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Mighty No. 9

Just got the game, MM was basically what got me into gaming, MN9 sure feels different, harder than I expected, it seems to have been built around going fast and what not.

I'm going to stream some of it in a little bit, I'm still on my first playthrough: www.twitch.tv/gamewisk

Also, I agree with everything Mike said based on my experience playing it yesterday.
 
By watching the gameplay of some players a lot of things Mike said makes sense.

I saw so many people getting damaged by walking into disabled enemies or dashing through a disabled one and getting hit by the one behind him. The first time I saw that I felt it was more a problem of the game than player screwing up.
 
Mike_Z said:
- Switching weapons would be possible at any time, no matter what Beck is doing! I would not even require the addition of weapon switching from the pause menu, since that would be a new UI screen. (Optional - change controls to allow switching by holding the weapon-switch button and pressing left/right. Holding the button would pause the world. Hint, look at Indivisible's weapon switching. :^)
MMZXA also did this, iirc. At least the freeze the world stuff.
 
Mike_Z said:
- He would be limited to 2 airdashes per jump.
Stopped reading here. Please don't ever touch this game.
 
mcpeanuts said:
Stopped reading here. Please don't ever touch this game.
That was a pretty out there idea. I enjoy dashing a bunch, and having two airdashes or one airdash and one walljump would feel bad. Having walljumps but only being able to do it once or twice wouldn't feel right, and airdashing twice and being unable to wall jump would be equally not right. If anything (that wasn't my initial suggesting of making airdashes push him up the wall when point blank), just an up airdash that removes the rest of your air options other than hold left or right would be the only real thing I'd want, since it would mirror his down airdash. Though, this would remove a lot of the utility of Helicopter weapon.

Also, of course, shortening the minimum airdash space so I don't overshoot small platforms would be something I'd want.

SanoBaron said:
please don't touch Indivisible then?
This game is very different than Indivisible? Why do people keep equating Platformers as if they're all the same thing?
 
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Zidiane said:
an up airdash that removes the rest of your air options other than hold left or right would be the only real thing I'd want, since it would mirror his down airdash.
Out of curiosity, do people use the down airdash for anything other than accidentally killing themselves during those no-floor flying sections? I never figured out any good uses for it myself.
 
Mr Peck said:
Out of curiosity, do people use the down airdash for anything other than accidentally killing themselves during those no-floor flying sections? I never figured out any good uses for it myself.
NOPE. there is like one time where i would think you would even think of doing a down dash and that's the section in the Mining Lvl were there a bunch of diggers going back a forth [the part where your aid shows up and stops ONLY ONE OF THEM. Gee thanks i would have had so much trouble getting past that first digger.]

that is like the only time you would think you would want to down dash, but really you can get past the diggers by just normally jumping down the hole past all of them.
 
Mr Peck said:
Out of curiosity, do people use the down airdash for anything other than accidentally killing themselves during those no-floor flying sections? I never figured out any good uses for it myself.
Its good for speedrunning in certain sections. I also used it in the robot factory, where you have to hit the four switches and get passed the electricity. I never killed myself with it, but I was very worried about it so I always held up forward when I dashed. They could have made down dashing performed by holding R2 and dashing, though, that would have been super cool.

Edit: it was also of course super useful with Ray.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk
 
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mcpeanuts said:
Stopped reading here. Please don't ever touch this game.
I can't, so you're in luck!
We definitely like different things, ha.

[edit]
You know what, though? You do have a point.
I was approaching this as "let's make it a good Megaman game". But I forgot my own rule: when doing a reboot or redesign of an existing game where you need to say "let's make it a good version of this game," rather than "let's make it a good different game." To that end, removing things people found fun about the initial game just to fix a problem should be avoided if they can be. I've updated my list to reflect making it a good version of what MN9 already is. Maybe you can stand reading it now. :^)
 
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Mike_Z said:
You know what, though? You do have a point.
I was approaching this as "let's make it a good Megaman game". But I forgot my own rule: when doing a reboot or redesign of an existing game where you need to say "let's make it a good version of this game," rather than "let's make it a good different game." To that end, removing things people found fun about the initial game just to fix a problem should be avoided if they can be. I've updated my list to reflect making it a good version of what MN9 already is. Maybe you can stand reading it now. :^)
This is why you're the best.

