Mighty No. 9

Full disclosure; I was not anticipating this game too much, and I also have no history with Keiji Inafune's Mega Man series, so I'm evaluating this game strictly on it's own merits. Mighty No.9 isn't a complete failure, in fact it does bring some interesting ideas to the table and works pretty well from a mechanical stand point, If the game's ultra successful Kickstarter taught us anything it's that gamers are feelin really nostalgic for old-school action-platformers, and Mighty No. 9 has seemingly been given the burden of revitalising the genre. The problem here is that the game's design in almost every regard is totally uninspired, unimpressive, and frustratingly sloppy.

First off let's talk about the presentation, I played this game on my PS4, and let me tell you, it looks like c***! It looks like a PS2 game honestly, the colour pallet is bland, the textures are plain and blocky, the backgrounds are totally bare, and most of the environments in this game are generic and empty. The story is about as interesting as an old man farting; all of the robots in the U.S. get corrupted and go haywire (with the exception of Beck and Call..... haha, I just got that..... clever.....) and so you, Beck/Mighty No.9 must track down the other mighty numbered robots and save them by, absorbing their energy or something... The cause of all this commotion is supposedly a twist but the game's plot rolls itself out in the most predictable manner possible. The English voice acting is horrendous, so much so that it's actually kinda entertaining, for Christ sakes they didn't even animate the character's mouths moving as they talk, what was this game funded on, food stamps? What happened to the millions of dollars that was crowd funded?

This game is not buggy or glitchy in terms of game-play, which is admirable I guess. However I find it rather cheap that Beck cannot shoot diagonally or vertically, do you mean to tell me that in 2016 my video game protagonist can't lift his arms up slightly and shoot on an angle? 0_o I wasn't a fan of the dashing mechanic, specifically with regards to absorbing subdued enemies. This mechanic made for some frustrating platforming because you're not invincible while you're dashing, and given that these levels are literally littered with enemies in the most inconvenient of places you'll find your momentum being halted early and often! The level designs in this game are pretty terrible to say the least, there's nothing wrong with a game being challenging, but only if the challenge is as a result of the player's actions, but more often than not this game's outrageous difficulty curve comes from poor level design.

The ludicrous placement of enemies and obstacles, the frustrating and sometimes unresponsive controls, the unjust strength of certain bosses, and the lack of adequate checkpoints and extra lives. Like what's with the friggin Military base? There's landmines placed all over the floor such that it's impossible to not get hit unless you have upgrades from previous bosses, but that contradicts the notion that you can complete these levels in any order. And what about that mine shaft level!!! Like holy jeez, as if having a giant drill chase me and clogging up my only path with giant crates was stressful enough; but SURPRISE!!! Enemies will jump out at you from every crate! And don't even get me started on those tire enemies from the highway level!!! 0_o It's like these levels were design specifically to annoy you! But in this game's defence; once you start gaining new abilities from fallen bosses, and figuring out how to restore your health and start missions with more lives (i.e. cheat..), the game becomes a bit more feasible and I dare I say a tad bit fun.

Yes, despite all of my complaining this game actually has some positives. I thought some of the boss designs were neat, Cyrosphere (Mighty No. 2) was fairly charming and her freezing up-grade was really helpful in later levels, as was the bull dozing upgrade from Mighty No. 4 (If you can beat that a**hole!) and Mighty No. 3's electricity tracker beam. The highway level was cool in concept (reminded me of Big Blue from SSB Melee!!!) but another frustrating level in practise, although the boss, Brandish (Mighty No. 7) was a decent fight and his swords were somewhat useful if you space yourself well. Hands down the highlight of the game for me is Countershade (Mighty No.8) and the sniper themed Capitol Building level, that's prolly the only point in this entire game where I was legitimately impressed with the creativity on display.

