By now, if you have
had any interest in the Mega Man spiritual successor Mighty No. 9,
chances are that you’ve read the reviews from both critics and
gamers. Upon launch MN9 was
met with a slew of negative criticism and
people crying fowl at the
creators for not delivering the game that
so many fans were expecting
and waiting almost 3
years for. The game was
funded through Kickstarter by 67,000+ backers and
with over $4,000,000 donated.
I could sit here and discuss
all the negative aspects of a video game being funded on Kickstarter,
but I won’t and
I’ll simply say: If something is put on too high of pedestal, then
how is it supposed to succeed when every part
of it can be considered a shortcoming?
That
being said, I enjoyed my time with Mighty No. 9 on the Wii U. Is it a
perfect game? No way. Does it take some getting used to and a few
hours to fully appreciate. Yes.
As
someone who did not back MN9,
I didn’t know what to expect besides a Mega Man-like game. Having
both owned the Mega Man Anniversary and Mega Man X Collection on
Gamecube, I’ve been exposed to a good amount of Mega Man and have
even beaten a few of these classic gems. I
read little of what Mighty No. 9
was offering and barely followed the Kickstarter as the project
developed into the game we
now have in front of us.
MN9
is a cross between the classic Mega Man titles on the Nintendo and
the Mega Man X series on the Super Nintendo.
Movement is simple enough and
involves a
dashing mechanic that the X series was known for. As always, enemy
robots can be shot until they’re destroyed, but a
new mechanic involving
absorbing enemies
after they’re weakened,
takes center stage this time around. When damaged enough, these
enemies will glow either red,
green, yellow or blue
and offer temporary boosts to
Mighty’s abilities after he dashes through them.
Red will boost the power of
his blaster and make shots travel through enemies, green will award a
speed boost, yellow will decrease damage taken, while blue will
slowly fill an energy tank-like item that can be
used for filling the life bar
at will.
After
knowing this, there isn’t much to it. Navigate each stage
successfully, reach the Mighty Robot Boss at
the end, defeat him and move
onto the next stage. The
developers were going for a classic
Mega Man feeling, which they
both succeeded and failed in creating simultaneously.
Let
me explain. The core aspects of what made Mega Man...Mega Man are
here, with too much of an emphasis on some of the less desirable
aspects of it. The biggest offender of this being objects that will
instantly kill Mighty if he touches them. They come in the form of
glowing, purple wires sometimes seemingly placed randomly throughout
stages. There’s also falling towers in one level that will do the
same, in addition to 2 Mighty Robot Bosses having an attack that will instantly end the fight if it hits you.
As frustrating as it is to
touch one of these objects and have to start over from the last
checkpoint, they can be avoided easily with some practice. With the
exception of these one-hit death traps, the level design for most
levels is quite good.
Too many of these purple spikes make for some frustrating times
What
I enjoyed the most out of MN9 was
the platforming and run &
gun gameplay. There was also enough variety from level to level where
I never felt like I was doing
the same monotonous tasks over and over again. The bosses of each
level also require different strategies to overcome and some pattern
memorization to boot. The
powers you receive from them are also inventive and add some great
new ideas to already existing Mega Man powers.
As
much as I want to love Mighty No.
9, I simply cannot as it has too
many faults.
Even
though Comcept and Keiji Inafune surpassed every funding goal on
their Kickstarter page for MN9,
the game is unpolished and
seems rushed. The graphical style is bland and looks as though it
belongs in a PlayStation 2 game. The in-game explosions look
horrendous (pepperoni pizzas!!) and the effects are all sup-par,
while some of the bosses look
extremely
ugly close up.
Did somebody order...pizza?
The
music is forgettable at best, although there is an optional 8-bit
soundtrack that can be turned on which makes it a lot better to sit
though. The English voice acting is a disaster and in every way
corny, with poorly thought out scripted dialogue. Luckily it can be
turned off and instead replaced with Japanese voices (definitely a
lot more authentic for this type of game) or even French if you’re
in the mood for some more comical-sounding dialogue.
Another
shortcoming is some basic in-game controls not being fully explained
when you’re in situations where you need to use them. I think this
was just an oversight and left out because they ran out of time to
finish the game. Bosses can
also be made laughably easy if you’ve acquired their weakness from
another Mighty Robot boss. In past Mega Man games, even while using
the weakness against them they still gave you a challenge.
The boss fights make for some of the best moments in MN9
The
Wii U version of the game also has significantly more slow-down in
certain parts of levels especially
when using the Battalion Blast power to blow up blocks in
areas with multiple enemies
around. The
game will
hiccup and
result in some
accidental death more than once.
There’s
also a stage where you get to play as Call, Mighty’s sister, that
has her floating around with a jetpack and ducking under enemy fire.
It seems like they threw this into the game at the last minute for no
possible good reason. Which
brings me to my next point. A lot of the ideas they had for Mighty
No. 9 seemed great in theory,
but when it came to execution they just didn’t transfer well. The
team at Comcept might have been a little too ambitious with the
limited time they had. There's even an Online Race Mode and Co-op challenge mode, both of which I couldn't find a partner to connect with.
For
$20, you could do far worse than Mighty No. 9.
The game took me around 9 hours to complete, although I didn’t
complete all the Challenge Mode levels (easily forgettable). What
you’re given is an unpolished Mega Man/Mega Man X hybrid that could
have benefited greatly from another year or so in the game
development oven.
In
the end I’m glad I played through Mighty No. 9. It
gave me the Mega Man fix I haven’t had since Mega Man 10 came out
in 2010. For anyone who likes the Mega Man games and isn’t
expecting a mind-blowing brand new Mega Man experience then I can’t
recommend Mighty No. 9
enough. For all others, I suggest waiting for a price drop (the
$10-$15 mark is perfect!) before following Mighty into
some dangerous ground filled with pizza explosions. Also
avoid the Wii U version as it’s the worst one.
My
Score 6.8/10
