Mighty No. 9 Reviews

  • Titanium DragonTitanium Dragon154,853
    18 Nov 2017
    2 0 0
    Mighty No. 9 is an okay but unremarkable Megaman clone. You play as the titular Mighty No. 9, AKA Beck, who is very blatantly Megaman.

    As is usual in a Megaman game, the robots of the world have gone crazy and you, as Mega-er, I mean, Mighty No. 9, must confront them. You have a handful of allies: Dr. White (really?), Dr. Sanda, and Call, Beck’s female counterpart (who is definitely not Roll. And yes, Beck and Call. Like Rock and Roll). You must beat the other Mighty Numbers, #1-8. #7, Brandish, is a red robot with a sword who is definitely, definitely not Zero, and several of the other characters are reminiscent of Mega Man characters as well, at least in terms of the powers they give you.

    Because, yes, when you beat each of the robot bosses, you absorb their powers, and gain a new weapon you can use. And, yes, exactly like in Megaman, each of the bosses is vulnerable to the attacks from one of the other bosses, in a cycle of 8.

    That being said, this is an original game, and the bosses are not copy and paste jobs, and feel somewhat distinct from those in a Megaman game. Indeed, the game itself does have one real distinguishing factors – Mighty No. 9’s ability to dash through injured enemies to absorb them. While it is possible to kill an enemy simply by shooting them (apart from the bosses), they take a huge number of hits to kill; however, it takes fewer hits to put them into a semi-stunned state, which you can dash through and absorb. This absorption will, in the case of some enemies, give you one of three temporary power-ups (faster speed, better defense, or stronger attacks that go through enemies and walls), and will always slowly fill up a healing tank which, when full, can be used to completely restore Mighty No. 9’s life. If you die, however, your tanks all get emptied, and they don’t carry over between levels – thus, it behooves you to beat a level without dying and without having to spend your healing to have it for the boss.

    This dash can be done on the ground or midair, and gives Mighty No. 9 an even greater amount of mobility than characters like Megaman X; however, it also means that you have to put yourself at risk to absorb enemies. At the end of every stage, you are graded based on, among other things, how fast you absorbed the enemies, and absorbing enemies very quickly or during a continuous air-dash earns you bonus points and extra healing. These points are, ultimately, pointless, but hey, you want a high score, right?

    The biggest catch about the dash comes against the bosses. The bosses, unlike normal enemies, will regenerate out of the hitstun state; the only way to deal them permanent damage is to dash through them quickly. Thus, you want to deal them damage AND be able to dash through them safely all at once, when they are damaged enough to go into a hitstun state. Bosses generally take 3-6 of these states to be killed, and of course, a couple late-game bosses have multiple forms.

    The game itself is fairly standard as far as Megaman games go, but honestly feels slightly uninspired. None of the levels are particularly exciting environments, and none of them feel like they have particularly interesting layouts or mechanics. Most of the difficulty of the game’s levels comes from deadly spikes or instant death pits, which some levels have in abundance and other levels have little, if any of. The levels are not necessarily easy (some are, others aren’t), but they always feel a bit meh, and the only potentially cool one (one where you are jumping on top of cars in traffic) feels kind of cheap as you “go into a tunnel” via an area transition rather than actually zooming into one, and then out the other side. There was one level which was a kind of neat idea – an enemy sniper robot is attacking you from a distance, and you keep chasing them around the level – but the level itself is quite dull.

    The bosses are somewhat more interesting. They are decent enough on average, and have reasonable patterns on the whole. A few of them are a bit boring, and one of them is repeated twice (though the second time, as a midboss), along with a few other midbosses that are kind of mediocre, but the end-level bosses are mostly decent enough, though not especially memorable. One kind of neat thing is that the bosses stick around after you beat them and purge them of the infection, and give you minor assistance in the stage of the boss who is vulnerable to their attack – something that the game helpfully marks for the player.

    The voice acting is rather mediocre, though, and never really engaged me; it felt very phoned-in, and the script wasn’t anything to write home about, either. It was a pretty generic Megaman-type plotline, and in the end, I doubt I’ll remember anything about it.

    All in all, this is a game that is okay, but nothing more. I can’t really recommend it to general audiences, and Megaman fans will find it unremarkable compared to the better Megaman games. Still, I suspect that fans of such games will at least not find it boring, though I don’t think they’d really write home about it, either.

    If you want anything more than a mediocre Megaman game, you’re better off looking elsewhere. If, on the other hand, you want a mediocre Megaman game, then this is exactly what you’re looking for.
    2.0
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