i just watched the blaster master video, and i recall a trick i invented while playing it...
im not sure if this trick works, but if it does it would save a huge amount of time, here goes:
when you are about to enter level 7 from level 2, i found that you could use hover to fly up, instead of driving on the wall.
ofc the hover runs out before you can reach the top, BUT there are 2 enemies there, and if you kill them and get hover power from them you should have enough, i didnt manage to get 2 hovers from the enemies while playing on my nes so i never got it to work.
this trick would allow one to skip 3 levels, but you wont have the item wich allows you to drive on walls, which means you cant get to level 8.
i think it depends on how the level 7 item works ( drive on ceiling). if you can also use this to drive on the wall (like item 6), it would grant passage to level 8.
now i dont do tases, i just watch and give you boys some hints, its up to you to test this now!