Mighty No. 9 is an action-platform video game developed by Comcept, in conjunction with Inti Creates, and published by Deep Silver. The creation of the game was based on the online crowdfunding website Kickstarter and incorporated heavy input from the public. Mighty No. 9 closely resembles the early Mega Man series in both gameplay and character design, which project lead Keiji Inafune worked on, and is considered its spiritual successor.
The minimum Kickstarter goal for Mighty No. 9 was successfully funded on September 2, 2013, after only two days of the creation of the campaign. However, several other features including additional stages, special modes and ports to other platforms were confirmed after additional "stretch goals" related to it were achieved, increasing the total funds obtained to over 400% of the original goal.
The game was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Wii U, with the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS versions still in development. Abstraction Games and Engine Software are porting the game onto the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS respectively. The game was originally scheduled to come out in April 2015, but was delayed multiple times, with the game eventually being released worldwide in June 2016 on all non-portable platforms except Xbox 360, OS X, and Linux, with the portable versions still in development and slated to come out later in 2016.
The game was highly anticipated when it was announced, but lengthy delays and Comcept's decision to fund another project, Red Ash: The Indelible Legend, through Kickstarter were met with accusations of mismanagement. The game received a generally mixed reception from critics and Kickstarter backers upon launch. The game's design, graphics, content, voice acting, and technical issues were criticized, and critics agreed that the game failed to live up to expectations.
Plot:
Mighty No. 9 stars an android named Beck, the ninth unit in a set of combat robots called the Mighty Numbers. At some point a form of computer virus attacks the rest of his fellow units, as well as machines around the world. The player, as Beck, must fight the rogue robots and discover the villain who threatens the fate of the planet. Alongside Beck is his partner, Call. Comcept previously held a fan opinion poll in order to determine the most popular mockup design for Call. As a result, concept design "F" was selected as the base design for the character. The name Beck was chosen as "his creator wanted him to have a human name, unlike his peers", and also because it fit his partner's name as well (as in "Beck and Call").
There are three scientists involved in the story, each with a specific part to play: Dr. White, the robotics designer who created Beck and the rest of the Mighty Numbers; Dr. Blackwell, the inventor of "Xel" technology that provides the basis for the Mighty Number and all robots in the game; and Dr. Sanda, who also works in "Xel" technology and has created Call but plays an otherwise unknown role at this point. Designers from Inti Creates as well as Comcept are both working on the designs of the characters in the game and have noted that "each [character is] intended to have his [or her] own unique look" within the art design.
The Verdict:
Like I mentioned on social media, I honestly don’t understand the hate with this game from gamers. Sure, Comcept didn’t deliver on a lot of crowdfunding goals (I still want my Mighty No. 9 anime :’( …) and the game was hit with setback and multiple delays, but you’re mad over the crowdfunding goals then you only have yourselves to blame from investing that much money on a video game or any Kickstarter for that matter when you have no idea where your hard-earned cash is going. For that part, I’m not holding any ill-will or resentment against Keiji Inafune towards this game. I honestly can’t even remember if donated anything towards this project or not, so if you guys see my name in the game’s ending credits then let me know because I’m not still around for FOUR HOURS watching the end credits…
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| You have to be insane to think that the final product was going to look the concept art here that was shown at the START of development when the title was first announced. |
In terms of gameplay, everyone supporting this game should have known right off the bat that it’s homage to the classic Mega Man series with a few subtle nods to the X series. Beck has the basic arm cannon that Mega Man has sported in the traditional classic Mega Man franchise but he also has the ability to absorb Xel from weakened enemy robots by dashing into them. This is an ability that will become a staple of combat in Mighty No.9. It’s effective on every enemy in the game, including bosses. If you don’t weaken bosses and absorb their Xel quickly enough, they will fully recover their health and make things even harder for this totally unforgiving title.
The game isn’t throw your controller in frustration hard, but NES era hard where it takes a lot of trial and error to memorize patterns and devise a proper strategy to each of these stages. On Normal difficulty, the game actually gives you more items and power-ups to help you out if you die repeatedly on a single level. On Hard and Hyper, there’s no type of help to serve as forgiveness for your mistakes on those higher difficulties. I did feel like it was a cop out to recycle and rehash the Yellow Devil for the final boss of this game.
