Review #635: Danganronpa Trilogy

 Hope and Despair face off on their eternal struggle in the world of DanganRonpa.

 Well, I'll make it short... Danganronpa is amazing. Since I've already said my piece about Danganronpa 1 and 2(Spoilers: They are brilliant) I'll be focusing exclusively on Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, the latest game in the franchise.

 There's absolutely no way I can talk about the story without spoiling things, the publishers even went out of their way to protect some of the story developments on the game's various covers. What I can say is that the game follows the same formula it's always followed, which isn't a bad thing, with 16 highschool students waking up trapped in a school. The story being divided into chapters and each chapter being divided into different sections: Every day life, where the story progresses between scripted events and 'Free Time' you can spend mingling with other characters, the Investigation of the inevitable murder and then the class trial. The new highschool is fairly large and fun to explore, this entry also has some of the most endearing and some of the most vexing characters in the franchise yet. As per usual, the script gets getting more and more juvenile from entry to entry, which is, arguably, a bad thing. It IS a Japanese game after all, so, y'know, it's got a few questionable portrayals as far as female characters go, from a western perspective. Miu, for instance, is all about flaunting her sexuality and calling other girls 'flat', and of course, they get self-conscious. Because that's what every woman is like in Japan. That aside, the ending has proven itself to be quite divisive, and for good reason. For my part, I enjoyed most of it, but didn't quite like the way it connected with the previous two games, and I'll leave it at that. On the other hand, I feel like I was a bit too kind with Super Danganronpa 2, since it was supposed to be 'an even better sequel', but to be honest, I think this game was closer to Danganronpa 1's charm, which is a good thing.

 There's one thing I've always disliked about Danganronpa, and it's no different now: The trials are too convoluted. There's beauty in simplicity, like Phoenix Wright has prove time and time again. But Danganronpa isn't content with that, so let's see: As per usual, during Trials characters will debate with each other about what they think happened, and you'll have to use evidence, in the form of Truth Bullets to agree or disagree with colored statements. New to the series are 'Lie' bullets, which don't really make sense, but sometimes you'll have to lie about an evidence piece in order to get to the truth. It's a bit weird and doesn't make much sense, but it's there. Showdowns return, when you have to cut through white noise and use evidence, now in the form of Truth Blade, to argue. The fill-in-the-gaps comic book closing arguments is still the same, as well as the boring Hangman's Gambits, in which you have to wait until the correct letters pop up on the screen in order to form a word.

 The new mechanics are: Mass Panic Debates, in which you'll have to do with three testimonies at the same time, Psyche Taxi, in which you have to drive a Taxi to collect letters and answer a question, Debate Scrums, which are basically about rebutting arguments with the correct arguments and, finally, Armored Arguments, where you have to rhythmically press buttons to deal damage to an obstinate culprit. As always, the game is way too convoluted, I picked up a guide and called it a day, since I just couldn't be arsed. And it's fine, Danganronpa's main draw is the story, not the gameplay. As you interact with objects, during the exploration segments, and walk around you'll level up, which in turn lets you equip skills to make Trials easier and more manageable.

 Once you are done with the lengthy main story, you'll unlock a bonus mode... although, this time, you get multiple bonus modes. The micromanagement bonus mode has been tweaked into a more streamlined experience, in which during the day you can go out with various characters, so as to complete their individual development, and during the night you can spend coins on the Casino minigames, a bunch of them being rather fun! Afterwards you might want to play the Talent Plan Mode, which is a quirky Board game that has you increasing, and sometimes decreasing a character's stats, you can also learn RPG-like skills, such as super moves and the like. At the end of the mode you'll engage in a turn-based RPG battle against a boss. Finally, there's Monokuma's test, a rogue-like turn-based RPG where you can take your developed characters, from the Board Mode, in order to clear a 50-floor dungeon and fight powerful bosses. These two latter modes let you use characters from the older Danganronpa games, which is quite a treat, particularly because the board game includes over 500 different events in which characters from any of the three games get to interact with one another!

