Check out my full video playthrough below
Mighty No. 9 is probably one of the most anticipated games of 2015. After a massive Kickstarter, creator Inafune and developers Comcept and Inti Creates have kicked off a long line of products to hype it up, including Mighty Gunvolt and a potential cartoon.
After all that hype though we finally have a chance to play the game. I have to say, it has the feel of a Mega Man game, but a few aspects definitely took some getting used to.
Mighty No. 9 (3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
Developer: Comcept, Inti Creates, Abstraction Games
Publisher: Comcept
Released: 2015
MSRP: TBA ($15 based off Kickstarter)
Let’s get the concepts out of the way first. For the most part, Beck controls the same way Mega Man always has — he can jump and shoot, and in lieu of the classic slide move, Beck has a dash that can be used in succession without any real restrictions. This allows him to boost forward, air dash, and “slide” underneath gaps.
But the dash is much more complicated than that. In Mighty No. 9, you’ll have to use it to “absorb” enemies. By firing at them and decreasing their health pool past a certain threshold, they become “destabilized.” Beck can then dash through them to absorb their powers (extra damage, speed, life, and defense boosts), thus killing them in the process — most enemies cannot be destroyed by your standard shot and must be dashed through.
This mechanic is seemingly a core precept of the Mighty philosophy, as it is used constantly throughout the level and is paramount to success. It’s also a double-edged sword. For one thing, I found it kind of annoying at first to have to dash through almost every enemy in my path to remove them — I was constantly jamming on the dash button so often that I skipped some enemies entirely.
But once you play it for a while, it becomes second nature. Skipping enemies is actually bad, because you will need their absorbed powers sporadically throughout the game. For instance, by absorbing a close-by enemy with a red power that strengthens my standard shot, I could then get through a subsequent area with a much easier time — one that nearly requires you to fire through multiple enemies, which is only possible with said power-up. You can see this at 1:54 in the below video.
Like Neo when he became aware of the Matrix for the first time, so too did I eventually pick up absorption and destabilization. I don’t suspect it will be for everyone and I can see some changes happening before launch (perhaps a buff for the standard cannon), but I enjoyed the strategic element, and dashing around everywhere is a ton of fun.
I partly enjoyed boosting about because the levels are designed very well, combining action, light puzzle elements, and secret areas and paths that really started to shine in Mega Man 5 and 6. The beta only provides us with one stage — the Military base — but it’s enough to show us what the development collective has planned for us. While No. 9 isn’t what I’d call extremely difficult, it did give this Mega Man veteran some pause throughout. It wasn’t just something I could pick up and master immediately — I had to learn the ins and outs of the dash system, and there were some very tricky portions littered about the stage, most of which involve one-hit spiky pits of death.
The boss, Mighty No. 5, was one of the best parts. It was fun to just unload burst fire on him and occasionally dash to destabilize his lifebar, as it felt like your standard cannon counted more for something. His pattern is very predictable (like a classic Robot Master), but his ultimate move (which effectively closed off half the arena periodically) was interesting, and his overall design was memorable.
Mighty No. 9 didn’t blow me away as a Mega Man fan, but even at this early stage I’m impressed by the layers of technical gameplay it provides. I think it’s shaping up to be a pretty promising platformer, and just like Azure Striker Gunvolt, it does enough differently to make its own mark on the genre, without simply cloning Capcom’s methods at every step.