Instead of acquiring a single weapon from each of the defeated Robot Masters, …err Mighty Numbers, Beck acquires the ability to absorb their Xel and use their powers in a new form called a ReXelection. These powers change Beck’s appearance and grants him a new ability and special weapon. Some of these powers cost weapon energy, others don’t, but this game is a little more generous in the aspect that Beck’s weapon energy automatically recharges after a few seconds of nonuse. I suppose this is to prevent players from spamming weapons for Inafune doesn’t end up with another Metal Blade on his hands. Each of the ReXelection abilities bring something new to the table but I personally felt that Countershade, Battalion, and Brandish had the most powerful weapons in the game, especially with the latter offering almost near-infinite weapon usage and some invincibility during usage.
In terms of story, I was a little underwhelmed with the plot until the reveal about Dr. White’s “true” identity and revelation behind Trinity being awakened again. I thought it was pretty cool that all of the Mighty Numbers help Beck out throughout the course of the game after Beck “cures” them of their malfunctioning circuits. How can I hate the Mighty Numbers for their hilarious banter throughout their boss fights or while assisting Beck throughout the many stages? I won’t lie – I was annoyed at their taunting when you die or get game over versus the Mighty Numbers as they made fun of your mistakes and piss poor judgment.
Speaking of that, Comcept should have taken out the “Advice” tab description on each of the Mighty Numbers’ stages. After you defeat one of them, it’s just a matter of skimming around until you notice the corresponding Mighty Number comment on their siblings’ stage to know which ReXelection will work on that corresponding Mighty Number. That makes the process and more importantly, the fun, of figuring out the boss order less fun altogether. I guess it doesn’t matter too much as each of the Mighty Numbers’ stages is a hurdle of difficulty each in their own right on multiple fronts.
At launch, the game was full of glitches and bugs. I was playing the game on last-gen consoles (notably Xbox 360 which was delayed at launch until later that week but still came out with several bugs and glitches) and ran into quite a lot of these bugs. It wasn’t until the week 2 patch was when I was able to have the game register and save my achievement and trophy support instead of deleting it every time I launched the game on my console. That was a little heartbreaking but at the same time,
I’m not an achievement/trophy whore so I wouldn’t mind replaying the game again just to battle the Mighty Numbers again. On top of that, I ran into a glitch a few times where my game would crash completely if I looked at the achievement that unlocked after defeating a boss. I had this happen during one of my streams of the game where I just said fuck this and went to play something else. I guess Inafune and Comcept got a TON of complaints after week 1 as I haven’t had any of those issues after the week 2 patch. There’s still an occasional slowdown or drop of frames when there’s a lot of enemies onscreen or a ton of explosions but it’s not so bad that it ruins the gameplay experience.
I wish the game gave you more than one level to play as Call with. Her solo level was a nice break from Beck’s head-on approach and I wish we got more of that throughout the main game. Maybe Comcept will be convinced to give Call some solo Challenge missions or DLC stages in the near-future? She’s playable in Online Co-Op Mode as well, so at least there’s that much.
Buy It or Don’t Bother?
At this point, everyone has pretty much blacklisted this game, but I’m not butt-hurt or irate at Inafune for what we were given here. At $19.99 it’s not a bad game. I don’t know what everyone else got at launch as I’m speaking for the last-gen (Xbox 360) digital version here, but I was more than satisfied with my purchase. Inafune’s even going to give fans the RAY DLC for free as an apology with the physical copies, so what else do you want? I still say the people who are mad about the Kickstarter only have themselves to blame if they felt like they were ripped off off the end product. You should be happy that you got anything – if at all, especially given how most of these video game Kickstarters have horror stories and unhappy endings.
All that I’m asking is that my fellow gamers and Mega Man fans to appreciate this labor of love for what it is – a homage to the Mega Man gameplay that we have known and loved. Is it perfect? No, but we knew going in that it was going to be a throwback to classic Mega Man games. It's not like Capcom are going to do anything new with the Mega Man franchise outside of re-release the older titles anyway.
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