I wrote a lengthy review yesterday on Facebook and decided to repost it here.
Mighty No. 9 [PC]
Run of Military Base Level, Normal ,
Mostly Brandish skill
I tried my best to show how fast-paced, slick, and stylish
Mighty No. 9 looks in-game.
Mighty No. 9 finally released yesterday and rather than
being excited and happy for its arrival, the gaming community has expressed
anger, regret, contempt, disappointment and caution relating to Keiji Inafune
and the game. A majority of the reviews
I’ve seen are emotion-fueled fits of how production was handled, the delays,
the kickstarter campaign, and how it didn’t fulfill expectations. I’ll talk a bit about the drama behind the
development cycle of Mighty No. 9 at the end, but I just wanted to discuss
purely on the game itself with an unbiased view to the best of my
abilities. I’m going to be critical, but
fair.
Short Version: Nothing ground breaking, but it does a good
job of being a Mega Man game. It’s fun and I plan to play more of it for
challenges, online co-op, and harder difficulties.
Experience
I’ve played through the game twice on Normal
difficulty; once in English voice-overs with the original music, and the 2nd
time with Japanese voice-overs with the 8-bit music and playing mainly with the
Brandish ability for a pseudo-Zero experience.
The first run through took me about 4.5-5 hours while the 2nd
run took roughly 2.5 hours. The only
time I ever got a “Game Over” (lost all lives) was on the very last boss in my
first run (Note that you can change the amount of lives you started with and I
chose 9). It took me about 12 tries to
beat the last boss. I was a bit unsure
how I felt about the game the first run through, but I was pretty convinced the
2nd time playing that I really enjoyed the game.
Story
Mighty No. 9 is your typical Mega Man plot where robots
co-exist in the world to facilitate the daily, human life but then a virus
takes over them and Beck is sent to stop them.
There isn’t much to the story, though I have to admit that it has a bit
more depth than the original six Mega Man games. The characters don’t have a strong
presence. I mainly like: William White,
who created all the Mighty Numbers and has a pivotal role in the story; Dr.
Sanda, because he’s such a character and one of the few English voices I prefer
over Japanese; and Call, who’s really cute and plays a role in pointing out
something important about Dr. White. I
guess I also kind of like Cryosphere (Mighty No. 2) as well as hate her because
she’s annoying the fight the first time and not knowing her patterns and
because of all her puns. I love and hate
her puns at the same time. So in terms
of story, I liked the philosophy behind it but felt it wasn’t a very important
aspect within the development of the game (you wanted a Mega Man game? Here’s a
Mega Man story).
Graphics
Here’s where I share some of my sentiments with other
players on their take on graphics. What
they showed in the alpha stages of the game did look like it had more depth and
dynamics in the environment, animation effects, and character models. So what exactly happened? The popular theory is that they worked on the
graphics based on the lowest spec hardware that they planned on porting it to
(which I believe was the Nintendo 3DS).
In order to keep a steady frame rate, they had to do some downgrading. Explosions looks awful and blocky, animation
effects don’t look as flashy, environments and objects are simple looking;
however, I still like the overall quality of the graphics. Yes, I agree with many players that what they
showed us in the alpha footages look potentially better than the final product,
but I’m mostly satisfied with the handling of the graphics within the game. Although the Alpha footage and concept art
showed graphics with depth, I was concerned the darker contrast would affect
visibility of platforms or create a somber tone. There were two instances in the game where it
was difficult to discern what I was supposed to do because one of them was too
dark and the other one’s foreground blends in a bit with the background. But for the rest of the game, the simple and
vibrant colors of the environment really stood out. It was aesthetically pleasing, it easily
distinguished foreground and background, and it still brought the world to life
despite its simplistic design. I still hate
how explosions look. It’s cheap looking
and they obstruct your view. Basic
enemies are what you would expect from a Mega Man game with a technological
theme. Some of the Mighty Numbers look
silly, but at least they’re unique enough to be somewhat memorable. If you really want to make a comparison, I
think I might have liked the aesthetics of Azure Striker Gunvolt more than
Mighty No. 9. I make that comparison
since the same development studio worked on it along with Keiji Inafune. I would say the graphics are
satisfactory. It’s good, but not great.
Audio
This is where I’m going to be a lot more critical. Sound effects are fine and what you’d expect
out of the game with it being somewhat familiar to Mega Man fans yet unique
enough to be distinguished on its own.
