Chris-HowlettLet me be clear with a disclaimer right off the bat here, folks.
Yes, thatâs right. Mighty No 9 basically -IS- Mega Man. Iâve been reading all sorts of comments, questions, and tweets about Mighty No 9 for a while now, and I donât think this can be said enough.
Mighty No 9 is SUPPOSED to be a ârip-offâ of Mega Man. The man responsible for Mega Man headed up the project, so no worries folks. Iâm no law expert, but Iâm pretty sure Inafune isnât going to sue himself for plagiarism or whatever the digital version of that is. And by the way, itâs a pretty good rip-off, barring a few inferior aspects and control issues.
First off, they did a great job of delivering a smooth, visually seamless production. Iâve read a few reports of frame rate inferiority to the PC version of the game, and I certainly cannot refute that. But I do not agree that this has somehow caused issues with the PS4 version. I have been playing a number of hours now and have yet to notice anything like screen-tearing, slow down, or anything else of note, really. When you consider how often a vast number of explosions whizzing cars are flying all around you, I have no problem saying the PS4 version is still a worthwhile purchase!
I like the design as a whole, but it is quite cartoonish even for a Mega Man spiritual successor to the point that environments can feel a little too plastic-y. Thereâs a lot of environmental things happening in the background, and you may notice a few three dimensional effects, as well. For example, a pillar in the background may suddenly fall onto your 2D plane to crush you, or enemies in the background may fire on you in certain levels. But for the most part, youâre looking at a 2D platformer, although the environment does help it seem more encompassing. During one particular boss fight, there are a couple video cameras on the battle arena and you can see the fight take place on screens in the background from the various angles of those cameras. Pretty neat, I thought!
Or rather, it should be a compliment.
The dashing is done with the R1 button, and although I got used it it, it just felt awkward after all those years of dashing with either Circle (or âAâ on SNES) or a double tap forward with the D-Pad. It also makes switching weapon types (which in some cases are more like ability types than just a different kind of bullet) more awkward. While fighting, you have to cycle through the weapons with L1 and L2, then press Triangle when you have the one you wish to switch to. These extra steps pry your eyes to the top corner of the screen to figure out what you want while also trying to play frantically in tense situations. In Mega Man games, cycling through with the triggers/bumpers happened instantly and you could tell if you had the right weapon selected just by observing your colour. Itâs not a bad control scheme, per-se, but compared to the mastery of Mega Man, itâs a far more cumbersome system.
Oh yeah… there's no charge shots, either, unless it's an ability I never found. Even the early Mega Man games eventually included a charge shot after the first few entries. You'll definitely miss the lack of a charge shot.
Once you have dashing down to comfort, you have to be careful not to over-sensitively dash off platforms or into enemies. The amount of time spent in a dash can change ever so marginally making it difficult to time and measure the amount of distance youâd like to cover. Iâm also sad at the absence of wall climbing that we got in the X series. I get that the original Mega Man didnât really have that either, but you can grab onto ledges. This isnât so bad except for the fact that âhit detectionâ with the ledges is not consistent, causing you to fall to your death when other times you grab the ledge no problem.
Aside from these complaints, however, the control system is pretty solid and responsive. It just isnât as tight as youâd like.
And for those who get frustrated easily, after you die, allies will come to give you little power up goodies to help you on your way. You just wonât get the coveted high letter ranking the hard core players can achieve from a fast, errorless runthrough. I believe this helps make the game rewarding for players of all skill levels.
The sound effects in the game are engaging and eclectic, however the voice acting, or more accurately, the voice recordings, really grate on my nerves. It sounds like much of the voice acting was recorded with cheap equipment in not entirely sound-proof rooms. To make it worse, the low quality in the sound of their voices really helps to accent any poor voice acting. It is unfortunately immediately noticeable.
The fortunate thing is that this game is very easy to continually revisit from time to time. You can take on enemies in different orders to change the challenge or you can replay levels to aim for a higher ranked score.
