When Keiji Inafune set out to make a successor to Mega Man with the Kickstarter-backed effort, everyone who grew up with the Blue Bomber (me included) couldn’t have been more excited. With Capcom not doing much with the jump and shoot genre out there, the Kickstarter was a huge success. The campaign secured a whopping US$3.9million, as compared to its original target US$900,000, pledged by tens of thousands of fans.
This time, the storyline is that the Sanda Corporation’s robots have gone haywire, all except for you — Mighty No. 9. You’ll have to take down your eight brothers and sisters to help them ‘snap out of it’. So now, let’s see what nearly four million dollars has bought us.
New Gameplay Feature
The jump and shoot blue bomber has changed. Instead of a robot boy named Rock with a sister named Roll, you play as a robot named Beck with a sister named Call.
It’s a pretty easy correlation for each and you both blast things from far away. Rock slides, while Beck dashes. This doesn’t just act as a dash, it also works after you’ve dazed opponents to finish them off to garner more style points.
If you dash through them fast enough, you will be awarded a bonus that gives you extra speed, shooting power, or limited invulnerability. If you can chain multiple combos together you’ll have all of these abilities amplified. This is essential for getting through some of the trickier parts of the game.
Less Challenging
Much like Mega Man, you are free to play stages in any order that you want, squaring off against a boss and stealing their powers. You’ll shoot enemies until they flash purple, and then use a shoulder button to dash into it.
Enemies will recover if you don’t take them out, and failure to follow this pattern give bosses a period of invulnerability, where it recovers energy up to their last ‘checkpoint’ in their health bar. The stolen skills just don’t matter much.
While I’m certain some fans will figure out the best weapon for the job for each foe, I found that I was able to chip away at my foes with the default blaster and get the job done most of the time.
Bland and Boring
Each stage offers a different sort of environment that comes with its own unique hazards. From skyscrapers with strong winds, oil refineries engulfed in flames, and robot factories, this game has a lot of locales to play through.
Unfortunately, they are all so bland and boring looking that each will become indistinguishable from one another.
The Graphical Shortcomings
Visually, Mighty No. 9 is quite disappointing for a game that is meant as spiritual successor to a franchise. Fire and destruction effects are what you might find on the PlayStation 2 or Dreamcast.
Ugly and blocky chunks of debris fall and then disappear unceremoniously, punctuated by fire that looks like I have a bad video driver loaded, or the graphic options are set to low.
Mighty No. 9 also suffers from some frequent and inexplicable framerate hitches. The game hums along at 60fps easily, until it doesn’t. Regardless of on-screen activity, the game will unceremoniously drop into the teens.
Final Thought
From its subpar graphics, uninspired level design, and overall low quality presentation, Mighty No. 9 is quite a disappointment in almost every way. There really isn’t much more to say about this game without becoming repetitious. To me, it isn’t horrible, but it’s not worth playing either.
Developers: Comcept, Inti Creates
Publisher: Deep Silver, Spike Chunsoft
Platforms: Windows, OS X, Linus, PS 3, PS 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, PS Vita, Nintendo 3DS, Shield Portable
Release Date: 21 June 2016
Genre: Action, platform
Players: Single-player, multiplayer
Reviewed: Windows
Score: 5/10