Edit: I do have some commentary on the list now, though. I didn't at first cause it was just your idea of a good game, but now that it's your idea of a good mn9 game I want to comment. Will be back when I'm not on my phone.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk
 
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Mike_Z said:
Not that anyone asked, but if I were going to redesign that game with minimal effort on the developers' part:
- Being invincible after being hit would also make Beck invincible to instant-death hazards and instant-death attacks. Bottomless pits are still death, obviously.
- Reduce the knockback from being hit to about 80% of what it is now.
- Disabled enemies would count as intangible. Touching them would collect them, and all shots would go through them. If you didn't collect them fast enough they would come back alive, just like they do now. That time could even be made shorter.
- Dashing into an enemy that has very little health remaining (1.5-3 lemons' worth, would need testing) would kill them and collect them. Dashing into them otherwise would hurt Beck. This status would be indicated by outlining them in red or making them flash between normal and disabled looks, or something.
- He would be limited to 2 airdashes per jump. (I'd make it 1, but there are sections where at least 2 are required.) Being hit would give you back both, grabbing a ring would give you back both. [removed because of mcpeanuts' valid point that this is an important part of what fun MN9 does have]
- Shorten minimum dash/airdash distance to 1 frame, if you actually release the button that quickly.
- Remove mantling (ledge grab) in favor of the below option. Grabbing rings would still need to be present because levels are designed around that.
- With at least 1 airdash remaining, when next to a wall Beck can walljump upward by pressing Jump, which will use up an airdash. (This could just use his flip animation from ledge grab->Up, and is in lieu of implementing full Megaman-style wall cling and walljump while still preventing you dying.)
- If a boss hit you with what is now an instant-kill attack and you have more than 1HP remaining, it would bring you down to 1HP rather than killing you. (This is closer to the intended spirit than just making those attacks do 50% damage, and probably more fun because those could still one-shot you with 50% health left. Might be worth reducing the damage AND having them not kill you from above 1HP.)
- Shots would travel the full length of the screen, but stop counting toward the bullet limit/allow you to fire another shot after they reached the range where they now disappear.
- Shots that went farther than a little bit offscreen would IMMEDIATELY DISAPPEAR, or at least immediately not count toward the bullet limit.
- Extra energy tanks would use themselves as soon as Beck received fatal damage, like Auto mode Reserve Tanks from Super Metroid, rather than requiring the player to manually use them. They go away when you die, this is the fairest way for them to work with that restriction.
- Switching weapons would be possible at any time, no matter what Beck is doing! I would not even require the addition of weapon switching from the pause menu, since that would be a new UI screen. (Optional - change controls to allow switching by holding the weapon-switch button and pressing left/right. Holding the button would pause the world. Hint, look at MMZA's weapon switching. :^)
- Remove the crouch-dash command and just let him automatically enter crouch-dash state when he reaches a short opening.
- Allow pressing the Dash button while on a ladder to disengage from the ladder and dash without requiring jumping first.
- Allow pressing the Shoot or Jump buttons to cut off the current line of dialogue in a cutscene and advance past it. (Just fake like it finished, in code.) Press-start-to-skip-the-whole-thing is not the only useful feature for cutscenes.
- Mute the in-level voiceover for dialogue that occurs while players are playing, even if the rest of the dialogue is spoken.

Optional - redo some of the boss powers (sword, bulldozer) so they don't just grant you invincibility frames forever if you continue using them / mashing.

