YMMV / Blaster Master Zero III

• Awesome Music:
  • The theme song that plays during Leibniz's Dramatic Unmask. Despite everything that has happened between Leibniz and Jason, despite all of the mistakes, all of the failures to protect the things Leibniz cherished, Jason has trusted Leibniz with protecting Eve and his unborn children, and with Kane knocking on the gates to Eve's cocoon, this is Leibniz's last and best chance at redemption. This heroic tune lets you know exactly that: Leibniz is not gonna just stay idle and let Kane ruin the hopes of a father, she is gonna pull out all the stops to prevent it, and is going to do it with her true face.
  • The actual boss theme against Leibniz is no slouch. It tells you that this won't be merely another MA Pilot rematch.
  • The True Final Boss theme is a remix of the boss themes from the original Blaster Master, and they're epic! The remiX for Jason's challenge against Copen loses none of what makes the original great, either.
• Best Boss Ever: If any fight in the game is talked up, it's the battle between Kane and Leibniz at the climax of the Golden Ending. Pulse-pounding music blares as the original MA takes on the latest and greatest in lightspeed bomber craft, with Leibniz propelled by a virtuous purpose to protect the people who gave her a chance after everything she did to harass them. It is legitimately the toughest fight in the game, if not the entire Blaster Master series, but that only makes it even more fun to play. It's also one of the only fights in the game to have a stylistic, cinematic finisher that is entirely player controlled - when brought to her last legs, Leibniz cranks the Rising GARUDA for all it's worth to smash through Kane's Metal Attacker at lightspeed after a bombing run, and Kane finishes the fight with Thunder Break just as she charges him. It's truly a spectacle showing how two of the best pilots in the series fight at the top of their game when they both believe everything is on the line.
• Best Level Ever: Sure, it definitely falls under Brutal Bonus Level, but the final section of gameplay for the Golden Ending is this in spades. It's the last area from Blaster Master Zero I interspersed with sections of other areas from that game, complete with the original themes. Between each section, you get rematches with the MA pilots from Blaster Master Zero II taken to a new extreme as they have their Support Droids and animals actively participate in the fighting. Sure, your character, Kane, may be vastly inferior to Jason at this point, but he gets regenerating Hover, unlimited bombs on foot, and says nuts to the Gaia System in favor of being able to spam-fire his old standby abilities, all of which work as intended now. As a send-off to the Grand Finale of this series, it could not be a more awesome labor of love.
• Demonic Spiders: Explicitly enforced with the Sophia Force robots in the SF dungeons, which are extremely powerful, difficult to kill, and are masters of putting pressure on Jason with the ability to teleport, cover large amounts of the screen in bullets, or otherwise make getting through the level a huge pain in the ass. Jason outright states upon entering your first SF dungeon that the SF robots are far beyond his capabilities and that he should avoid engaging them if possible.
• Difficulty Spike: Area ??? is a massive jump in difficulty compared to the rest of the game; unlike everywhere else, you're given the Metal Attacker, which is severely underequipped compared to the G-SOPHIA SV, and you are pitted against the MA pilots from Zero II, who are even stronger than in the previous game and will make mincemeat out of you if you don't play like the Ace Pilot that Kane Gardner is meant to be.
• Funny Moments: If you contact Leibniz after meeting Jennifer Gardner for the first time, Leibniz asks about what happened to GARUDA after the Sophia Force shot it down, prompting a brief discussion with the Gardners about how GARUDA's developers went to work on rebuilding it so that "the SF will never pull this off again." Leibniz just has one request for them:
  "Put in a damn control stick. How am I supposed to fly with a wheel?"
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Zero III is by far the hardest game in the series. In addition to Jason's kit once again getting toned down, maps are substantially more complex due to the introduction of super-dimensional space, enemies are far more aggressive and plentiful, and bosses have multiple health bars now instead of one and have more complex attack patterns, making fights longer and more difficult. This game rather justifiably expects you to have played the previous games in the series, because it demands mastery of endgame-level abilities from the last two games very early on. While Jason is allowed to use all his weapons regardless of energy level and his tank is very quickly given powerful armaments, the game in no uncertain terms will inform the player that the mutants are tougher - and they are, as evidenced by endgame bosses from the first game showing up as casual enemies. The introduction of Sophia Force drones makes this worse - any Sophia Force dungeon is treated as a Brutal Bonus Level if you don't take the super-dimensional space routes, with some enemies having attacks you simply cannot dodge and all of the enemies having either very accurate attacks, a tendency to rush you down, or both.
• Signature Scene: If there's one scene that's been constantly talked about since the game's release, it would have to be Leibniz's Dramatic Unmask, revealing that she's been a woman the entire time. It's considered a Samus Is a Girl reveal on-par with the Trope Namer's reveal in the original Metroid.
