SOPHIA-J1

Sophia-J1 is a Metal Attacker appearing exclusively in the True Ending of Blaster Master Zero 3, both as a playable vehicle and a final boss. Its model number is EARTH MA-J1.

WARNING The Hostility Of CLASSIFIED INFORMATION This article contains spoilers for the endgame of Blaster Master Zero 3.

Appearance

After Eve decides to live in Super Dimensional Space as the 'Invem Queen' to prevent the Mutants from attacking, Jason promises to reunite with her, no matter what. To this end he creates Sophia-J1, a prototype Metal Attacker presumably designed to endure the rigors of Super Dimensional space. Jason eventually finds Eve and decides to stay with her in Super Dimensional Space, transforming into a Super Dimensional being himself. Despite this change, Jason is still able to interact with and pilot Sophia-J1 as usual.

Some time later, Jason and Eve begin a plan to conceive children of their own using a special mutant cocoon. Fearing that this plan will attract the attention of Kane Gardner and the Sophia Force, Jason reaches out to the other MA pilots to help delay Kane, and readies Sophia-J1 to protect their 'Cradle of Hope' until Eve gives birth. At the final confrontation, the player can choose to either play as Jason and battle Kane's Metal Attacker, or play as Kane and battle against the Sophia-J1, by waiting until the title card for the final bout displays the preferred hero.

After Eve gives birth to Elfie and Roddy, resolves the misunderstanding with Kane, and drops the children off with Leibniz, the Sophia-J1 crew blast off through dimensions to fight the Lightning Beings that disobey Eve, for the sake of their children's future, and just maybe, a future Jason and Eve can share with them.

Jason, to Defy Kane (Player Character Attacks and Abilities)

Sophia-J1 possesses identical abilities and weapons to Gaia-SOPHIA SV, and begins the fight with a full top-off of HP and Gaia System energy. If brought to zero HP, Eve will bestow a super-dimensional blessing consisting of 2 HP regen per second and a barrier capable of withstanding some projectiles.

Kane, to Stop Jason (Boss Attacks and Abilities)

While under AI control as a boss, Sophia-J1 exhibits both its player-usable capabilities and an ability to warp under its own power to begin and end attack patterns (it is unclear if this is a property of its construction in Super-Dimensional Space or assistance from Fred). To the left of Sophia-J1's HP bars is a display of its activated weapons loadout. This is always displayed with the J-Crusher Shot on the right and an upcoming main or sub weapon on the left. The frequency at which weapon is used is dependent on the player's usage of the weapons during their playthrough.

• J-Crusher Shot: Sophia-J1 fires up to 9 forward (or if Metal Attacker is above, upwards) shots while rolling forward and jumping to corner the Metal Attacker. This pattern is used after any other pattern, and may be ended prematurely if the player maneuvers behind it.
• Warhead Missiles: As above, but Sophia-J1 instead fires salvoes of missiles, and will turn once if led to the wall opposite its starting point. These missiles may be destroyed by the Metal Attacker (or disembarked Kane) for small recovery capsules.
• Homing Laser: Sophia-J1 jumps to mid-screen height and rolls forward on a trail of Phantom Solid blocks while broadcasting a lock-on pulse; if the player crosses into it, they will be pummeled by the weapon's six curving laser blasts. The lock-on pulse ceases for a half-second when Sophia-J1 rolls across the horizontal center of the screen, providing an evasion window.
• Ignition Spark: Sophia-J1 hover-jumps to the top of the arena and maintains altitude while dropping Ignition Spark mines on the lower left and right corners. While easily battered with cannon and sub-weapon fire in this posture, care must be taken to avoid the shock radius of the mines themselves, the surface-crawling sparks each one emits, and the short-circuit explosion radius when the sparks ultimately collide with the mines. At the end of the pattern, Sophia-J1 drops a mine in the center of the floor whose short-circuit radius is roughly triple the norm, and best evaded with Wall Climb.
• Anti-SF Ammo: As the J-Crusher Shot pattern, but Sophia-J1 instead fires fast-traveling armor-piercing rounds that deal an aggravated 2 HP damage per hit to the Metal Attacker, and refrains from traversing the whole width of the arena in favor of wall-jumping off columns of Phantom Solid blocks to execute a shooting retreat.
• Rain Cluster: Sophia-J1 rolls forward while spraying napalm, then hover-jumps while closing in before turning around up to twice.
• Final Acceleration Blast: This pattern is executed as an interrupt once Sophia-J1 is brought to 33% of its last HP bar. It receives Eve's blessing as noted in the player-usable abilities section, but its barrier resists all shots from the player, HP regen is gradual up to 1.5 life bars, and Eve activates an Unchained DDF that slows down the player. After executing the remainder of its present attack pattern, Sophia-J1 starts another J-Crusher Shot pattern before stopping at the arena's horizontal center and escaping through a dimensional rupture into normal space on Earth's moon. After the player pursues, it continues the rest of the J-Crusher Shot attack, then teleports to each upper corner in turn, then the upper center, setting off a Final Acceleration Blast as it lands on the lunar surface at each warp. After the third blast, it leads a chase back into Super-Dimensional Space and attempts to Wall Jump into a new J-Crusher Shot pattern, only to suffer a total Gaia System shutdown and loss of invincibility barrier. The player may either take an "instant" kill in response by using the Metal Attacker's own Acceleration Blast (if found), or whittle down the restored health normally as Sophia-J1 resumes the normal attack patterns after three seconds of shutdown.

Defeating Sophia-J1 awards the "Warrior of Sophia" achievement on non-Nintendo systems.

Trivia

• Sophia-J1's naming scheme parallels that of the classic franchise's Sophia J-7. However, whereas the latter was named in honor of Jason, here it denotes his apparent involvement in its ground-up design.
• The "J1" in the unit's name looks like the Japanese katakana character "リ" (Ri) with the strokes reversed. "リ" is also the first character used in "リバース", one of several Japanese words meaning "reverse", fitting with BMZ3's overall theme.