That's just the basics, but I think that's enough to vastly improve how it feels, at least to me.
None of this requires level, enemy, or boss redesigns. If this were the Z-Engine, all that is doable in well under a week, so I imagine one of their more-experienced designers and a programmer could do it in about that time.
Great write up, as per usual, Mr. Z.
 
Being impervious to instant death traps after getting hit by a normal attack would be a great help for speed runners. Heck, it would make THAT part with instant death traps in Call's level easier. I think Comcept went too far with the "good old day difficulty", as in "make it really hard so it's almost unfair" instead of "you wanna beat this level? Well, you gotta get good".

I'm intrigued, tough: Mike, do you consider Mighty N° 9 a bad game? Just like you said, to each their own, as I kinda enjoyed the game, except for a few things -mainly related to what you pointed out-, but it definitely doesn't feel like the game they promised. Personally, I'll forever miss the Kirby-esque mechanic they thought at first, where Beck would be able to transform and acquire new powers based on the enemies he defeated, not just bosses like in any other Megaman game.
 
E!Damnation said:
Being impervious to instant death traps after getting hit by a normal attack would be a great help for speed runners. Heck, it would make THAT part with instant death traps in Call's level easier. I think Comcept went too far with the "good old day difficulty"
You realize "good old day difficulty" made you invincible to instant-death stuff, right? Except in like, Sonic 1 1.0 and Megaman 1 1.0.
 
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Mike_Z said:
You realize "good old day difficulty" made you invincible to instant-death stuff, right? Except in like, Sonic 1 1.0 and Megaman 1 1.0.
Yes, of course. I always considered the invincibility frames as a valid strategy to travel across spiked walls areas, or simply areas packed with difficult enemies, especially in games like Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden. Good old day difficulty was hard, but it was fair when you learned how to make the most of the gameplay, that's what I think. Getting rid of wall-climbing made the game unnecessarily hard at some points, especially in Cryo's stage. Talking about that stage, am I the only one who thought its design felt kind of rushed? It feels empty sometimes, you can't reduce your momentum by jumping on slippery platforms like in other games, some ice cube walls literally have no reason to be there (the small frozen hall before fighting the second Pong mini-boss where they get help from Cryo herself) and the weirdly placed flammable barrel near some conveyor belts that you need to destroy in order to climb up a ladder, all while boxes are falling on your head.
 
I have mixed feelings about the endless air dashes myself, from the brief amount of time I spent with it.

On one hand, its interesting gliding overhead shit with that.

On the other hand, it feels like a really haphazard style of air movement to me. You don't really have a ton of control. Your only option is to either fall or keep going till you crash or reach your goal. Eh. I dunno, decent novelty but kinda braindead and exudes that endemic "we didn't spend a lot of time thinking about this" slapped together feel imo.

Game's system could use a bit more elegance.
 
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Don't go to GameFAQ's.

The MN9 board will defend this POS to the DEATH.
 
Dragonage2ftw said:
Don't go to GameFAQ's.

The MN9 board will defend this POS to the DEATH.

when you've stayed on both the Playstation All Stars and Smash 4 boards since announcement you see everything you possible could. It's hell.
 
So I finished Mighty No. 9. I tried to go into this without the toxic nature it's been given... but after playing through it, it deserves it. The models look plastic and uncaring, the VA was abysmal (I liked MN6 and MN2 though, all though still annoying but it was their script), and the ending left a bad taste, just having 3 photos. The game also has nothing of interest to go back for. Beat a stage? Why should I go back to play it besides to get pissed all over again at the layouts. Even the final Boss' 2nd mode was annoying as fuck. It was the same color as when som'in destabilizes so you couldn't tell if you could dash it. And don't get me started on the FPS issues! Oy! What I find interesting is there's an "accomplishment" for beating the game under an hour. ok. yeah.

I could carry on with how much I detested and sort of regret playing it, but I'll break off here...
 
Ninja said:
yeah this lacks the charm and soul that most games should have. Like say Blade Kitten.
I don't know if this is sarcasm, but I will just say Kit's walk cycle in Blade Kitten has more charm than the entirety of Mighty Number 9.
 
