no "Metroid-Vania" like levels in Power Blazer. That's not the worst part of Power Blazer. Read on to find out what is the worst part of Power Blazer. Because of the levels being linear, there is also no ID cards that you have to pick up (which might SEEM like a good thing to see people, but you will see).

Difficulty - 9

This is the worst part of Power Blazer. The level design is really bad (with frustrating precise jumps that will make you question WHY the designers designed really mediocre level design and mostly UNAVOIDABLE damage) and a REALLY short jump (which compounds the frustrating precise jumps that you will have to make) that does not help any. Oh, and if you get hit, you jump slightly! In some cases, they expect to make the jumps with absolute precision or you will die. The controls are fairly mediocre (although they are the WORST controls in the world). Now you can duck in this version, but it still doesn't help that much. Now, just like Mega Man, you can fall down some screens below. However, in at least one case, you can get stuck and have to RESET! Isn't that nice? The developers could not be bothered to prevent unwinnable situations by design (sigh). I'm not done yet, though. The level design is also cramped - in some situations - making dodging enemies's projectiles even less likely (in other words, impossible)! Seriously, do the developers not know how to make DECENT level design, at least? The worst part, is that, Taito made this game! That's right: Taito developed Power Blazer! I'm actually surprised, because most of their library of games that they developed is at least DECENT (with the majority of their library of developed games actually being good to great)! I guess Taito isn't perfect after all.

Now, the power-ups are shown like this:
- N power-up (which is basically a DOWNGRADE if you have the red boomerang (thanks for that))

- G power-up (makes your power bar go up by a little bit)

- P power-up (powers up your default blue boomerang to the red boomerang)

- Little Heart (recovers 2 bars of health)

- Big Heart (recovers 4 bars of health)

- "E" Power-Up (it's basically an E-Tank, you can have to 4 of them at any given time)

- and finally, "B" Power-Up (these are bombs and these are ABSOLUTELY useless against bosses)

Great, so now we got a downgrade (in the form of the N power-up). You're probably thinking, why is it a downgrade? Well, the blue boomerang doesn't automatically multi-hit enemies (and it also stops when it hits an enemy). The red boomerang (in the form of the "G" power-up) automatically multi-hits enemies and goes through them. The red boomerang is better than the blue boomerang (most of the time). However, in certain instances, it's actually WORSE than the blue boomerang (we will get to that in a bit). It is possible to multi-hit enemies (through overshooting your boomerang) with the blue boomerang, but takes far more effort than simply getting the red boomerang. There is another problem, though: power-up drops are super-stingy. You're either more likely to win the lottery or getting struck by lightning than to get any power-ups dropped from defeated enemies or you will have to spend at least 10-15 minutes or more just trying to farm the power-ups (especially health power-ups, because the enemies simply don't drop power-ups half the time). The good thing is, is that, there's no time limit (so you can sit there, trying to farm power-ups from defeated enemies until doomsday, if you want to do so or need to do so). Again, Power Blade's power-up drops are considerably less stingy (though Power Blade does have a time limit, so you can't farm power-ups from defeated enemies until doomsday).

Another thing, is that, you can't throw your boomerang in 8 directions (unlike Power Blade, which lets you throw your boomerang in 8 directions). Also, there's no double-boomerang or triple-boomerang power-ups (unlike Power Blade), so you're stuck to only ONE boomerang throughout the whole game. You can throw boomerang through walls in Power Blazer, but the enemies can fire through the walls too, so it's a trade-off. Some enemies can take 10+ hits too! You will really wish you had the double or triple-boomerang power-ups in Power Blazer (because of some of the enemies taking 10+ hits).

The bosses are not much better. The alien and robot bosses are easy enough (with their simple patterns and attack), but the dragon boss.....oh boy. That dragon boss is a PAIN. Trust me, it's patterns are RANDOM. It may fire downwards, upwards, decide to do the saw attack above you (both slightly and higher up) or decide to do the saw attack in a straight line at any given time. Plus, the dragon boss takes at least 30 hits to go down! The squat Frankenstein boss is somewhere in the middle of easy and hard. Now, remember when I said that the red boomerang is not ALWAYS better than the blue boomerang? Well, that rings true for the beehive boss and the second-to-final boss. The red boomerang, like I said beforehand, goes through enemies. In the case of the second-to-final boss, I had to LITERALLY die, because of the fact that I was barely hitting the second-to-final boss at ALL (with the red boomerang).

