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Mighty No. 9
Wii U
Flaws, Potential, and Fun
3/5 stars
Mighty No. 9's technical flaws make it hard to truly enjoy this potential filled Mega Man clone.
Mighty No. 9's roots came from a Kickstarter campaign. One of the men who developed Mega Man games wanted to make Mighty No. 9 and a lot of hype and support came along with it. Perhaps this is one of the reasons this game didn't live up to the expectations but if the technical flaws weren't there perhaps it would have gotten a better reception from me and others who have played it.
When I say this is a Mega Man clone I really mean it. Mighty No. 9, aka Beck, takes the role of Mega Man essentially. He has to save the world from robots who have turned violent upon the world. Beck does have an ability that Mega Man doesn't and the game is centered around it. He has the ability to absorb other robots. This happens after you've done enough damage to an enemy. It turns a color and you can zip into it absorbing its energy. This allows you to get temporary upgrades to your speed or power. There is also a combo meter you can build which helps you gain a higher score at the end of the level. Scores don't really matter in this game unless you want to get a high grade on each level you play.
Mighty No. 9 is a classic side scrolling platformer. You have a basic attack that shoots rounds at enemies. You can also jump, zip through the air, and slide along the ground. The enemies during stages are rarely difficult or provide any challenge at all. During each stage there are "sub-bosses" where you either have to take down a big tank like robot or perhaps a round of enemies before you can continue on. This can prove to be a bit of a challenge and is a nice change of pace when going through a stage. Other than that the only truly annoying part of these stages is what I call the "purple electricity". You hit this stuff, you die. The classic instant kill. It's the equivalent of spikes in Mega Man. I feel this game relies too heavily on this stuff. I don't remember there being spikes all over the in Mega Man but I swear this game needs it to provide a challenge in the game. This doesn't include the instant death pits which this game has too.
Much like Mega Man, there are 8 other robot bosses you must defeat. These are Beck's siblings who can't control themselves. By defeating them Beck's creator can determine what is going on with the robots and figure out how to save the world. Every time you defeat one of these bosses you gain that character's ability, much like Mega Man. Mostly they are straight up weapons but there is a helicopter type ability that let's you jump higher and descend slowly which is essential in later stages.
When it comes to the bosses, I really enjoyed the battles. These robot bosses have pattern like attacks which you can learn and then avoid. Also, you can't just wipe out these bosses super fast. Once you done say 20% damage to its health bar you have to zip into it and absorb it's energy meaning you have to endure at least a few rounds of attacks from each boss. Each boss does have a weakness to one of the other boss's weapons but I rarely was able to figure out which one it was or maybe I didn't have it yet so for the majority of the bosses I used my base weapon. I'm sure that made these fights longer but it was fine.
The story is fine, but the scenes with voice acting is just horrible. The pacing is awful. I feel like it takes forever to get through those things. Not to mention the actual voices are mediocre at best. As some point in a game like this why not just put some text and let us breeze quickly though it. Trust me when I say you're not playing this game for the story. You can skip the scenes by pressing the start button but I did want to hear the story at least once.
Now let's get to the technical flaws. There aren't many, but they're quite annoying. First of all, playing the WiiU version, after each death you have to wait 10-15 seconds for the game to reload. Man that gets annoying after you've died hitting that purple electricity in the same spot the second or third time in a row. I don't know if this is a problem with other versions (PS4, XONE) or not. Second, there are slow downs in the game. One of the weapons is essentially a rocket launcher and if you blow up a group of enemies there's a decent chance there's an unpredictable slow down. This is also happens in a couple chase situations in stages which caused me to die at times. In 2016 this is just unacceptable I'm sorry. At least on the NES when there was a game slow down it was predictable and somewhat easy to overcome. This slowdown is different and hard to describe.
This game isn't overly long, I probably played 10 hours or so from beginning to end. I was in no rush to beat it. I did enjoy the boss battles and some of the stages but the technical flaws made me annoyed, even upset at times. That really took away from the experience. There's a lot of potential with this idea and game and I hope a sequel happens. If they tune it up and improve the stage design a bit this kind of game could get really good really fast. Right now with this game it's just ok.
3/5
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