MN9 is a bleh game with a good game trying to get out, but its held back way to much. Tries to be way to much of an old school game, gets the spirit of those wrong with a focus on speedrunning and score (for the points and accomplishment systems I mean), was split over way to many systems which hurts the quality of the graphics and level design since they opted to make all versions the same...
 
SanoBaron said:
I don't know if this is sarcasm, but I will just say Kit's walk cycle in Blade Kitten has more charm than the entirety of Mighty Number 9.
No I'm dead serious. Blade Kitten is like fucking 300 times better than MN9. No joke. [Actually I kinda find it to be a guilty pleasure]
 
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North888 said:
gets the spirit of those wrong with a focus on speedrunning and score (for the points and accomplishment systems I mean)

A lot of oldschool games were about score though. It kinda gets lost on people unfamiliar with the arcade scene, considering how a lot of console titles that weren't built around it slapped it on anyway, but score was (and for many games that continue the legacy, still is) a big fucking deal back then.

Speed running is kind of a new iteration of it. And it can work. In fact some games back then did give you score bonuses for clearing stages faster.

But yeah. MN.09 just seems not very well thought out to me. The whole dash to kill stuff could be a good idea, but it's so inorganic. IMO It should be an actual tactical choice with risk/reward elements and advantages/disadvantages that you can perform at any time, rather than a forced finishing move.

Alien Soldier does murder dashing as both an offensive and defensive tool much better.
 
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It's just not feels like a 4 million dollars game. The game is mediocre at best. Beck's campaign is meh, Call's levels could be longer, they wasted some a good opportunity there (except for the goddamn spike course before the boss, fuck those spiked walls), and to be honest, I kinda enjoyed Ray's campaign more than the actual main campaign.

Oh, and some levels are annoying for the sake of being annoying, and I'm talking about the training level where you must get to the finish line using the Bulldozer form.
 
I've never even used any of the other power ups except the Explosive Trigger, That Hover Blade, and then the Sword Arm. The rest I honestly have no bloody clue what they do cause I didn't find a need for them (cept the sniper shot, for the ending puzzle)
 
Shock power let's you cause loads of damage and keep dodging without holding buttons. Cart is for running on even terrain and mow small enemies, sniper homes after it bounces off walls iirc
 
More than half a decade of advantage and it still looks cheap

I'll buy because i vowed to buy any mega man game. Wallet vote, don't let mega man become the next alex kidd/segata sanshiro, etc.

But for a game that took so long to finally appear, it looks little better than a 3ds or mobile game, the animations are janky, the scenarios lack nuance and background details and yeah... they went full circle and copiend MN9's form change with the weapon thing.

If only they made Maverick Hunter X-2 with an actual budget...
 
It doesn’t look cheap at all, it looks pretty good and probably is the best looking mainline Megaman game..

I just hope that after all the whining and moaning from Megaman fans, the game will get as much success as those fans claim it has.
 
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I mean, if it doesn’t sell a lot of units, regardless of how good it is, it just means JohnnyUtah was right.
 
Yeah it doesn't look bad. Still would have preferred hand drawn animation or some shit but it's fairly solid looking.

Also:

DQOurKqWsAEOBDZ.jpg

source


Also a very important thing to note is that this is actually being done by an in-house Capcom team, and the director has worked on a variety of projects including Street Fighter Alpha, Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins (hella under-rated game imo), etc.

I don't expect anything mind blowing, but it'll probably be a decent little game.
 
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At least it certainly doesn’t have someone who will abandon it 1/3 of the way done and start his own company where he just gets to sit in an office all day and be like “what if game did this?” And people give him millions of dollars to make a shitty game.
 
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I'm hyped for the new Mega Man game! I actually like how it looks and I can't wait to see the new Robot Masters! (Hopefully we get another lady added to the roster)
 
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