 I don't know if I'd say that Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony is the best one in the series, but it's dang close. The new characters are memorable, the murders are fun and the ending... well, your mileage will vary on that one. As for Danganronpa Trilogy, you get three fantastic visual-novel styled murder-mystery stories that are bound to last you a long, long time. Getting all three games in a single disc is a fantastic deal, even if the included 'art-book' is a glorified instruction booklet!
Danganronpa V3 - Killing Harmony 9.5 out of 10
Danganronpa Trilogy 10 out of 10

Review #634: Dinotopia - The Timestone Pirates

 Turns out Dinosaurs can't make everything better.

 Do you remember Lady Sia? It was one of the earliest GBA games, it's kinda sloppy but quite fun. Turns out the same developers also made Turok Evolution on the Advance, an unfairly hard, but also a helluva fun 2-D action game on the same console. These people also made Dinotopia - The Timestone Pirates. And they blew it.

 I know nothing about the books it's based off of, but the story has to do about bad guys stealing dinosaur eggs and the main character, whoever the hell he is, trying to retrieve them. There's very little story, exposition or context as to why you are doing what you are doing or why what's happening is happening, so I wouldn't bother trying to think to hard about it. The game is mercifully short, but even then it felt like it wore out its welcome by the 30-minute mark. It also attempts to mix various styles: Sidescroller, Flying stages and submarine stages, but none of them work well. At all.

 The first bunch of stages have you playing as the guy on foot, as you explore each stage in search of a single dinosaur egg so that you can exit the stage. These levels are the worst, you have no idea of where you are going or where you should go. They make no sense. You'll end up just fumbling about, trying not to die(Since there are no checkpoints) while you try to find the egg, and maybe the switch that opens up the level's exit. After you are done with those chores you'll be doing a few sidescrolling flying stages. The first one is so irritating because some obstacles are almost impossible to see coming. I lost more lives on the first flying stage than I did on the rest of the game. Once that's through, there are four lame submarine stages in which you must, once again, find eggs. The submarine is either too fast or too slow, so it's hard to avoid hitting things. The boss of the underwater sections  is so hard to figure out... you have to stay put on a certain spot so that a falling barrel bounces on top of you onto the giant fish, and then it's toast. Finally, you go through more 2-D Sidescrolling mazes, this time while riding a dinosaur. The camera is SO zoomed-in that it's impossible to avoid incoming damage, the game compensates for this by being generous with healing pick-ups.

 Dinotopia on the Gameboy Advance manages to hit all three Bs: Bad, Bland and Boring. There's absolutely nothing good about the game, and I usually like scraping the bottom of the barrel for redeeming qualities, but this game has none. Well, maybe... that it sorta kinda looks like Lady Sia? But isn't even half as good. Even fans of the book won't find anything of value here, what's more, it's in their best interest to avoid this cart so as not to tarnish their enjoyment of the books. Few games are this incompetent, at least it's short.
 1.5 out of 10

Review #633: Yakuza Kiwami

 We're back to where everything began... The birth of a Legend.

 Yakuza on PS2 was pretty flippin' dope, but it was also pretty flippin' clunky. Not content with leaving things like they were, and finding themselves with a ton of reusable assets from Yakuza 0, the Ryu Ga Gotoku Team set to polish their very first Yakuza entry by blending its top-notch story with the lustrous gameplay of 0. And it works beautifully, revitalizing what was Yakuza's weakest link.

 The story is exactly the same as it was in the original game, to the point of cutscenes sticking to the same camera angles and, dare I say, animations of the original. The story now has the added benefit of having Yakuza 0's backstory, making Nishiki's transformation into a villain hitting harder than before. Alongside the original plot of Kazuma returning from prison to find his bestie-turned-enemy and the mystery surrounding the lost child Haruka and the stolen 10 billion yen, each chapter is prefaced by new scenes showing the trials and tribulations that turned Nishiki into who he is 10 years later. These scenes are very welcome and help make Nishiki a more interesting and sympathetic character. On the other hand, they added a ton of new dialogue and scenes for the series' breakout character Majima, trying to marry his initial portrayal with the zanier anti-hero he became. It kinda, sorta works, but I think a complete and total rewrite of his role would have been better. Majima isn't the ally-murdering psycho he was in the first game, so having him beat up his goons feels incredibly out of character, even if it was his original portrayal. Later Yakuza stories have been much more dramatic and twisted, but it's still a great plot and the new additions only make it better.

