Mighty No. 9 Review – Side-Scrolling Action Relived

There's that unrequited love for Capcom's Mega Man that we've had despite the behemoth gaming publisher leaving him in the depths of development hell to rot. In turn, his creator, Keiji Inafune sought to bring a “spiritual successor” to the faithful fanboys and loyalists of the 2D side-scroller action in the form of Beck in Mighty No. 9. How does it fare?

There's that unrequited love for Capcom's Mega Man that we've had despite the behemoth gaming publisher leaving him in the depths of development hell to rot. In turn, his creator, Dr. Light Keiji Inafune sought to bring a “spiritual successor” to the faithful fanboys and loyalists of the 2D side-scroller action in the form of Beck in Mighty No. 9. How does it fare? Read on and find out.

Gameplay

Mighty No. 9 seeks to bring the very same experience of Mega Man to the modern world. In truth, it's the original Mega Man physics in the world of X's, but you have a lot of new tricks up your sleeve to make it to the boss. Controls are basically the same, with new features included to help you get through obstacles, enemies, and traps. You still use a buster, which, unfortunately, you won't be able to charge. But on the other hand, there's the abusable dash button that will really be required as the game progresses.

On the other hand, the game doesn't actually let you in on the most important things. That dash actually has more uses than simply passing through obstacles. “acXelerate,” as the game calls it, can actually let you absorb enemy Xels that will fill up the game's version of Sub Tank for your emergency health. What's more, you'd want to save it to make sure you'll only be using it after you take note of the bosses movements, only to find out that it doesn't carry over the next round. Like, what the hell.

Another thing to note is the setup that comes common in Mega Man games. There are eight bosses that you have to deal with, and then another three, in this case we can call it Sigma1, Sigma2, and Sigma3 to avoid spoilers. There's no accumulative boss fight near the end, though. Shmucks.

While we already saw an influx of negative reviews on Mighty No. 9's Steam page and other platforms, there's something that we're actually forgetting here. By now, we've grown accustomed to the difficulty setting of Mega Man, making the experience with Beck somewhat of a breeze for some. It's already a reflex, if you may. Dodging enemy attacks through recognizing behaviors and patterns is the key to survival in Mega Man, and it's basically the same with Mighty No. 9. That's where the problem actually rises. Well, one of them, so to speak.

But gameplay wise, it provides a healthy challenge to the uninitiated and those who want to play through normally without cheesing or anything. There are several misfires due to the action and movement of Beck, but let's not forget – Mighty No. 9 is a spiritual successor, not a sequel.

Story

We'll do our best to avoid spoilers here, but needless to say, Mighty No. 9 is in essence, trying to emulate the plot of Mega Man X. There's an entity that makes reploids robots haywire, which leaves Beck to solve the problem by defeating bosses in the different stages. That really felt dull and overused. While the plot sometimes segues to different characters, our mindsets are stuck to what Beck is faced with or what he's doing. The secondary characters, as we would put it, simply secondary. And that's how it felt.

Another thing to note is the presentation. The original Mega Man X games on the PS1 did it better with still frames visually drawn to fill you in with imagination on how it plays out. Mighty No. 9 is the antithesis to that. The story is told through static 3D character models with voice overs to match. It's as irritating as heck to listen to them, plus the dull presentation is just too off putting that you'll find yourself either turning off the audio and skipping the cutscene.

Graphics

As mentioned, Mighty No. 9 takes on a modern setting with visuals to match. It doesn't require much hardware to power it through if you're gaming on a PC, but consoles from last generation to this one are required if you're going couch gaming. The graphics are quite stellar – Beck and company are quite detailed that you'd enjoy watching their attack animations and whatnot. It's not exactly what you'd call realistic, but its colorful design perfectly matches what it's meant to be.

Overall

Mighty No. 9 wants to target both the faithfuls and newcomers looking for a decent challenge that harkens back to days past. It follows the same formula of the Mega Man franchise, albeit with some differences to give it a twist for freshness. However, it's ridden with several problems that come obvious for veterans and appear irritating to greenhorns of the side-scrolling action genre, especially Mega Man. If you can overlook those, Beck's adventure can serve as a great gameplay experience for you. Just make sure that you turn off the voice acting because that's just impossible to redeem.