E3 2015 Preview: Mighty No. 9

Going hands on with Mighty No. 9 it’s easy to see Mega Man’s influence. Heck, I’d go even further. Mighty No. 9 is Mega Man, just by another name. It’s a call back to the old-school platformers from the days of NES and SNES, when difficulty was king. Mighty No. 9 is hard, but that’s what makes it so good.

In the build I played, a range of level were available, each with distinct locations, enemies and scenarios. There’s much more of story in this title than any main series Mega Man, but it’s not overbearing. It’s actually pretty cute and well voice acted. More like an episode of Astro Boy or any anime aimed at younger kids. Beck — as our hero is named — meets Dr. White (so close to Dr. Light it hurts) who informs him that all robots over the world are malfunctioning and hurting humans. It’s up to Beck to put a stop to the rampage and save the world.

The first level is brilliant at reintroducing players to the side-scrolling, shooting, platformer action, while at the same time including brand new mechanics that add a new dimension to gameplay. Robots in this universe contain Xel. From what I can gather, Xel is what powers them, including Beck, and by shooting enemies enough they’ll be stunned instead of immediately being destroyed. In this stunned state, Beck is able to dash into them and absorb their Xel, which adds to his special meter and allows him to fire his special weapons in a transformed mode, just like Mega Man.

By stringing attacks together and absorbing enemies in quick succession, beck can earn power ups which change his weapons, movement speed and more. Each enemy glows with a specific colour when stunned and these relate to which power up will be earned. Absorb enough of a range of colours and Beck earns a special transformation. I managed to absorb so many red enemies that each time I fired my weapon, Beck would explode and do damage to a wide area, although it meant he was slowed down each time.

Aside from the main story levels, there are a huge number of  challenge levels, co-op and more. The challenge levels are set inside a VR arena and challenge the player to complete the level within a certain amount of time and with limited abilities. Some won’t allow you to shoot. Other won’t allow you to boost and so on. Even the very first challenge levels were quite difficult, so it’s definitely going to keep players busy for a while. I wasn’t able to test out the co-op mode, however it’s likely that fans will get a lot out of it. Trying to defeat every single boss in the game in the Boss Challenge mode will also be a challenge only the worthy will complete. Considering how many times I died in the first level, I don’t think that includes me.

Mighty No. 9 is looking like an absolute blast and fans of Mega Man will love it. It will be available 15 September for PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.