 I'm a bit tired of having to repeat the exact same gameplay description since Yakuza doesn't change much between installments, so I'll try to cruise through it. Yakuza is beat'em up action game that takes place in the city of Kamurocho. While you always have a main objective, you can also choose to spend time solving silly sidequests or wasting time with minigames like Bowling, Pocket Circuit Racing, Batting, etc. As you run around the city of Kamurocho you may come across miscreants that need a good beating, and Kazuma Kiryu, the hero, is only happy to oblige. Defeating enemies and solving sidequests reward Kazuma with experience points you can then spend on various different skill trees, depending on whether you want more health and strength, more moves or expanding your energy gauge to allow for stronger Heat(super) attacks. For the first time in the series, you can save ANYWHERE now.

 Remember how Yakuza 0 had the best and deepest combat in the franchise? It's back! Kazuma can change between four different styles(Brawler, Rush, Beast and Dragon) on the fly, each style having entirely different strengths and weaknesses. The first three can be developed by investing experience points on the aforementioned skill trees, but the Dragon style is a bit different... There's a new mechanic, 'Majima EVERYWHERE'. Basically, Majima really wants to fight Kiryu, but he wants to fight him at his best, so he'll try to ambush Kiryu at different times, from a bar to a cabaret, in order to train him and reawaken his Dragon style. It'll take a long, long while before Dragon is anywhere close to useful, and even then, it's been nerfed pretty hard, so you are just fine sticking with the first three styles. On the other hand, even on the Normal difficulty setting, Kiwami felt more challenging than any game before it, so you can't just mash your way through.... unless you are carrying a ton of healing items that is. Eventually it can get downright cruel, when story bosses start appearing with a ton of health bars, are fantastic at dodging and require the optional Dragon-style Extreme Action to take out of their healing auras.

 The game is brilliant, but there is a single misstep that hurt it a bit: Bosses can regenerate health. That's right, at two different times throughout the battle, at least on Normal, bosses will enter special stance and start recovering health. You can only stop this by performing a HEAT action on them. This means that you'll be holding onto your heat waiting for these moments instead of using them in battle, which is a huge disappointment. The game doesn't tell you this, but it's in your best interest to learn the Extreme Heat actions from the Soul skill branch first so that you have the required heat actions to cancel their healing.

 Yakuza Kiwami is the definitive way to play Yakuza 1, no question about it. Everything that was great about the first game is here alongside everything that was great about Yakuza 0, without its terrible upgrade system. Not every sidequest made it back, but most of them did and were rewritten to make them more interesting, and there's a ton of new ones, so there's no shortage of stuff to do in this game. It might have gone a bit too far making Majima a wacky walking meme, but I didn't mind it too much and just decided to enjoy the craziness.

 9.0 out of 10

Review #632: Power Rangers - Battle for the Grid

 The least amibitious crossover since TMNT Smash-up.

 I used to love Power Rangers, yo! I stuck with it long after the other kids had outgrown it and after growing up, I watched a few of the Japanese series(Gekirangers is all kinds of amazing and Shinkenger is flippin' brilliant!). I've always had a thing for characters that could transform, so the Sentai series has always been right up my alley. Color me surprised when a new 3-on-3 fighting game based on the franchise was announced, although color me a bit disappointed when it was announced as digital only. Regardless, I made my pre-order, and now Power Rangers - Battle for the Grid is finally in my hands!

 The game offers a few basic modes: Online VS(Ranked and Casual), Offline Versus Player or CPU, Training, Tutorial and Arcade modes. It's very basic, and there aren't many options. You can't tweak the AI's difficulty setting, you can't add rounds to a match, there's basically nothing. The tutorial is horrible, only going through the basic and skipping over some of the game's mechanics, which is a huge mistake. The Arcade Mode is a 7-stage slog that has about 4 written lines of dialogue total, culminating in a battle against Lord Drakkon. Lame. What makes Arcade so bland is the fact that there are only 9 characters total, Lord Drakkon being excluded since he is the final boss, so you end up fighting the same characters over and over and over again. Be warned, at least on the Switch version, loading times are a bit on the longer side.