This brings me to yet another problem with this game: the hit-boxes. While some of the hit-boxes are fine, others are not. The second-to-final boss is such one example: even with the blue boomerang, it felt like I was hitting it less than I should, because of the messed up hit-boxes. The second-to-final boss is easy but tedious, because of the hit-boxes being messed up. Yes, it IS easier to hit the second-to-final boss with the blue boomerang (because it stops upon hitting an enemy), but my point is, is that the hit-boxes are messed up on that boss. (It's possible to defeat the second-to-final boss with the red boomerang, but that would take at least 10 minutes and I did NOT want to do that). Plus, the second-to-final boss also takes at least 30 hits to go down (so that makes the second-to-final boss even more tedious). Another example came when I had to pass through the vertical flame jets in one of the stages (in Power Blazer). The hit-boxes on those vertical flame jets are so big that you can get hit EVEN if you didn't see them come out yet.

Another thing: the beehive boss and the final boss have enemies that can drop power-ups (including that "N" power-up, that you probably should avoid for most of this game). You can get that "G" power-up back, but wait, the red boomerang doesn't multi-hit some of the bosses. Power Blazer can't even be consistent. The second-to-final boss, the final boss and the dragon boss are such examples of the why red boomerang (the one power-up that is usually better, but not always) doesn't automatically multi-hit some of the bosses. This makes the second-to-final boss even more tedious (sigh).

I also have to mention that there is no way to figure out how many hits a boss has to take before it croaks (not even approximately), which sucks (unless you count the number of hits the first time you reach the boss and some people don't want to do that). Taito, if you were going to rip off some things from Mega Man, why did you not give us boss life bars? In fact, why did the developers of Taito not even give us ANY indication at ALL on how much life the boss has? Even Konami (with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Project) gave us SOME indication on how much life the bosses had (with bosses blinking and/or flashing as indicators). This might have been excusable, had some of the bosses been tuned down in difficulty (among other things), but nope, it's not.

You do get 1UPs. Passwords are available for every level, but you probably won't care enough to use them.

Also, another thing: who thought it was a good idea to put a score counter in Power Blazer? Considering it is absolutely pointless and useless (it doesn't give you any extra lives, abilities or anything like that), I am glad that whoever developed Power Blade took that score counter out of Power Blade. I do NOT care for any high score, period.

This makes Power Blade the superior version, because all boomerangs do multi-hit enemies and all bosses automatically. There's double and triple-boomerang power-ups. There's MUCH better level design (to the point that frustrating precise jumps are nonexistent and unavoidable damage is nullified). The controls are far better in Power Blade, because your character has a higher (and better) jump and the character can throw boomerangs in 8 directions. Plus, the enemies and bosses take less hits in Power Blade (with most of the bosses going down in 5-10 seconds, with the rest of the bosses going down in maybe 30 seconds at most). Another thing: bombs actually work on bosses (in Power Blade)! Life bars on bosses are actually seen on Power Blade (so you know how much life bosses have, at least).

Addictive - 3

So is Power Blazer worth a buy? Probably not, unless the cart's really cheap (like 5 dollars or less, which is ironically the approximate price of the cart of Power Blade, of which I bought from Game X Change). Knowing how Power Blazer came out only in Japan, it's probably a safe bet to assume that it isn't that cheap. Now, it IS interesting to see the differences between Power Blade and Power Blazer. However, it is NOT interesting at all to play Power Blazer (because of all those things I said above earlier). I would probably not want to play Power Blazer anytime soon. I suppose you can play it to see the differences between Power Blade and Power Blazer.

Overall Rating - 5

Fine, this isn't the worst Japanese-developed or American-developed or European-developed game in existence (there are worse Japanese-developed and American-developed and European games than this). However, it is pretty mediocre in game-play and level/game design (with the good things being great sound and great graphics). The difficulty ruined Power Blazer for me (and it might run Power Blazer for you too). Just be sure to use save states (or farm enemies for power-ups until doomsday) if you do play this game.

This is Kenneth$2, signing out.

Have a good day.