Mighty No.9 - Review

Beneath the Saturday morning cartoon exterior, does Mighty No.9 have a place in the same conversation as its apparent inspiration, the 'Megaman' series?

Mighty No.9 is an action-platform video game developed by Comcept, in conjunction with Inti Creates, and published by Deep Silver. It is for all intended purposes, a real hard game and I believe this is to pay respects to the old school nature of its genre. I don't know if it is just me but the difficulty did not feel completely accommodating to the masses. I am by no stretch, a gaming master but I can hold my own in a lot of games but I found this ridiculously difficult. There is a little leg up in the menu options where you can choose to have 9 lives as opposed to the standard 3, but still no real luck for me.

The levels are broken up into different elements like ice and fire etc. and even though this is quite awesome and adds a bit of a spin on the game, I just felt that I was personally crippled with the difficulty levels. There is a small saving grace to this problem though, after the initial tutorial and plot introduction you can then select to play the main campaign from the campaign mission board. The leg up that it gives you is the opportunity to play any level in any order, so even though the game is very tough, you can actually experience all the differing levels and level designs.


Each of these levels are based around the capture and/or absorption of the other Mighty's power. The Mightys are other robots created by the same company as Mighty No. 9 and along with all the other drone like minion robots have been corrupted by a virus and the responsibility of restoring peace to the world falls with you, Mighty No. 9. This is done quite simply by inflicting damage with your hand cannon and the using a dash ability to not only absorb their power but to destroy them in the process. This is a rinse and repeat process mixed in with a 2D/3D platforming environment that also can be very harsh and often inflict one hit kills.

This all leads to an eventual meeting with the level boss. This is where experience comes into play. You must quickly learn and adapt to the bosses move set to then dodge and attack accordingly to eventually defeat the boss and absorb their unique ability. The abilities obtained from defeating bosses can then later be used by yourself to vary the nature of your attacks. Even though this adds a little variety to the title you still feel yourself using the same two or three variants you are most comfortable with.


In its purest form, it is a 2D platform Megaman clone and by on large lives up to what it is intended to be. Unfortunately I found my experience to be quite frustrating and unrewarding, I don't necessarily put that down to this being a bad game, but a game that is just a little too far from my comfort zone, which led to me having quite the struggle as opposed to having fun.

Colourful level design married with an intuitive control scheme did make for this to be a success in the right circles. Granted there is a narrative present, it at best can be described as a little flimsy and used as filler but by no means derives from the overall experience. If anything it added an aspect that has become quite the staple in video gaming entertainment of this generation. The soundtrack was nothing to write home about either but still felt like it belonged, so once again not a major negative or positive. It was there out of necessity instead of trying to make a bold statement.


Mighty No. 9 was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Wii U, with the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS versions still in development. Abstraction Games and Engine Software are porting the game onto the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS respectively. The game was originally scheduled to come out in April 2015, but was delayed multiple times, with the game eventually being released worldwide in June 2016 on all non-portable platforms except Xbox 360, OS X, and Linux, with the portable versions still in development and slated to come out later in 2016. This being said it is understandable that the game as a whole is built on a simple platform in order to be accessible across the range of devices available today.

Do not go into Mighty No. 9 with the expectations of a mind blowing experience and you definitely will not be disappointed but not to sound like a broken record, don't go in without the expectation of a challenge. If you feel the urge to have a laugh with/at me and tell me you had no troubles with the game and would like to have your opinion go in a positive direction head across to our Facebook and tell me all about it. 

• Looks like a cartoon
• Multiplatform application
• Feels like Megaman of old

• HARD
• Difficult
• Death

Platforms: Playstation 3, 4, PC, Xbox 1, 360