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There seems to be no end to the “Mighty No. 9 controversies. I mean ever since MN9 had its debut on June 21st (which was last week), the game has been met with harsh criticism from all over the place. And interestingly enough, most of the negative feedback has come mainly from initial supporters of the game itself (like sites such as Kotaku, Polygon and even ign.com). MN9 is scoring an average of 50% across the board. And many critics agreed that with the setbacks, production timeline, and promotional marketing; the game severely under delivered.

MN9 had a really terrible launch…And the average grade for the game isn´t much better over at gamerankings either.

“What went wrong”? I think it´s easier to ask “What went right?” instead.

And the hard truth is that the title ended up being a carbon copy of “Mega Man” in its purest form. And while names and likenesses were changed to reflect individuality, you could really tell who was supposed to be who from the “Mega Man” series. However, that´s not the case in MN9, and the combinations in “Mighty no. 9” are nothing more than a bad joke. Especially because you could only shoot in a linear direction, while bosses can shoot multiple directions, and your power-up potential in the game was very limited.

Platinum Games Hideki Kamiya knew what was up with the MN9 project very early on.

Even the real Sonic the hedgehog (the official Twitter account) made fun out of MN9´s launch day.

And sadly enough, the nightmare doesn´t stop there. As the load times are reminiscent of the PS2–which is exactly where this game belongs, as for the graphics and soundtrack. Well, it didn’t match the promoting that was shown throughout development. Which can be explained by the fact that Keiji Inafune and Comcept claimed that the engine they used was no longer being updated. This was a little funny as it’s the same engine that, was used to create “Mortal Kombat X”, “Gears of War”, and “Injustice: Gods among us”.

Not even the MN9 thread on Reddit could resist to take a swing at MN9.

And just when you thought that things couldn´t possibly get any worse with MN9´s launch.

Nevertheless, one of the biggest issues is that backers can’t receive refunds from Kickstarter for regrettable donations (“if” you have supported a Kickstarter campaign through PayPal) anymore. That’s right, so if you didn´t ask for a refund for MN9 before the 24th of June, then you’re out of luck! Because Paypal´s policy update took full effect on June 25th. And thus the reason why PayPal has informed customers that they will no longer allow you to submit a charge back, or request a refund for seedy kickstarter donations. So basically, if you donated to “Mighty no. 9” and you’re upset with the outcome. Well, though luck, because you’re stuck with the final product as it is.

The “hey didn´t try DLC out” part is nothing more than one big fat lie.

So much for the “no MN9 DLC´s”.

And since Kickstarter is no help to customers either. As they’re stating that as long as Inafune delivers a final product to you, then it doesn’t matter what else he promised you (the backers) along the way. And this actually makes me wonder what those who paid $10,000 to eat dinner with him will say about this? Inafune also recently stated that all of “Mighty no. 9’s” failures and shortcomings are on him, and not to blame the comcept team for them. This came after he lashed out at critics and surmised that the game was out, and that it was better than nothing. He also stated that due to working on 10 skus the game’s development was splintered and that there was a lot of pressure for the title to be completed.

There are plenty of MN9 jokes and memes out there, but the “Death Stranding” tweet (plus poll) won the price for sure.

mighty no 9 its better than nothing no its not

I´m quite sure that pretty much ANYTHING is better than a four million USD game such as MN9.

A lot of people saw this as an excuse as the game had already been in development for 3+ years, and delayed numerous times. Another important factor in the drama behind MN9 would be the former MN9 community manager Dina Karam. As she banned backers who supported Gamergate (or asked for refunds) and that resulted in even more delays. What’s worse yet is that Inafune believes that sequel titles, an anime series, and a live-action movie will be successful from the game’s debut. Whether or not fans will take to kickstarter to help donate to play a hand in this or not remain yet to be seen.

***Second opinion by Robin Ek***

Most of you know me pretty well by now, but for those who don´t know me all that well. I´m the kind of person who never holds back on what I think or believe. And since I have been a huge “Mega Man” fan since I was a little kid. It sure hurt me quite a lot to see MN9 crash and burn, especially since I originally really believed in Keiji Inafune and Comcept Inti Creates. As I truly thought that I (and others) would get a chance to experience a true next-gen version of “Mega Man”.

The hard truth is that you can´t even give away “Mighty No. 9”, as Gamers doesn´t want to have anything to do with the game.

I saw this stream live, and I still can´t believe that they actually said this while the whole world was watching them.

Well, my dreams went up in smoke once Deep Silver uploaded their trailer for MN9 on Youtube (the trailer has over 37,000 dislikes at the moment). Because when I watched that trailer, I soon realized that MN9 is not going to be the same game which Inafune and Comcept Inti Creates pitched to us via Kickstarter (you know, the game that cost over 4 million USD? The game that took over three years to develop? And the game that got delayed multiple times?).

I don´t agree with Ismail on this one, because four million USD is a whole lot of money. And Mn9 is just a mediocre game at its best.

I still don´t get who anyone could stand up and defend MN9. I mean, let´s be honest shall we? The game is pure garbage.

And, well, we all know the outcome of it all by now (all the bad grades, jokes, memes, Youtube rants videos and whatnot). However, there is a bigger concern to this that I would like to address. And that would be the fact that MN9 has shaken the crowd funding foundation to its very core. Because crowd funding is heavily built up on trust between the backers and the creators. And just like I said many months ago, it doesn´t take all that much to make that big Kickstarter bubble to pop. Sure, Kickstarter (and other similar services) is not dead and gone for life due to the massive failure of MN9.

Quite a few game developers have taken a swing at MN9 as well (like Daryl Wilson, for example).

However, the question would be this. How many more MN9 failures will Kickstarter be able to handle before people turn their back on them completely? Because at the end of the day, four million USD is still four million USD. And when all that money ends up being nothing more than a big pile of garbage. Then a lot of people will get really, really angry and disappointed at everyone who was involved in the four million USD project (just check out the #mightynumber9 and #mightyno9 hashtag on Twitter).

MN9´s credit list has over 70,000 names (all the backers). And it takes almost four hours to sit through the whole thing (the credit list is also known as “the wall of shame”).

I would also like to point out that Scar´s “Mighty No.9 – $40k VS $4 million” video really gives you good picture of how bad MN9 truly are (there are plenty of 40K USD indie games out there that are far better than MN9, a game which had a four million USD budget…).

Well, I think you get my point. So, with that said. What´s your take on this matter? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!

Credit:
Robin Ek – Editor and co-writer

Source:
Mighty No. 9 has been delayed for Xbox 360, Mac, and Linux
Mighty No. 9 recieves last minute name change
Rami Ismail
Sonic
Wario64