Mighty No. 9 Review: There have been mightier

It is difficult to separate Mega Man producer Keijii Inafune’s latest side-scrolling 2D platformer from a couple of things. First, the inevitable comparisons to the game it’s supposed to be the spiritual successor of: Mega Man. Second, its Kickstarter debacle and the unrest among its backers—to cut a long story short, backers of Mighty No. 9 received broken codes and incorrect DLC packs which were part of their respective reward tiers. What’s more, there is a huge disparity between what was promised in terms for graphics at the time of the Kickstarter and what finally made the cut. But let’s ignore these for the moment and attempt to evaluate Mighty No.9 on its own merits.

Mighty No. 9 is a modern take on classic Japanese side-scrolling action/platforming. Anybody who has played an NES/Sega platforming game will immediately notice its influences and will feel familiar with both its controls as well as the sci-fi setting. Playing as a robot named Beck, you will be able to shoot, run, jump, dash forward and assimilate the abilities of fallen enemies. Damaging and then dashing through regular enemies will grant Beck buffs to his speed, armour and damage, while defeating bosses will let him acquire their abilities.

Players will first have to brave the game’s 12 levels (4 of which are unlocked after beating the first 8, which can be played in any order). Each of the first 8 levels will see Beck facing off against the other corrupted robots in the “Mighty” production line (Beck is no. 9, obviously) and removing their corrupt programming—assembling an army is always a cool premise but there are problems with the storytelling which we’ll get to in a bit.

Beating the 12 levels will grant players access to New Game+, adding two extra levels of difficulty. If players are so inclined, they can also partake in the game’s various challenge modes (including 2 player co-op challenges), which all come with their own leaderboards and rankings.

All right, let’s first go over what Mighty No. 9 has going for it. As a platformer, it ticks some of the right boxes. It’s fast paced, requires a fair bit of mechanical skill and it can be incredibly satisfying as you dash and shoot your way through a level after making a mental note of its intricacies. Boss fights do not require the observation skills or reflexes of a Dark Souls player but noting enemy attack patterns is a pre-requisite to beating them. Mighty No. 9 is not difficulty per se, but it can be unforgiving as a result of its old school design philosophies. So far so good, right? Well, that pretty much covers the positives.

The first issue with Mighty No. 9 is its truly appalling presentation. Character models look lazily designed, flat and uninteresting, while the game world is filled with poorly animated enemies, blocky textures and uninspired architecture. There are also cutscenes in between levels, which shine the light on these terribly realized characters whose mouths do not move when delivering dialogue—Unreal Engine 3 supposedly powers the game, and I’m sure they will not be including MN9 in their presentation pitch to other developers.

The English voice acting was so poor, that I found myself preferring the Japanese voiceovers (if you’re playing MN9, I strongly advise making the switch yourself). The fact that developers Comcept have failed to find a sweet spot with the game’s visual treatment is definitely a concern. It’s neither old school, nor modern, and in a bad spot overall.

Levels don’t feel fresh, or fleshed out. Design shortcuts means that there will be silly difficulty spikes and insta-deaths galore, either via environmental hazards or bottomless pits. Granted, this is intended to be an old school platformer, but intelligent design would have been welcome rather than the archaic death traps which have been laid out presently. MN9 does give you the option of increasing your starting lives up to 9 (with 2 being the default value) and with repeated deaths, random buffs are granted to Beck at respawn—both good features, but one can’t help feel that Comcept could have gone a little further to make the game more accessible, given its shortcomings in other areas.

The endgame, honestly, isn’t particularly appealing either. Leaderboards, rankings, speed runs and challenge modes are okay in theory, but is MN9’s gameplay engaging enough for players to exhaust all the content available? I would argue that once you’ve beaten the game’s 12 levels, you’re probably done.

During my time with the game I did not encounter any bugs reported by a large section of the community except for once when I could have sworn that the game remapped by gamepad buttons on its own. A restart appeared to fix the issue, and I haven’t had the problem since. On a side note: the game is virtually unplayable with mouse/keyboard as you will rely on diagonal directional input and analog stick movement to navigate the game’s environment.

If you’re picking up Mighty No. 9 on Steam in India, it will cost you Rs 565 . It’s not unreasonable, and it’s cheap enough to ignore some of the game’s issues. Having said that you could probably get similar, better and cheaper games for less than 300 bucks. I’d recommend waiting until MN9 is on sale and then checking it out for a fraction of the cost.

RATING: 5.5/10

Pros

• Fast-paced platforming action
• Boss fights can be fun

Cons

• Poor presentation
• Lazy level design
• Unplayable with any input device which is not a gamepad