 Still, the game's biggest blunder is its roster. Let's hope you liked Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, because we get: Tommy Oliver as both the Green Ranger and Lord Drakkon, from the comics, Jason Scott Lee, Kimberly as the Ranger Slayer(Don't worry, there's a skin to revert her to the show's look), Goldar and, finally, we get the comics' exclusive Black Ranger Trooper, which is grunt wearing a suit based off of Zack's. That's six characters that appeal to Mighty Morphin' fans. The other three are Magna Defender, from Lost Galaxy(Another classic series), Kat from SPD and Gia from MegaForce, thank god. And, in case you haven't noticed, there's not a single Blue Ranger. Leaks show that the upcoming three characters are the White Ranger, from Mystic Force(Praise the gods) and... another Jason Scott, from the Zeo era. The pandering is real. Official in-game art suggests that the third character is the Black Dragon AKA Trini from the comics. For a game that's supposed to celebrate Power Rangers it seems like the developers got stuck with the oldies, which hurts the game. They should've just called it Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and not even bother with other eras. Lastly, there will be DLC costumes, Lord Drakkon Evo II and Mighty Morphin' pink are alright, but Dragon Shield Jason is where it's really at. Sadly, there are only two color schemes per character, and the alternate color sets are rather bland, hopefully they do something about that.

 With the worst out of the way, I'm happy to report that the game is actually rather fun to play! The game is played with four different buttons: Weak, Medium and Strong attacks with a fourth button relegated to Special moves. Each character has three different special moves, performed by pressing the fourth button and different directions on the control pad(Neutral, Forward, Backwards and, a fourth special done exclusively on air) as well as an EX move, done by pressing Weak+Special. EX moves tend to go through enemy attacks, but cost 1 energy stock to use. Ah, yes! Of course, we've got a traditional 3-tier energy stock, you can use two stocks to perform a powerful super move or use 3 stocks once a partner has died to summon a powerful Zord, one time per match only though!

 You can call in partners to either attack or swap places with you. Benched characters can recover a bit of lost health when tagged out, since this game employs Marvel's trademark red-health. There are a few moves to force your enemy to tag out, as well as you can decide pretty late if you want to tag with a character or just in his assist, since swapping places is done by double tapping the designated assist button. Overall, the combat is fast and fun, making combos is easy and the game is very masher friendly, however, you can pull off some fancy stuff if you're willing to put in the time. That said, there are only 9 characters, and the game is played with 3-person teams, so there's scant 27 different character combinations at the moment, which will get tiresome pretty quickly.

 Power Rangers - Battle for the Grid might just be the best Power Rangers game yet, which is not saying much. That said, the bland stages and poor special effects are proof of its relatively low budget, which is a shame, because I'm sure that with a larger budget this game could've been really, REALLY good, even if unremarkable. That said, I'm hoping that with a few extra characters the game might become an easier recommendation, the initial cast is diverse, mechanics-wise, even Lord Drakkon feels different from Tommy, but 9 characters just don't cut it in this day and age. The game is already off to a great start, I hate this 'games as a service' trend, but I'll remain hopeful.

 6.5 out of 10

Review #631: Night in the Woods

 Xylophobes need not apply.

 Do they know that they are animals? That's the biggest question Night in the Woods fails to answer throughout its quirky slice-of-life-horror-mystery adventure. As one of this generation's Indie darlings, NitW doesn't disappoint.

 Set in the little town of Possum Springs, you play as Mae, a cat-thing college drop-out who returns home after giving college a try. But not everything is as she remembered, some of her friends have changed, others remain the same, and she'll have ample time to figure things out as the story progresses. The game is divided into four different chapters, the first three follow a slice-of-life narrative as Mae gets reacquainted with the town and her friends. The script is charming, and you'll probably be able to relate to at least one character, as everyone is trying to figure their way through life and its obstacles. This is not an action game, you'll mostly be talking and, well, just talking with the different inhabitants of Possum Springs, often times being allowed to pick between different dialogue choices that may alter how different people see Mae. On the other hand, there are subtle hints here and there that not everything is as it looks, culminating in a fourth chapter tied with strong eldritch horror influences... depending on how you decide to interpret the story. It's a jarring tonal shift to be sure, but it doesn't hurt the game although I would've been fine with just a mundane story about mundane animalpeople doing mundane animalpeople things.

