I did not go into the game blind, and I don't recommend anyone try to do that. It's a frustrating game, and knowing what unavoidable traps are about to be thrown in front of you can help in being able to enjoy it. Do not go through the game for your first time with less than 9 lives, go into the options and set your starting lives to 9. Also I played the Wii U version. I heard about the rumors that it could brick your console, but those were just rumors. Presumably though the Wii U version did crash often, which seems to have been patched out.
Disclaimer: This may sound like an angry rant, but I actually enjoyed a few parts of this game. That said, I chose to review this because it is at best a mediocre game, and at worst a frustratingly bad game. Though this review may seem nitpicky, the point is to learn from it My experience wasn't entirely negative though and I think anyone can benefit from playing through this game at least once, as a learning experience. Keep in mind that I also didn't back Mighty No. 9 on Kickstarter, and don't own any of the DLC or backer content. Also worth noting is that I'm not even a Megaman fan, and have not beaten any Megaman games besides Megaman 2, Megaman & Bass, and Mighty No. 9.
Now I'm going to go through each boss, level, and power up of the game one by one.
Intro Level
Level Design
Fine. It's an alright intro level. The only complaint I have is that it doesn't teach you everything, like how to do diagonal shooting. The skill is pretty useful and should have been mentioned. It's not the most effective intro stage overall, but it's easy enough to get the player used to the game.
Boss Fight
It's good too. It's easy just like the level, and introduces the game well.
Power
Beck's moveset is far below the average Megaman set. Not being able to charge your shots kinda sucks, and having to dash at enemies to kill them sucks a lot. Especially since your shots don't go through enemies without getting a red powerup, so you have to shoot-dash-shoot-dash when you're fighting multiple enemies at once. What's more, a few of the skill are only shown to you through the in-game manual.
What I learned
One big cutscene at the start of the game is preferable to multiple short cutscenes at the start of the first level.
Mighty No. 1 Pyrogen
Level Design
Pretty bad. The first half of the level is just fine, but it turns to utter shit when you get to the falling canisters. This is where you really don't want to go in blind. It's bad enough that the canisters force you to slow down, but for some reason the designers chose to include falling balls of fire that could stun you right into an instant death canister or a pitfall. At least it was a useful lesson to me: do not throw too much at your player at once. If they're already being forced to deal with one instant-death obstacle, don't throw in hundreds of something else that's even more difficult to avoid. I tried to dash through this section using Seismic's power but the lag makes it impossible, at least on the Wii U version. To get through it easily, use Seismic's power for the first half and Aviator's for the second.
Boss Fight
It's below average. Pyrogen's the type of boss that you're supposed to bait, which a lot of blind LPers never seemed to figure out. But it's a tough boss even knowing that, mainly for the fact that the tell isn't very good. You're supposed to predict him based on what he says, but an animation tell would be more effective than the audio tell. As it is now it becomes entirely unpredictable for the few seconds that the character dialogue is up, a fact that will seem very unfair to anyone playing the game on a harder difficulty.
Power
Situational. It's pretty much only good for taking down Cryosphere faster, and killing the tiny robots.
What I learned
Don't throw too much at your player at once. Try to make it kind of obvious that your boss is meant to be baited, apparently not a lot of players figure it out easily. I think the best way to do this is by giving the boss two baiting moves. One that can be avoided if you fail to bait it out, and one that can't. Also make sure the boss' tells can't be obstructed by dumb things, like dialogue.
Mighty No. 2 Cryosphere
Level Design
The level is not particularly bad. You can skip over some parts just by dashing, and it has the same problem every level has of there being too many instant-death obstacles all over the place. Otherwise, it's an averagely designed level. Not being able to grab ledges and slipping is a bit annoying, but that's expected of an ice level. The one thing I do hate though is the pong boss fight. It's a clever idea, but it should have only been used once.
Boss Fight
Cryo is extremely frustrating if you fight her without Pyrogen's power. Otherwise though it's not a big deal, just charge up when she's unreachable and explode when she creates her tow of ice. It paralyzes her and you can shoot her dead.
Power
100% useless. There's no reason to use it over the regular pellets, especially when you can shoot diagonally. If you don't know how to do that look at the game manual, as the game doesn't tell you how to do it directly. By default on the Wii U, it's ZR+Y.
What I learned
Don't overuse gimmicks, getting frozen is annoying, and slippery ice levels are annoying. Also, bosses that heal are annoying. If you don't absorb Cryo while she's on the ground, she'll heal up while out of your reach.
Mighty No. 3 Dynatron
Level Design
Cruddy. I didn't have any problem with the level, but I knew what was coming ahead of time. The tiny robots are annoying if you don't have a power that can take them out quickly, Pyrogen's should work just fine here. The purple buzzsaws also gave a lot of people trouble, but if you know they're coming you can get through it pretty quickly. Just run through and crouch-dash with good timing. Overall this becomes the easiest level once you get a hold of it.
Boss Fight
I hate it. Apparently I had more trouble with it than anyone else who I watched play the game. If you get Brandish's power first though it becomes a cakewalk.
Power
Situational. I tried using it on a few bosses, but it just gets outclassed by Battalion's power.
What I learned
Don't overuse your gimmicks. I always think to myself that gimmicks should be used to their full extent, but some gimmicks are just meant to only be seen once, usually bossfight gimmicks. Even more important than that though, don't include instant-death on obstacles with precision timing. Especially if your game has long load times.
Mighty No. 4 Seismic
Level Design
I hate it, everyone hates it, too much instant death everywhere. The worst part is the silverfish robots that hide inside boxes. They get in your way while the drill is chasing you, and unless you know where they appear they'll always get the jump on you. There is a lot of talking too, which is a terrible idea when you're trying to descend in a level. Yeah, go ahead and cover up where the spikes are with your dialogue box. Also, this level is one of the laggiest in the game. The frame drops are so bad that you could end up teleported right into the electric spikes.
Boss Fight
It's good, I liked this boss. The drill attack was annoying at first, but you can get the hang of it after a few attempts.
Power
Wheel Kirby is the best power in the game. If this game gets speedran, this will be the power they go after first. You get semi-invincibility, and you can pretty much just plow through a lot of stages. Get this power early on. At first it's annoying that you always bounce off walls and enemies you run into, but it's easy to get used to that thanks to your dash.
What I learned
Keep your auto-scrolling level's speed reasonable. Don't just throw everything in front of the player if you're going to rush them. Especially don't use puzzle elements, precision platforming, and surprise silverfish enemies when your player is already freaking out about the giant electric drill chasing them. Lastly dialogue boxes should never impede the gameplay, that's just common sense.That's the first half of the game. In case anyone is actually taking this advice, here's my suggested order for fighting the bosses: 4 Seismic, 5 Battalion, 6 Aviator, 7 Brandish, 1 Pyrogen, 2 Cryosphere, 3 Dynatron, 8 Countershade.
Part 2 of this review can be found here.
Lastly, here's a video Game Soup made last week about Mighty No. 9. Their criticisms are pretty similar to mine so I felt like linking it, enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohb8RdPsm3U
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