Mighty No. 9 - Review

Review by Gianluca “DottorKillex” Arena

If, on the one hand, it is sad to think that a living legend of 2D games like Keiji Inafune has had to go through Kickstarter to find funding for what is, in effect, the unofficial sequel to the various Megaman, on the other. this confirms the goodness of crowdfunding, although often the projects linked to the aforementioned platform take much longer than expected to arrive on the market.
This is also the case with Mighty No. 9, which had to wait longer than permitted but now ready to land on all home consoles, with the two portable versions expected within the year but currently without a confirmed release date.
Our test was carried out on PS4, and in the following lines you will find our judgment: ready?

Free bridle robot

In a hypothetical near future, in which humanity has relied even more than now on robotics and the help of technology, a strange virus is spreading among those who, just a few days earlier, were faithful and irreplaceable helpers of men. : robots of all kinds and all shapes begin to devastate cities and settlements, behaving aggressively and absolutely not in line with the way they were programmed.
Who else can put things right but Beck, friend of many of the now out of control robots and flagship of the technological progress achieved?
As for all Megaman, whose Mighty No. 9 traces faithfully, the plot represents only an excuse to throw the player into the fray, with an introductory level useful to get him carried away with the game mechanics, indeed very simple to metabolize.
The main mode, which can be completed in a handful of hours but definitely replayable, is flanked by five other extra modes, such as the Challenges, which place the player in front of different conditions from time to time, or the Boss Rush Mode, in which to put up with, one behind the other, all the clashes with the robots that we will have to face at the end of the nine main stages.
If already the average challenge level of the game, at normal level, is decidedly more sustained than the average of today's action platforms (although far from the peaks of frustration that characterized some of the blue robot games), facing some of the Challenges will require cold blood and reflexes. lightning fast: completing an internship without being able to attack, with a stringent time limit, or without being able to project forward (a distinctive feature of the product) will not be within everyone's reach.
However, a scalable difficulty, already demanding at the pre-established level and decidedly prohibitive to the higher ones, can only be well received: Mighty No. 9 is playable even by the youngest, who perhaps know only the name of Megaman, provided they do not be discouraged by a few screenshots of the game over and some passages that will make you gnash your teeth.

Tradition and dynamism

The game dynamics that characterize Mighty No. 9 are always in the balance between tradition and innovation, with an evident imbalance compared to the first, which however did not prevent Keiji Inafune from inserting a couple of innovations within the framework.
Certainly the most consistent is represented by the horizontal sweep, which allows Beck to cover gaps and overhangs, but, above all, to inflict the coup de grace on previously weakened enemies.
Unlike the historical Megaman, in which keeping away from enemies was often the best tactic, in Mighty No. 9 approaching an enemy that falters, because already filled with blows, allows you to finish it, earning, in the process, a precious dowry of points bonuses, useful for scrapping a better evaluation at the end of the level and bullying with friends in the special section dedicated to online rankings.
Not being regulated by indicators, the abuse of this technique represents one of the first mechanics to be internalized: it gives an unknown rhythm to the titles that Inafune gave life to between the 80s and 90s, bringing Mighty No. 9 closer to the canons that the genre has codified over the last decade, in which, despite the definitive affirmation of 3D, quite a few notable exponents of the genre, such as Axiom Verge, Guacamelee or Mark of the Ninja, have been published.
However, not all that glitters is gold: in the face of so many positive notes, the latest effort by Comcept fails to express the genius expected from a game designer of Inafune's talent neither in terms of level design, nor ( albeit to a lesser extent) in boss fights.
The first seems to come out of the manual of good videogame design, scholastic and never over the top, neither in a positive nor negative sense: the level with underwater phases and the insta-death surfaces are legacies of a videogame past that we do not lack, but, on average , there is nothing wrong with the design of the nine main levels.
The point is that there is not even anything that amazes, nothing that marks Mighty No. 9 as a unique game, capable of giving freshness to a genre that its creator has helped to create: none of the stages managed to amaze us, no particular solution differentiates the progress during the main quest from any other well-made product that has appeared on the market in recent years.
Maybe it was our expectations that were out of range, but from Megaman's father it was legitimate to expect a little more from this point of view.
Similar speech also for the boss fights, with much more easily recognizable patterns than in the past and with a couple of repetitions that we did not particularly like, despite the general quality, it is good to reiterate it once again, it is still good (otherwise the vote would not be explained you saw at the top of the page).

Unreal Engine

In the face of a solid technical sector, without particular rings, the character design is not very convincing, especially due to the choice of relying on an entirely three-dimensional engine (the always reliable Unreal Engine) for a game with dynamics and nature intrinsically in two dimensions.
The final effect is that of characters who, while retaining a cartoonish look, are unable to act as characters in a hypothetical comic, because their physicality and the tight set of animations refer to the western trait and realism of Epic's proprietary engine. .
Our test, which took place on PS4, however, did not reveal any bugs, slowdowns or glitches of any kind, showing off, on the contrary, a cleaning of the code that, in light of the latest controversies generated by an at least questionable trailer, we would not have expected to find.
It should be noted that the portable versions are still missing, for 3DS and PSVita, arriving anyway by 2016, according to the words of the development team.

Final comment

A series of delays and postponements and a trailer of dubious taste had made us lose hope for Mighty No. 9, which instead, fortunately, demonstrates how the talent of Keiji Inafune has not faded at all in recent years.
If for level design and boss fight, the latest Comcept effort fails to rival on par with the historical titles of the Megaman saga, it still proves skilled in proposing a decidedly more dynamic gameplay and a level of challenge that, while retaining a certain severity, it becomes more accessible for younger gamers.
Not the best exponent of the sub-genre of two-dimensional action platforms but still a recommended solution for nostalgics and those who intend to test themselves with a product that is never too compliant.