Does Mighty Number 9 actually suck?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm not exactly a Mega Man fan, but I can certainly understand why it's one of the most beloved franchises of all time.

That said, I've been hearing a lot of backlash towards Mighty Number 9, and that has left me with very interesting questions:

Does Mighty Number 9 "suck" because it fails in both game design and nostalgia? Or is this another sad case where people just got a little carried away with their nostalgia for Mega Man?

Mighty No. 9 is a case of a poorly run Kickstarter campaign that failed to come close to producing a modern era game that is fun. Almost everything about the production comes across as lazy or lack luster. The stage design is rather pathetic and relies on an overabundance of annoying and overly difficult sections to try to hide this.

The graphics look PS2 era and the story is rather blah. The main game mechanic of dashing into enemies is annoying and frequently causes you to take hits. Add to this the poor optimization causes frame rate issues exacerbating all of the above.

On the campaign side of things it was poorly run, rocked with controversy, and ultimately was geared toward franchising a game that wasn't even out yet. Keiji Inafune dropped the ball horribly with it. What's sad is that you can see bits of potential in the game. The characters' personalities are all unique and it's nice to see the sibling relationship between the Mighty Nos. Really the game comes across as something that was developed over 6 months rather than 3 years and for all the devotion and interest displayed in the Kickstarter it was a slap in the face to anyone who donated money (I did not btw).

I haven't played the game yet, but I've seen this story way too many times. Not so much the plot of the game, but rather a game becoming a victim of its own expectations.

I don't know, I guess Shovel Knight really spoiled us on Kickstarter-created games.

I was afraid this was going to happen. I knew it was. The signs were all there. Delays, controversies, etc.

I haven't played it but everything I've seen of it looks awful and amateurish. There's so many games already out that are superior and in a similar vein, like Dust: An Elysian Tale, Ori and the Blind Forest, Shovel Knight or my personal favourite, Cave Story. All available at extremely cheap prices, or in Cave Story's case, free. This game had millions thrown at it but looking at it you wouldn't know it.

They messed it up in every way. The level design varies from mediocre to genuinely awful, the bosses are shockingly poor. Graphically it's poorly conceived in every way. Apparently the Call level and the final boss are two of the worst things in platformer history, although I haven't played those.

Inafune wasn't very involved in the Megaman games anyway. He was an illustrator, character designer and businessman. He's not somebody who should have been trusted with this project.

Kamiya put it succinctly: https://twitter.com/pg_kamiya/status/24 ... lang=en-gb

Yeah, there's a good chance that the vast majority of fans that kickstarted the thing thought that the guy was the actual creator of the series. I kinda get the feeling that he was rather counting on this.

This is why I tend not to get excited about upcoming games until they actually come out. Saves disappointment later.

Not to mention, instead of making one game, and then porting it to other consoles afterwards, they tried creating all of the ports at the same time >_< So the game is claimed to be pretty buggy on all platforms.

I heard that the Wii U version even "bricked" quite a few consoles.

I hope their reputation doesn't get -too- tarnished, but it's probably too late for that. I thought the GunVolt games on the 3DS were pretty decent.

There's no evidence that the Wii U has bricked any consoles but it has been reported to be a massively buggy mess. The thing is Inafune has been the producer and executive producer on several titles so it's not like he doesn't have experience running a development team. More and more it looks like he just didn't give a s**t about the Kickstarter folks or the project at all. Hell many backers still haven't gotten their promised physical copies and the digital codes that were sent out were completely messed up.