Just how mighty is Mighty No. 9?
You control Mighty No. 9, whose real name is Beck, and you and your creator, William White, are trying to figure out the cause of the malfunctions of your siblings, Mighties No. 1-8. For those people who have already “reviewed” (and I use that term loosely here) this game, they seem to have completely missed something. Inafune was not allowed to put the ideas he wanted into the Mega Man games. In fact, he wasn’t allowed to make games anymore at Capcom after a point; he was only to oversee their development. That’s why he left and made his own company. Mighty No. 9 is basically a retelling of classic Mega Man in the way he wanted to originally with a lot of the ideas he wanted to incorporate in those games. That being said, there are a lot of similarities between Mighty No. 9 and Mega Man, but there are features that set them both wildly apart from one another. Let’s take a look…
My cousin used to call Mega Man “jumpin’ shoot man” because that’s generally all I did when I played the game. Beck does that as well but has more options than Mega Man did. For one thing, holding the R2 button while pressing jump (X) or shoot (square) makes it so jumps or shoots diagonally away from the direction he is facing. Beck also has a dash that is reminiscent of Mega Man X, but does a little something extra. Instead of pressing Options and going to the screen to select which of your sibling’s powers you’ve obtained (called a ReXelection), you can use the L1 button to cycle through and press triangle to instantly change to that weapon and back to your regular shot. When you shoot a robot that is malfunctioning, they destabilize. That is, they either turn blue, yellow, green, or red depending on what kind of robot they are. The colors correspond to a power up Beck gets that lasts for a limited time if he dashes into them while they are in this state. Red powers up your shots, yellow increases your armor, green increases running speed, and blue will give you a reserve energy recovery item. You’re probably going to need that recovery item. The game is challenging. They are not holding your hand in this game, and you are expected to make decisions on the fly as well as look ahead for potential hazards. Remember in Mega Man where you had a brief moment of invincibility after getting hit? You still have it, but you’re never invulnerable to spikes. Ever. Also, there are boss fights in which a good portion of the stage is a hazard. So be prepared to die a lot! I’ve seen some “reviews” where they complain that the game is boring. This is rather puzzling because the game plays exactly like Mega Man with a little bit of Mega Man X thrown in there, and few people complain that either of those games are boring. My only guess is that the difficulty level is beyond what they expected and they have to repeat a stage more than a few times. To that, my answer is this: GIT GUD
Visually, the game actually exceeds what I expected from a cartoon-like side scrolling platformer. The backgrounds are very detailed with shadows and animations that make me think that I can take some of the paths that lead back there (I’ve tried more than a few times). The screenshots and movies from the PS4 are darker than what’s displayed on my monitor (BenQ Gaming Monitor RL2455HM). But, from what I see on my monitor, there’s good detail in all of the backgrounds. I particularly like the ice stage and sky stage as they were the ones that distracted me the most while playing. If your monitor/TV doesn’t display the best picture, you’re not going to get good visuals out of the game. Very simple. I’m interested in seeing how these backgrounds will translate to the Nintendo 3DS. Seems that some people forgot that the backers of this game wanted it on the 3DS as well. That’s not an easy feat when you don’t have the resources of a large corporation anymore. So, I wasn’t really that surprised that it got delayed 4 times. I would think that people would think about these things before complaining, but that seems to be asking for too much these days.
As far as music goes… Well, I can’t really hear it, and that’s actually my biggest gripe about the game. The music is set so low that you must pay attention to hear it anywhere other than the stage and option select screen because that’s the only place where it’s quiet enough often enough to hear it. I see no where in options to change the volume of the sounds anywhere. I’m disappointed at that, but I’ll live. It may actually show itself when you beat the game. From the tunes I have heard, they’re pretty simplistic and nothing on the caliber of Mega Man 2 or 4. They actually remind me of Mega Man 8’s music. I do enjoy the banter between Beck and his siblings as they go through stages. If you go in order (I suggest you start with Countershade’s stage), the robot you saved from malfunctioning previously helps you out a little throughout the stage, assuming they’re weak to that weapon, making it a little easier for you. Keep that in mind as it will help your quick clear bonuses should you try to go for online leaderboards. Yes, you read that correctly. There are online leaderboards. There’s also cooperative play.
Overall, I’m proud I was a backer for this game and am pleased with the work Inafune and his team put into it. The trailer was indeed terrible, but my focus is always on the quality of the game itself. To all the people judging the game without playing it and putting it down: You’re doing a fine job of showing your ignorance and unwillingness to be objective.