• Tear Jerker:
  • This game's Downer Ending might not be that harsh compared to both I and II's, considering neither Jason nor Eve die in this one, but it can hit harder than both, possibly even combined, when taking their relationship into account. The mutant threat they've fought throughout all the trilogy is no more, but due to Jason failing to catch up to Eve, who left for super-dimensional space on her own, and him realizing he didn't listen to what she actually wanted regarding the mutants, they will never see each other again, with implied heartbreak for both over keeping their feelings for each other deep inside; furthermore, Roddy and Elfie will never be born. To twist the knife even further, the last shot has Jason and Eve apparently face-to-face but it's clear they actually aren't, as a reminder that they miss each other's company. Even worse, the hint that indicates that the Golden Ending can be unlocked is a pair of rings on the Blaster Rifle subscreen, which heavily implies (if not outright confirms) that Jason was actually going to propose to Eve, even without factoring her Love Confession to him in the true ending. Combine all that, and you have the ultimate downer ending for the trilogy.
  • Kane being determined to terminate Eve to end the mutant threat, considering back in Zero I, he and Jennifer sent SOPHIA Zero to Earth for Eve to deal with the mutants, and left a message in which they called her their precious daughter. Thankfully, after his fight against Jason, Kane stops once he learns about Jason and Eve's actual motive, even telling Eve he's proud of her.
• That One Attack: Most of Jason's attacks can be dodged with the right strategy, however... The Anti SF Bullet is ridiculously fast and Jason is scarily accurate with it. What's more, since you're piloting a SF tank, you take more damage than normal from it.
• That One Boss: If you expected an easy ride to the Golden Ending, then you have another thing coming: every single boss on the way qualifies. There are Life Energy Shield pickups aplenty on the way, both Alpha and Beta; Kane is gonna need them.
  • Round 1: Gonbei's back, and he's got more tricks up his sleeves. All his original moves are back, but after the first bar goes, the fight goes to hell. Tappy will start running across the arena, dropping flares as it does, all of which will lock you into smaller parts of the arena while Gonbei charges at you. After the second bar, Tae drives in the KUEBIKO and cuts the arena in half with gatling fire, which rotates to trap you in a world of hurt while Gonbei relies upon flashbangs and sickles to hack at you, but when he charges at you, if you carelessly counter his charges, he will dodge and counter your counter instead. This is the only on-foot fight you have to bear, and for that you should be thankful.
  • Round 2: The rematch with Kanna in the EIR is brutal. In II, the fight could be trivialized using the Burn Spark. You don't have that ability this time around, meaning you'll have to actually learn Kanna's patterns and attacks. Even so, the fight isn't too bad until you've knocked out half of her first health bar. And that's when all hell breaks loose. She and Yacopu hop out briefly to call forth the alternate Kannas who will rain down fruit onto the battlefield, with none of it being beneficial for you. The watermelon bombs are self-explanatory, but other fruit can heal the EIR, or give it a super mode that makes it grow to gargantuan size. Leaving the fruit alone isn't an option. You have to work to destroy them. But they constantly rain down. And all the while Kanna is bum rushing you in the EIR. It's one of the most chaotic fights in the game, if not the whole series.
  • Round 3: The ATOM is back. By itself, it doesn't have any real upgrades from the last fight. It doesn't need them. When the first bar goes, Tesset will hop out and do her best Tesse impression, firing a Wave-Motion Gun from above once the HaraHara warning elapses. The worst part is after the second shot, at which point Mr. Mug comes out to play. A dopey little bear walking across the battlefield seems harmless enough, except its punches inflict 24 damage; this is as much health as the Metal Attacker can ever have. And the ATOM will still be firing at this time. Buckle up, pal.
  • Round 4: Rising GARUDA. Leibniz is determined to protect the birth of Jason and Eve's children, and she's not playing any games. Having returned in an upgraded GARUDA, every second, literally every moment she is on screen and not in the background, Leibniz is on the attack, and only stays in place mere moments at a time before repositioning in a literal blink. All this coupled with three health bars, multiple attacks with complete ground coverage, tracking bombardments, and all capped off with two Desperation Attack maneuvers, nevermind that you have to make proper use of all your sub-weapons to deliver consistent damage to her, and it's no wonder she's considered the hardest boss in the game.
  • Final Round: You have a choice as to who to play as, and the opposite will be your opponent. Picking to play as Jason doesn't qualify, since there's so much stacked in your favor. Want to play as Kane instead? Enjoy the SOPHIA-J1. It's a reverse of the game's opening Hopeless Boss Fight, and you're expected to win. Jason has far more up his sleeve than Kane did; his opening gambit is the Infinity +1 Sword that is the Anti-SF Ammo^note Remember, you're in an SF vehicle, before moving onto just driving on thin air with the Phantom Solid while deploying a Homing Laser field, before dropping down Ignition Sparks to have you playing a game of The Floor is Lava while returning fire. Got on the other side of him? You won't be for long, because Fred will just warp him to the opposite corner of the room. Get him down to his last smidgen of health, and he gets to roll out his own Desperation Attack: a barrage of three Final Accel Blasts, while a barrier provided by Eve restores his health. This window, incidentally is one of the few times Jason is cleanly open while he uses the Gaia system to recharge, but you still have to punch through that barrier, because his health will go right back to full if you don't.^note It's at this moment, however, that a completionist player who found the hidden Accel Blast where the original Skeleton Boss once was has a prime opportunity to line up their shot and take Jason out right then and there.