Mighty No. 9 Reviews
From poor visuals, to awkward physics, and even annoying narrative elements, Mighty No. 9 feels boring and lifeless. It's irritating that we had to wait so long for something so meagre and mediocre.
Mighty No. 9 is not a terrible game, nor is it even a bad one - it's just plain mediocre. From its downright disappointing visuals to its flat music and bland-at-best level design, everything about Mighty No. 9 screams of mediocrity. And let's be clear - if this were a fan game made by a small group of devoted Mega Man fans it'd be deemed more impressive. Yet this is a budget retail title developed by one of Mega Man's lead designers, which also had involvement from Inti Creates, a proven studio with hits like Mega Man 9 and Azure Striker Gunvolt among its credits. We're not sure where things went wrong, but Mighty No. 9's finished product is just a "mega" disappointment.
Mighty No. 9 suffers from spreading a great idea too thin and thusly not allowing it to thrive in its own right. It was a promising first start but in order for this to be a future franchise I feel like more focus will be needed. At just over 7 hours of a campaign time, Mighty No. 9 is not a bad game by any means, and for $20 it is extremely worthwhile. It just isn't the great game we wanted and instead is a hopeful good game with promise. Here's hoping it gets a sequel.
But it feels like instead of putting time into multiple engrossing levels to experience, the player is instead thrown into a handful of death-trap missions with inferior controls and volatile settings and told they should be having fun.
Mighty No. 9 is a lot like your Uncle Steve. You know, the one that still lives in his hometown where he played varsity football in high school. Uncle Steve never fails to remind you of this, just as he never fails to remind the waitress bringing him his coffee. She is too young to know who he is, but he's quick to point out the picture hanging near the entrance. The best quarterback this town has ever seen, he tells her. She smiles and laughs, too sweet to tell him that thirty years was a long time ago. Mighty No. 9 tries to hold onto its legacy, resting on its laurels while the rest of gaming world has left town a long time ago. We paid for the coffee out of pity now, instead of hope. Because Uncle Steve was always going to let us down from the start.
This game will not be heralded as a classic in the same vein as Mega Man. However, the original Mega Man isn't the best either. Fans debate back and forth between Mega Man 2 and 3 as their favorites (MM3 for this writer's money). Another example is the first Assassin's Creed. Great concept, failed delivery. The point is, despite its flaws, Mighty No. 9 is a good step toward reviving the Mega Man style in all but name. Hopefully the team will learn from their mistakes and make the next game the classic fans want it to be.
Mighty No. 9 is not a good video game. It's is loaded down with lots of cool ideas that it never fully explores, and frankly it feels unfinished, unpolished, and unplaytested. It has potential, but right now this game serves as a warning about the dangers of stretch goals and crowdfunding, and only the most die-hard Mega Man fans will find something worthwhile here. Everyone else is better off sticking with the Blue Bomber.
Mighty No. 9's dash mechanic is a lot of fun, but bad art, imprecise hitboxes, and awful level design make the experience extremely frustrating.
Even with dull visuals and a little too much reliance on the past, in a world where Capcom has seemingly forgotten that the Blue Bomber exists, Mighty No. 9's enthralling boss battles make it an okay substitute to fill that void for the time being.
After several years, delays, and missteps, the Kickstarter-funded Mighty No. 9 is here, and believe me when I say that the supposed spiritual successor to Mega Man is a Mega Bust.
Comcept and Keiji Inafune didn't knock it out of the park with Mighty No. 9, but they damn sure took a good swing at it. If people can pull their heads out of a certain part of their body and judge the game for as it is, I'm sure this game could, in the long run, be successful enough for a sequel and if that day comes, let us hope and pray that Comcept has learned many valuable lessons from this endeavor and do Mighty No. 9-2 the right way.
The phrase that best describes Keiji Inafune's infamous spiritual successor to the classic action-platforming franchise is "aggressively mediocre." In fact, Mighty No. 9 is such an average video game that reviewers could give future mediocre games a Mighty No. 9 out of ten and it would serve as a perfect indication of their quality.
One of the most frustrating aspects of the level design is the game's liberal use of instant-kill environmental hazards. They appear frequently and in ways that trigger cheap and frustrating deaths
Mighty No. 9 attempts to breath fresh life into the 2D platforming genre but it lacks the polish and magic that made Inafune's iconic series such a staple of 90s gaming.
It genuinely upsets me, not as a critique, but as a fellow gamer that this game turned out the way it did.
Mighty No. 9 was designed to be a spiritual successor to Mega Man. If any of that spirit was ever here, it's long since decayed. The game is incredibly frustrating, suffers from bad design choices throughout and offers only middling enjoyment .
This feels like an answer to why Capcom isn't making Mega Man games anymore
Mighty No. 9 has all of the annoying traits that buried the Mega Man franchise, but none of the personality or charm that made it so beloved in the first place.
The final line of dialogue in the story posits that only time will tell if "this Mighty No. 9 is a blessing or a curse." The statement probably wasn't meant to be as fitting or applicable to the finished game as it ultimately is, but maybe it was a rare moment of introspection.
Mighty No. 9 is an enjoyable 2D action game that carries on the spirit of Mega Man quite well.