The music is possibly the one aspect I’m most disappointed in. Judging from the main theme they presented us
in the kickstarter, I expected the whole soundtrack to be as catchy, memorable,
and iconic. Sadly, there isn’t a single
tune I remember from the game (and I played through it twice). The music certainly isn’t bad and compliments
the stages well, but there wasn’t a single song throughout the game that I
wanted to go back and listen to. Many
would agree that one of the greatest aspects in a Mega Man series game is how
memorable and iconic the music was.
Despite being forgettable tunes, they were at least high quality
produced tracks that weren’t annoying. I
point that out because one of the worst aspects in Mighty No. 9 is the voice
acting. The quality is poor with the
volume fading in and out of focus, the delivery for many of the voices are
forced and campy, and the dialogue is corny.
It was borderline painful to listen to.
I did my research and the majority of the voice actors have had
extensive experience with voice acting in well known videogames within the
industry. So I’m keen to believe that
it’s because of the writing, voice directing, and audio engineering that the
voiceovers weren’t very good. I did say
that I played both in English and Japanese.
In the Japanese dub, the quality of the voice over (clarity and
consistency) is very high and was a lot more bearable. The problem with the Japanese dub is some
characters feel miscast (such as Dr. Sanda), some sound very stereotypical, and
some have different lines and delivery of lines from the English which changes
their personality. This happens quite
often between the creation of English translations and dub from Japanese
versions. One example is the voice of
Pyrogen (Mighty No. 1). Pyro sounds
maniacal and has many lines of dialogue describing how he wants to burn
everything and enjoys it in the English dub.
But in the Japanese dub, Pyro just yells “moero” (burn) over and over
like a Pokémon expressing more of an individual who’s completely lost it and
has no control over themselves. Another
example is Beck’s (Mighty No. 9) dialogue and lines in English sound more
innocent, naïve, and chill while the dialogue and lines in Japanese make him
sound more assertive, tough, and confident.
It’s a bit of a mix match as I prefer the Japanese dub of Beck, Call,
and Dr. White while I enjoy hearing the English dub of Dr. Sanda and
Countershade (Mighty No. 8) and for certain ones I think both are good such as
Dynatron (Mighty No. 3). There is also a
French voice over, but I haven’t listened to that one yet (and my French sucks
now compared to my Japanese despite having studied it longer). So the run down is: Sound Effects is good,
music is okay, and the voice acting is mostly bad.
Gameplay
I haven’t played harder difficulties, solo challenge, online
co-op challenge, or online racing yet.
I’ve played through the main game twice on Normal
difficulty (lowest difficulty). Despite
being advertised as a spiritual successor to Mega Man and everyone wanting a
Mega Man game, I personally did not want just “another Mega Man” game. I believe the game fulfilled what I wanted
which was a familiar Action-Platformer with its own unique mechanic. If you watch the gameplay in the video above,
you’ll see that I’m running into enemies.
Rather than just plainly shooting an enemy, Mighty No. 9 has a mechanic
in which you disable an enemy and assimilate them by dashing through them which
grants various buffs and energy to your abilities. The dash doesn’t have a cooldown and can be
done in mid-air or even crouched which allows the player to dash
indefinitely. It’s obviously dangerous
if you’re not careful as running into enemies and environmental hazards hurt
and kill you, so it’s exploitative with a risk.
Assimilating multiple enemies at once grants a multiplier score. And the sooner you absorb an enemy after
disabling them, the higher the score.
With this design, it rewards players for being quick and efficient in
combat. It creates a nice flow of
platforming and fighting enemies when dashing around a level. I would say the game plays like a combination
of Mega Man’s difficulty, Mega Man X’s level/enemy/boss designs and controls,
and Azure Striker Gunvolt’s mechanic of tagging enemies and running into
them. Levels are unique, diverse,
dynamic and challenging. Enemies and
bosses have interesting and engaging patterns.
The overall experience feels satisfying and fulfilling.
Overall
The presentation was okay, the audio was mostly disappointing,
but the gameplay was great. I’ve been
itching for a Mega Man-like game for a while and Mighty No. 9 is definitely one
of the better ones I’ve played in years.
$20 is a bit high for those who will just play through it once if they
gauge price the way I do ($1 = 1 Hour of gameplay). But those looking for a fast-paced and
challenging Action-Platformer should give this a chance.
Discussing the Controversy and Complaints
Throughout the development cycle of Mighty No. 9, there have
been a number of problems that caused a stir within the community. This has led a lot of players to post
negative reviews on the game based on those experiences rather than the game
itself. Others have unfulfilled
expectations be the driving force behind their negative reviews. I’ll try to cover the ones I can remember.