 The entirety of the game takes place inside Possum Springs, as you follow Mae through her life. Every day is a different day, so you're free to speak with as many townsfolk as you want, and see how their lives evolve throughout the game, even finding out different things about their personalities. It's entirely optional too, the only mandatory interactions are the ones with Mae's core circle of friends, and even then most of the time you'll have to choose between spending time with either of her best friends. This is a dialogue-heavy game, and while Mae can jump around different objects in town, most of your interactions will be talking. And talking. And pretty much just talking.

 On the other hand, most nights Mae will be harassed by nightmares, and while they are visually stimulating, they can also get quite repetitive. The game really, REALLY likes forcing you to explore mazelike environments searching for the four musicians, and these nightmares grow old quite fast. It's a shame, because some of the earlier, non-repetitive nightmare sequences weren't that bad.

 Night in the Woods is a keeper. It manages to create interesting characters and storylines from simple every-day life occurrences, but this is also why it can get so relatable and, in turn, engaging. The art style is simplistic but pretty, making traversing the town and Mae's Nightmares a pleasure. On the flipside, Switch owners get the supplemental "Longest Night" and "Lost Constellation" side minigames on the same package.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #630: Yakuza 0

 And now, let's go back to the 80s.

 Right before concluding Kiryu's story the Ryu Ga Gotoku team decided to do something a bit different... by taking the story back in time to the late 80s, when both Kiryu and Majima got their starts as the Legends they'd become. Yakuza 0 is one of the most, if not THE most, beloved games in the franchise because it came late into the series but also served as the perfect entry... and gateway drug into the world of Yakuza.

 Cutting back from the massive five characters featured in 5, Yakuza 0 follows both series regulars Kazuma Kiryu and Majima Goro through seemingly separate stories that eventually turn and twist together, although never really getting to meet each other. Kiryu's tale is great, as he gets framed by one of the three menacing Dojima lieutenants, in order to get him and the Kazama family out of the picture. The three previously mentioned lieutenants are fantastic villains and characters, each very distinct and memorable, easily one of the most memorable parts of the story. We also get to see first-hand the friendship between Nishiki and Kiryu, which is all sorts of endearing. On the other hand, it also felt like a missed opportunity, Yumi is nowhere to be seen, even if she is mentioned once, and while the very first part of the game promised a meaner Kiryu that'd beat up people for not paying their debts... it doesn't last further than that, and we are back to good ol' heart of gold Kiryu. I thought the prospect of having Kiryu grow from a rougher Yakuza into the Vigilante we know today could've been a brilliant story to tell. That said, seeing a more immature and weak Kiryu is interesting, even though we know Kiryu will survive the whole ordeal, seeing these lieutenants parry his fist as if it was nothing, or having Kiryu grasping for air after most fights is quite refreshing. Majima's story takes place after Yakuza 4's flashbacks, as he is kept a captive under the guise of freedom. He maintains the largest hostess club in all of Sotenbori, but under close surveillance of the Omi Alliance. Everything changes when he is offered the chance of redemption... if he kills a certain someone. His story quickly warps into a tragic love story that sees Majima like we've never seen him before, and we get a glance at how he became the maniac Mad Dog of Shimano.

 The basic open-world elements of the game remains pretty much the same it's always been, most of Kiryu's story takes place in good ol' Kamurocho, while Majima's take place in Sotenbori. Every two chapters you'll switch characters. This game's got the most side activities of any Yakuza to date, Dancing, Bowling, Batting, Casino, Mahjong, Shogi, Darts, Karaoke, Super Hang-on, Fantasy Zone, Space Harrier, Outrun, Fishing... and I'm probably forgetting a few. The newer additions are Sexy Telephone chats, which are hilarious, a gratuitous and totally unnecessary rock-paper-scissors matches arena where two women in skimpy clothes fight each other and you place bets and, lastly... POCKET CIRCUIT RACER! In which you have to customize a toy car so that it can complete various races. Each character has his own minigame sub-story that unlocks their Legendary fighting styles, Kiryu gets real state, which is boring since you have to wait a long, LONG time between 'rounds' of money collecting, and Majima's Cabaret Manager, which is more fun, as you help girls with their customers by learning their hand signs. Majima's was way more fun, but I was so drained after spending 10 hours with Kiryu's that I just delved a tiny bit into it. Needless to say, you won't be running out of stuff to do for a long, long while.

