Blog 3: Mighty No. 9 Review Part 2

Continuing from last week, my review of Mighty No 9.
Part 1 can be found here

Mighty No. 5 Battalion

Level Design

Kind of a bitch. This level wants to frustrate you. Have an enemy that you can't shoot right away standing right in your path. Oh, you found a secret path? Have an unavoidable mine shit on you right at the end of it. There's also one part where you have to jump on a box to shoot a barrel, and the timing's pretty precise. I don't have a big problem with it, there's not a lot of punishment for messing this part up, but it does still end up being an annoying puzzle.

Boss Fight

Sucks. You have to guess at what the boss is doing, as it'll at random perform one of 4 actions: jump, shoot bullets, shoot missiles, or shoot bullets in the air. The best way to fight it is to stay behind it. Also halfway through he shoots a missile out that you just jump over. This essentially limits where you can stand to only half of the arena, as he can detonate this missile at will. Shit boss overall.

Power

Second best power in the game, and the best boss-killer. I used this power exclusively when fighting the final boss. The damage output is great, and being able to detonate it at will is a great bonus.

What I learned

Should be obvious: but don't punish the player for doing a good job, and don't throw in unavoidable obstacles and enemies if they don't have a quick way to avoid or dispose of them. Also, it's important that the bosses have some sort of tell. I kinda just hate RNG in general.

Mighty No. 6 Aviator

Level Design

It's not bad at all, but I think the wind's a bit too strong. This level introduces a really cool idea: the updraft. If you dash in an updraft or use Aviator's power, you go upwards. It doesn't get used much here, but it gets used in the last level.

Boss Fight

It's fine too. Though it's a bit long if you don't have Dynatron's or Battalion's powers. It was a good idea to use the updraft as a way to make it a little easier.

Power

I didn't get to use it much outside of the final level. I assume it's good since it makes you fall slower and gives you a higher jump. It gets used a lot in the final levels of the game.

What I learned

Don't make your wind too strong, unless it's going upwards.

Mighty No. 7 Brandish

Level Design

It's shit. The concept is great, but the execution is terrible. The signs that come at you are annoying, hard to see in the rain, and can catch you off-guard tossing you into the road.. The worst part is the enemies that block the air above you when you don't have any attacks that can reach them. You have to jump and take some damage to take them out, and even then they take multiple shots to kill. I used Seismic's power to rush my way past everything, and it worked out fine. Just make sure to stop using the power when you want to hold unto a ledge.

Boss Fight

It's shit too. Use Seismic's ability to beat him quickly, because it is a frustrating boss otherwise. The cross-slash attack's fine, but every other time he seems to just fight using randomized patterns, with little to no tells.

Power

It's useful in the final level when you're dealing with the xel orb things, as it has a tall hitbox. It also seems to do a bit more damage than your pellets, but the risk is really high as it forces you to get really close to you enemies. Normally I'd take that risk, but not when the enemy stays alive until you dash into it or slash it 3 more times. I think it would have been a better idea to have the sword insta-absorb enemies for you, I'd take that over it being able to deflect bullets.

What I learned

Make your close-range attack worth it, and don't block your player with something they have to struggle to kill (again).

Mighty No. 8 Countershade

Level Design

Varied. Some like it, some hate it. I hate the fact that dying makes you start from the beginning, made even worse when one of the room uses instant-kill electricity. Use Seismic's ability to go through the rooms quickly, but watch out for the UFOs that re-arrage your control scheme for a full 5 seconds.

Boss Fight

Also varied. It can be very long and boring, just like the level, if you don't have the right power. Use anything destructive, like Dynatron or Battalion's powers.

Power

Useless. It's strong against Aviator and the first form of the Robot Factory boss, but otherwise it's just a weak move.

What I learned

Like with Cryo, don't overuse a good gimmick. Learn to tell when the player will get sick of it.

Call's Prison Level

Level Design

Pretty boring, but it is a stealth level. There's also some precision gliding, which can be annoying.

Boss Fight

Cruddy, but nothing major. Duck under the robot's face whenever it begins to shoot at you.

Power

Call's gameplay sucks. Beck gets 3 bullets on screen at a time, Call gets 1. Beck can dash at enemies to kill them quickly, Call has to keep shooting at them with her slow-ass weapon.

What I learned

Stealth levels suck. Alt character gameplay shouldn't feel like a gimp.

Robot Factory

Level Design

Pretty good, it gives good reason to everyone who believes this is the only good level in the game. You have to use multiple powers to complete puzzles, and the atmosphere is great as a few of the Mighty no's fight alongside you. My only complaint is that it doesn't use more than 3 of the powers for puzzle solving, and leans on Aviator's and Battalion's powers a lot.

Boss Fight

I hate it. The first robot seems to be weak to Countershade's power, so snipe at it. The second phase though is a real bitch, as rockets drop down on you while you're on a moving conveyer belt with little time to react. Use Seismic's power to get through that, and the rest should be easy-going.

What I learned

Don't drop missiles on a moving floor. Just more about stacking obstacles on a player, it makes the game's design seem like it was put together by a kindergartener. "My level has one thousand goombas!"

CND 1201 Trinity

Level Design

Not too bad overall. You can get past most of it easily by riding the Seismic power, and the xel orbs aren't too hard to get through with Brandish' power. There are some parts where it's really hard to get through without taking damage, getting through the level is mostly just trial and error. Or maybe it was only trial and error for me because this was the only part of the game I didn't look ahead for.

Boss Fight

I have mixed feelings about the game's final boss. It took me a lot of tries to finally beat this thing my first time. Just use Battalion's power to beat it, you don't need any other power. Niether of these fights is particularly difficult after you know what you're doing, but it will take time to learn.
Phase 1: Rage-inducing, until you get the hang of it. Just spam her face with Battalion's missiles whenever she's vulnerable. The second I saw her shooting pieces of herself out I was worried it would be as long and boring as a Yellow Devil fight, but it's not nearly that bad.
Phase 2: Pretty on-par with the first phase. When she's walking towards you like a Pokey, shoot 3 missiles and then dash through or jump over. When she's spitting out spores take out her base first, then stand on a ledge and spam her with missiles diagonally. When she's shooting her spiraling energy at you just figure it out, there's a moment that you can jump through it. Lastly, remember not to stand in the center as she may appear suddenly from under you.

What I learned

First I'd say not to include a level before the final boss as you have to run through it every time you want to fight it, but that's subjective. Second, the xel orb enemies can be a bit of a bitch for the fact that they immediately respawn when you're a short distance away. That's not bad when you use Brandish's power, but otherwise it can be as you try to dash through an opening only to have it spawn right on top of you. Overall it's not the worst final boss and level.


I beat it on normal mode and tried it on hyper, but I refuse to play through it twice. I'll probably feel a desire to play it again at some point in the future, but I'll try to talk myself out of it. That's my review/ introspective of Mighty No. 9. I give it a 5/10, better than Star Fox Zero. It's not a huge victory, but it's better than nothing.

Blog 3: Mighty No. 9 Review Part 1

I beat Mighty No. 9 recently, and playing it gave me a lot of ideas for my future games. So here's a half-review and half-introspective of the game.
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