Controversial use of
kickstarter money – I don’t think Keiji Inafune expected to make four
million dollars for this project. With
the steady rise of the kickstarter earnings, the expectations for the game rose
along with it. With $4 Million, backers
were expecting the greatest game ever made.
Then as time passed, a Mighty No. 9 cartoon was announced. This brought up some concern for backers as
they specifically put money down for a game, not an animated series. Then Keiji Inafune put up another Kickstarter
to support a project called “Red Ash” which was going to be a spiritual
successor of Mega Man Legends. This
happened before Mighty No. 9 had even gotten a release date, I think. So many concerned backers questioned what the
money they’ve invested in was being used for.
Delays – Mighty
No. 9 was delayed a total of 3 times.
Each time the game was delayed, the public was given a vague and shady
explanation of the game not quite ready.
At one point, it was mentioned that the Online modes were the parts of
the game that had problems and this did not sit well with the community as many
backers expressed their dismay at the delays being caused by a mode they’ll
never play.
Poor Communication
– It seems many backers faced problems with the one handling kickstarter
questions, rewards, and updates. The
individual that spoke with the backers have been reported to have banned some
of them for raising their concerns on the kickstarter. Banned backers lose their money, rewards, and
anything attached to the campaign. I
don’t know how true this is, so I can’t quite comment.
Alpha footage
graphics look “potentially” better than final product – As mentioned in the
review, the graphics was most likely downgraded in favor of easily porting to
every console, device, PC, and OS.
People are not happy with it and immediately calling the game
trash. Maybe I’ve played a lot of awful
games in the past, but the graphics are really not that bad. It does have a nostalgic Playstation 1 era
aesthetic to it, but cleaner. This does
not please the players, apparently.
YouTubers, critics,
and even physical copy owners got the game before backers – I didn’t back
for the kickstarter campaign. I
pre-ordered the game but didn’t get the code until the next morning of the
actual launch date. I really wanted to
play the night before, but I guess I was willing to wait one night since I’ve
waited so long already for it to launch.
But I feel bad for all the backers that supported the game and not even
get their codes before everyone else. I
thought they’d get their copies of the game before everyone else.
My digital code for
the game/DLC doesn’t work – It was one thing for backers not getting their
copies of the game earlier, but it was even worse when the codes they got
didn’t even work. Distributors did their
best to fix everything as quickly as possible.
Voice Acting is awful
– I’ve heard worse, but I’ll agree some of it is borderline painful.
Framerate is choppy
and controls are clunky – I’m not sure if it’s a graphics card problem or
something hardware related. Thankfully,
I didn’t experience any of those problems.
The game is so bland,
it’s literally just a copy of Mega Man – Isn’t that what everyone
wanted? It’s not what I wanted. I wanted something new and different but
familiar enough to still be a classic Action-Platformer. And the dash mechanic was what set it apart
from the Mega Man games and I love it.
The dash mechanic is
dumb and imprecise – This reminds me of all the complaints people had
playing Abyss Odyssey and complaining about the controls being clunky. It’s a matter of knowing how the game
works. Holding down the dash key will
make you dash a bit further. Crouching
while dashing performs a low dash.
Dashing onto an edge allows you to grab onto ledges. Certain attacks can cancel out of your
dash. The dash mechanic makes the
entirety of this game, so I’d say it’s the most important aspect in the game
that makes it fun.
This game isn’t
anything like Mega Man.
The game is
rage-inducing and difficult – You wanted a Mega Man game, right? Mega Man games have been known to be tough
and unforgiving. I honestly think this
game is easier than most classic Mega Man games. I bet there’s a decent amount of people
within the community that say they love Mega Man and never even played one
before.
This is not a
spiritual successor to Mega Man, and not a good Mega Man game – If I were
to choose a punishment for people who agree to this sentiment, I would make
them play Mega Man Network Transmission for the Nintendo Gamecube. Could you play both games and look me in the
eye and say that Mega Man Network Transmission was a better Mega Man game? And if you can, congratulations on finding a
Mega Man game you like more than Mighty No. 9.
As an ending note, a lot of people reference back to a line
that Keiji Inafune said translated by Ben Judd as "Even if it’s not
perfect, it’s better than nothing."
It seems that line was more of Judd's opinion rather than Inafune's
words. Still, they sound so defeated
when they put it that way. I can only
imagine the kinds of hate mail and rage posts they've read throughout the
week. But after playing through the
game, I feel like they should be proud to have brought the game out. Yeah, it's not perfect; however, it's far
from being considered a horrible game.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/mighty-no-9
Oh well, there's one other game having it worse this week:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/umbrella-corps
