Mediocre No. 9 – Mighty No. 9 Review

Written and edited by Dan Ciocca of Dan’s Gaming News

Kickstarter has had many success stories recently in the video game industry. Shovel Knight, Pillars of Eternity, Hyper Light Drifter; the list goes on and on. Mighty No. 9, however, is not one of these stories.

To preface the actual review, I would like to disclose that I played the PS3 version of Mighty No. 9, but can assure that the problems I had and the compliments I would give will also apply to the Wii U version.

Mighty No. 9’s writing induces cringe at best. With lines such as “It is the present year” and “What in the blue blazes?!”, Mighty No. 9’s dialogue fails to impress or even satisfy someone wanting a GOOD story to accompany the game.

The saddest part of Mighty No. 9’s failure is the fact that the game is actually fun to play. Gameplay is fast-paced and exciting, and the xel absorption is a fun mechanic. The jumping and shooting feel natural and tight. This, however, is ruined by the unfair level design. Levels are obtuse and are artificially challenging. Take for example, Mighty No. 8’s stage. About halfway through the stage there’s a one-hit-kill section, but the level itself doesn’t have any checkpoints. This leads to anger and frustration that doesn’t need to be there. This stage plays like any of those extremely unfair Super Mario Maker levels before the November update that added checkpoints.

One thing that I liked that truly stood out was the fact that once you defeat a Mighty No., they will help you out in future stages. This helps with world building and makes you feel like your actions are genuinely helping in the world that you live in.

On the technical side of things, individual reports have been made claiming that the Wii U version bricks the console. I have yet to see any proof of the console being functionless, but a patch has been sent out that should fix that issue. Furthermore, the game has severe framerate issues, which truly baffles me considering the fact that the game looks like it should be able to run properly on a Playstation 2. In addition, at one point as I was about to beat Mighty No. 3, my game froze on a white screen (photo below).

All-star composer Manami Matsumae worked on the soundtrack. She is best known for Mega Man 10 and Shovel Knight. Sadly, however, the music is this game is hardly memorable, and is barely even able to he heard underneath the gameplay sounds.

In conclusion, Mighty No. 9 is a game to steer clear of, which is unfortunate considering the potential it showed to be the next Mega Man, or to at least scare Capcom into making another Mega Man game. Sadly, Mighty No. 9 ends up being just a string of broken promises. My sympathies to those who backed the game, especially the 4 people who pledged $10,000+.

PROS:

-Fun gameplay

-Refreshing take on Mega Man

-Characters recur

CONS:

-Unfair level design/artificial difficulty

-Can supposedly brick a console

-Framerate issues

-Subpar graphics

-Poorly written lines

-Forgettable music

-Buggy