Not only that but each level is pretty dynamic and introduces new ideas and obstacles. Which ya' know, I suppose is a standard for these types of games anyway. But it's almost fun to go back and re-play levels with different abilities and see which ones are more efficient at getting through each level, until you remember why you hated said level to begin with. I liked how in some levels fallen bosses will appear and lend you a hand! In all truth I didn't make it past the boring jail level before I totally lost interest and left the game. And even if Mighty No.9 is a heavily flawed game it really does have some good elements in it. It's just waaay too spotty and uninspired for my tastes.

Mega Man producer Keiji Inafune is behind the game, which raised funds via Kickstarter and was released to a extremely poor reception. I was wondering if the game was actually bad, just over-hyped, or was substandard compared to Mega Man. I'm a good judge of the game since I've never played Mega Man, and I didn't back it on Kickstarter; so there's no bias involved in this review.

Everything about the game seems dated. The character models don't move their mouths when they talk and the voice acting is a bit slow and over emphasised. The graphics are simple but I quite liked the visual style of the game.

There are 12 stages in the story mode; you have access to an initial 8, then there's 4 levels to conclude the game. The first 8 stages can be tackled in any order, and completion of each level gives you a new suit which you acquire from the boss. As Beck aka “Mighty Number 9”, you will be taking down the robots 1 through 8 who have gone rogue.

Each level is a mixture of platforming and killing enemies, then a battle against the boss. After enemies take a certain amount of damage, you can dash into them to finish them off. The faster you dash into them, the better your rewards. The bosses work a similar way, but dashing into them permanently damages them; miss your opportunity and they will restore that bit of health.

So what is bad about the game then? Well, I think the game breaks many game design rules, so I often found myself in a rage whilst playing this game. Here are some examples:

There's an insane amount of instant deaths, there's this pink electric which kills you instantly and it is often placed in areas of leaps of faith. You have no cues to think there's danger below, so it ends up being trial and error. Sometimes enemies are placed in positions where if they hit you, you will end up being pushed into the electric.

In other games, if you spot an alternative path or secret area you will be rewarded. In one of the early levels, I discovered such an area, only to destroy the single box to find a bunch of enemies! Why would the game punish you for finding a hidden area? I didn't bother exploring after that.

I normally played the levels carefully, trying to destroy each enemy without taking hits. In some stages where I died a few times in the same area, I ended up rushing through, mashing the dash and shoot buttons; often finding I was racking up combos and being rewarded for my quick skills. Rewarding the player for button mashing and bumbling through areas is just stupid.

The game gives you 3 lives and expects you to be able to complete levels which is impossible. The game developers knew this, so put a config option to choose up to 10 lives. There's another option to give you random rewards when you respawn. Sometimes it was just the temporary power ups which boost speed, attack etc., but sometimes you got health restoration items which were often vital to complete sections of the game. Therefore, there were times where I knew I wouldn't be able to beat the boss until the game give me the restoration item.

There's one level where the first checkpoint in the level is when you reach the boss. That is just absurd! Having to replay several minutes after a death isn't fun.

Switching between suits is a bit cumbersome. For the most part, I didn't bother, but when there's times you need to; I found it difficult to switch whilst the boss was attacking. Most games would teach you how to use power-ups after acquiring them. This game just gives you some text to read in the help menu. There were suits I never used in the entire game, and others where I didn't know how to utilise properly. You are told each boss is weak to a specific suit, but there's no hints to which suit to choose.

The boss battles can be insanely tough, and I found the way they regenerate health to be unfair. They seemed to regenerate at certain intervals, rather than being timed from the moment you deal enough damage to be allowed to dash into them. Therefore, sometimes I dealt the blow, just to find the boss would move away and regenerate without me having a chance to dash at them. Another annoyance is that sometimes dashing at them registered as damage to you. Losing lives this way was ridiculously unfair because it seemed arbitrary when it happened.

The game is really short, but is artificially extended by the unfairness; meaning you will have to replay levels until you complete them. As expected, the final is really unfair; it's a multistage boss with no checkpoint or chance to heal in between.

I don't mind challenging games as long as it is a fair challenge. I felt Mighty Number 9 was extremely unfair and it wasn't fun. I found myself quickly becoming angry playing this and it is easy to understand the vitriol aimed at this game.