In the end, youâre looking at a fairly successful successor to the Mega Man franchise. Donât listen too closely to the purists. Theyâre nutty and they might cause you to miss out on something youâd really enjoy. The reports about it being broken or unbalanced are simply untrue. The biggest detractors of this game are the insane hype and unrealistic expecations placed upon it by fans and Inafune himself and whatever it was the backers' leapt to assumptions caused them to believe would be created. Still, I do have a hard time recommending it to players unfamiliar with Mega Man, mainly because it just doesn't feel quite right for this to be your first Mega Man experience.
However, this must be said. Although it truly is not quite as good, with Capcom letting Mega Man collect dust in his cryogenic pod until the year 21XX, this is definitely a serviceable replacement, especially at its affordable price-tag. It certainly has a few minor control issues youâll eventually overcome, and it isn't mind blowing nor exceptionally special in its own right. But the spirit of Mega Man continues on, and Mighty No. 9 is definite fun for all you 2D platforming action lovers.
Very thorough review. I knew it wasnt as bad as some have said.
Some? You mean 90 percent of all the reviewers and basically the entire Internet? franchise is dead, maybe Capcom will make a real Mega man game or some one will make a proper spiritual successor.
Also being the "Co" creator of Mega Man doesn't give him the right just copy and paste whatever he wants, is like if Lucas creates a new franchise similar to star wars and calls it Battle Stars or something. Other than trying to defend a developer who deserves every inch of backlash he gets you did a great job on this review, very thorough.
I sort of feel a lot of the reviews out there score it a little lower than how they write about it. There are very few who actually have major complaints. The general consensus is that reviewers are underwhelmed. Like, "Oh… *head and shoulders drop* I thought this would be better. *sidesmirk*" And almost all of them point to the delays and the hype as being deadly. But very little legit complaints about the game itself.
I sort of see it like the reviews suffered by White Knight Chronicles or the common opinion of Final Fantasy XIII. WKC definitely didn't live up to the hype and FFXIII is definitely not as good as the franchise should be, but neither are bad games. On their own, they're pretty fun. They just get a ton of flack because they don't live up to expectations, which they admittedly didn't.
MN9 is the same. People expected a killer Mega Man love song. And it was underwhelming to that expectation, to be sure. But on its own two feet away from comparisons and media attention, I betcha it would have been getting 7's consistently.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 6/28/2016 7:43:24 AM
I don't think today's reviewers are qualified to review nostalgia.
People seem to be reviewing the kickstarter instead of the game.
I sort of feel a lot of the reviews out there score it a little lower than how they write about it. There are very few who actually have major complaints. The general consensus is that reviewers are underwhelmed. Like, "Oh… *head and shoulders drop* I thought this would be better. *sidesmirk*" And almost all of them point to the delays and the hype as being deadly. But very little legit complaints about the game itself.
I sort of see it like the reviews suffered by White Knight Chronicles or the common opinion of Final Fantasy XIII. WKC definitely didn't live up to the hype and FFXIII is definitely not as good as the franchise should be, but neither are bad games. On their own, they're pretty fun. They just get a ton of flack because they don't live up to expectations, which they admittedly didn't.
MN9 is the same. People expected a killer Mega Man love song. And it was underwhelming to that expectation, to be sure. But on its own two feet away from comparisons and media attention, I betcha it would have been getting 7's consistently.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 6/28/2016 7:43:24 AM
Some? You mean 90 percent of all the reviewers and basically the entire Internet? franchise is dead, maybe Capcom will make a real Mega man game or some one will make a proper spiritual successor.
Also being the "Co" creator of Mega Man doesn't give him the right just copy and paste whatever he wants, is like if Lucas creates a new franchise similar to star wars and calls it Battle Stars or something. Other than trying to defend a developer who deserves every inch of backlash he gets you did a great job on this review, very thorough.
Very thorough review. I knew it wasnt as bad as some have said.
I don't think today's reviewers are qualified to review nostalgia.
People seem to be reviewing the kickstarter instead of the game.