 ... and the game actually wants you to spend as much time as possible trying out different things. The famous lockers are gone, but now there are 'Completion Points', awarded for simple things such as running X amount of Kilometers, to eating every food at every restaurant or scoring 50.000 points in Outrun(Good luck!). CP can then be traded for perks, such as gaining more money from beating up thugs, to a longer stamina for your dash. Completion Points is a fantastic idea, but you probably won't want to get every last point.

 The game has the best combat system in the entire series yet, while it's not as visceral as the one in Yakuza 6, it's way deeper. Each character has access to four different styles, and you can change on the fly. While they share 'archetypes', such as a balanced style, a quick style and a strong style, both Majima and Kiryu are very, VERY different. Kiryu's balanced style is Brawler, strong, but a bit slow, while Majima gets Thug, which isn't as strong, but is more nimble, allowing for two stright dodges. For speed, Kiryu has Rush, which is akin to boxing, letting Kiryu cancel his attacks with dodges, and pummeling an enemy long enough will get them dizzy, on the other hand, Majima has Breaker, a fantastic style that covers wide areas, at the cost of being very weak and not having many super attacks. Beast is Kiryu's last style, which slows him down to a walk, but he'll deal massive damage and cover wide arcs with his swings, Majima gets Slugger, which equips him with a powerful bat that works great in both single and group fights. Lastly, there are the unlockable Legend Styles, Dragon of Dojima, which plays like Kiryu did in previous games, and Mad Dog of Shimano, that equips Majima with his trademark Tanto. Combat in this game is brilliant, no two ways about it. It's a shame their legendary styles are gated behind huge time-consuming mini-games, I was so drained after Kiryu's that I didn't even bother with Majima's.

 So far, so good, but the game had one key flaw that made hampered my enjoyment big time: Upgrading. So far, Yakuza has had a perfectly acceptable upgrade system: Fight baddies and do sidequests to earn experience points and profit. Since this game takes place during Japan's economic boom, everything is money in this game, including upgrades. It's a shame that making money is so damn hard. Sidequests don't reward with money and fights reward you with paltry sums. There's only a single non-exploitative way to earn money: Real State for Kiryu and Majima's Cabaret. And even then it will take a long, loooooooooooong time to upgrade anything. Honestly, nothing in the game felt rewarding, after finishing Kiryu's minigame I just used the Mr. Shakedown exploit(Mr Shakedown is an overpowered prick that walks the streets, if you find him you can try to beat him), which consists of using Completion Points to unlock "Mr Shakedown's Big Pockets', so that you lose to him, and he gets all of your money, then tracking him down again to earn it back plus the percentage bonus from the Big Pockets perk. It's a chore. This is the first Yakuza game in which I actively avoided combat because there was nothing in it for me besides losing health for the next story segment. The upgrade system single-handedly turned Yakuza 0 into a chore.

 Yakuza 0 has one of the best stories in the entire series, as well as some of the most charismatic villains in it and the best combat yet, which is why I can understand why people like it so much. Sadly, the prohibitive costs of upgrading your character, as well as the unhealthy amount of time grinding to earn money and unlock the legendary styles really took a toll on how much fun I had. And it's true, I've sunk countless hours in the Yakuza game, but I felt I was being rewarded each time... not so much in here.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #629: Mighty No.9

 Well.... It IS better than nothing, I guess...

 I tried to defend this game, I really did. While I always felt that having more than one kickstarter for Mighty No. 9 was very shady, I respected that the end result looked like exactly what they had promised: A Megaman clone. I don't know why people chose to believe that it'd have 2-D graphics when they said day 1 that it was only concept art. Regardless, after firmly defending the product I finally got my hands on it... and it's not very good...

