Mighty No. 9 Review

I was initially hesitant to purchase and play Mighty No. 9. I thought I might not enjoy it since I’m not highly skilled at platform games including Mega Man. The Kickstarter campaign for the game in 2013 exploded when the funding goal was met and exceeded by 400% allowing for additional ports to older and handheld systems. Unfortunately this caused the game to have major delays continuing development three years later. After all this time that they’ve been developing the game was the end result a success?

Unique bosses – The bosses have all been interesting and fun to face off against. You need to learn how to use the environment against their individual patterns to win so the main character “Beck” can free them from their virus. It’s gratifying to learn their different patterns of attack and to try to work around it with the little space you have. Jumping around and shooting at them is extremely satisfying although it can be tedious at times. Each of the bosses mechanics are unique to their special trait and make them look adorable yet cool at the same time bringing back the nostalgic feel from Mega Man games.

Rushing intricate environments – While progressing through levels and facing the interesting bosses Beck will encounter some of the more complicated environments that adds to the experience of thinking on the fly. Mighty No. 9‘s rush system brings the exhilarating difficulty of focusing on enemies and where you need to land at the same time. During boss battles players will need to understand the layout of the room intimately in order to escape the patterns of the bosses’ attacks which makes it that much more fun.

Challenging challenges – Mighty No. 9 offers a lot of replay value when it comes to its challenge mode, a list of levels that appear like the original ones but with additions to it that make it more difficult. You can not only complete them, you can also compete online on scoreboards for highest scores and fastest times. It’s great that this game makes up for its flaws with a ton of replay value to keep completionists going for beating it. All of the challenges are different in some way but still add something new and more challenging each time. Some even feel unbeatable but it only presses the player’s buttons to get better and better.

Stay healthy – While most games nowadays have health bars that fill up overtime when resting this game brings it back to the good old days where you had to scrounge up health packs to stay alive. It adds to the intensity of Mighty No. 9 when you need to ensure that you have enough health packs before proceeding to the hard battles. This brings up the overall game-play even more while trying to focus on the platforming aspect along with keeping your health from depleting.

Boring story/music – A virus taking over robots throughout the world while a central hero has to save them is not the most compelling or original story out there. A lot of the characters have interesting designs but being a spiritual successor of the blue bomber series doesn’t necessarily mean it has to follow the same formula. Not only that but the soundtrack for the series is somewhat bland and doesn’t really appeal to the audience at all or adds any apprehension to the levels. In fact many times the soundtrack wasn’t even noticeable at all and just background noise. These things make the game suffer and brings down the quality of it by making it harder to get through the story without any absorption into the world.

Latch on – Probably one of the most annoying aspects of the game-play is that you need to hold a button in order to latch onto ledges. While speed running through a certain area that you have already died on multiple times this can be quite arduous. Although many skilled platforming players out there will most likely argue that this is not a difficult addition to the game many other players will say otherwise since most 2D and 3D platform games have automatic latching to edges when you jump.

Power cycling – Beck has the ability to use attributes from the other Mighty Numbers that he saves. Eventually, this accumulates to quite a few powers later on but the thing is that players will have to cycle through the list to get to a specific power they want. This begins to get clunky in later levels when you want to use a specific power during battle as you keep pressing R2 to cycle to the desired trait. This could have easily been remedied if it allowed you to cycle the other way around the list so that the tense game-play isn’t hindered by the player accidentally passing over their choice.

Mighty No. 9 is a decent game at it’s best with nothing strongly standing out. Yes it has entertaining controls, fun environments to maneuver around with, and lots of replay value but it doesn’t really make up for the abysmal graphics, story, and soundtrack. It is worth a try for the hardcore platform runners out there but it’s probably best to wait until there’s a discount for the game due to it’s various issues.

Mighty No. 9 was developed by Comcept and Inti Creates and published by Deep Silver. It was released on June 21, 2016 and is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. Games are scored on their individual merits and our rating system is explained here.