 The story follows Mighty No. 9, William White's creation, as he set outs to stop the other Mighty Numbers suffering from a bug. In typical Megaman fashion, you're free to tackle any of the 8 initial stages in any order, 9 stages if you have the Ray DLC. The plot itself is TERRIBLE. It's cheesy in all the bad ways, to the point of cringy, as a matter of fact, the story is so bad that it made me dislike the game... usually I can separate plot from gameplay and, if it's too horrid, ignore it. But I couldn't here, it is as if it was constantly trying to get you to hate it. The dialogue itself feels as if it was written by the Irate Gamer, it's THAT bad. The icing on the cake is that you can't skip the text and read it at your own pace, you have to wait for the voice actors to finish their lines. Besides the 12(13 with the DLC) stages there are VR missions, which are pretty much glorified tutorial challenges, and a few unnecessary co-op online missions. The game actually suffered a delay due to the online mode nobody cared for. But, hey, for the first time in Megaman(and its clones) history... the Boss Rush is not mandatory. Praise the gods. As a whole, the 13 basic stages took me less than 3 hours to complete, and there's a trophy for beating the game in less than 60 minutes, so... yeah, it's kinda short.

The voice acting itself is mediocre, and even at its best the script is so BAD that appreciating the better acting is impossible. On another note, the ending consists of four hand-drawn images with no text or dialogue. Alright.... Let's talk graphics, I think that, for a low-budget game, they are good enough. Yes, the game raked over 8 Million dollars in kickstarter money. But you also have to keep in mind that kickstarter keeps a percentage of the money and that making games isn't cheap. I think the graphics, are a whole, get the job done. On the other hand, Beck doesn't look as good in 3-D as he does in the art, which can be explained, y'see, the 3-D proportions are all outta whack. Beck's 3-D model has a huge head, and short stubby arms that start out thing and get thicker close to the hands. He looks quite different from the 2-D art, and in turn, looks rather lame. He is also sporting this weird blue codpiece for no reason whatsoever.

 The gameplay... has some interesting ideas, but it has a few shortcomings. Beck, our main character, can jump and shoot, as you'd expect, but he can also absorb enemies by dashing into them. You can dash by pressing R1(Or toggling double tap on) and you can use it pretty much indefinitely, so you could try to get out of a miscalculated jump. Dashing into an enemy will just hurt you, instead, you must shoot enemies a few times until they get incapacitated and turn green, blue, red or yellow and then you dash into them. Each color is a different buff, for instance, Blue fills a Health Refill option while Red makes your shots go through enemies and deal more damage... for a short while. The different effects of each color aren't explained in game, instead, you must go into the hints sub-menu on the stage select screen. Thanks for nothing! Dashing makes the game feel like a faster take on Megaman, and it can be quite fun once you get the hang of it. You don't need to absorb enemies, however, but completely destroying them takes about double the amount of shots that just incapacitating and dashing would. On the other hand, absorbing makes bosses a chore. You have to damage them until they grow purple, at which point they will stop taking damage, and then dash into them. Fail to do so and they will recover their health. It's an unnecessary mechanic that makes bosses less fun than they could've been. On the flipside, landing a dash on a boss will restore your sub-weapon gauge, so in a way it's also rewarding. There's also a 'hidden' move, an emergency escape, holding R2 and pressing the shoot button will make Beck jump backwards while shooting. This is never told in the tutorials and seems to have no practical use whatsoever.

 Besides dashing, another neat twist on the formula is how the sub-weapons earned from bosses work. First of all, each power is not a simple recolor, but actually change how Beck looks. But then there's the fact that each weapon is entirely unique, not simply being a different projectile, like most Megaman games. For instance, the Sword sub-weapon doesn't consume energy from the sub weapon gauge if you use basic attacks, so if you wanted you could play the entire game as a melee-based Beck! The hitbox seemed a bit wonky on a few bosses(Namely the machine-creators from the latter set of stages), but on the whole I had fun playing as Sword beck. You've also got Avi's weapon, which lets you jump higher, hover and attack enemies above you. There's also an electric weapon that shoots spread bullets and then you electrocute whatever was hit by the bullets, land every bullet on a boss and you'll deal massive damage. The way sub-weapons look and play is simply brilliant. Once you beat a boss the game also tells you which enemy is weak to that sub-weapon, something that was criticized... but I think it's a good thing. Don't try to deny it, you've looked online how the weapon weaknesses work in Megaman games, if you say otherwise you are lying, and this simply cuts down on the chase. Defeating a boss also makes segments from the vulnerable boss' stage easier, just like Megaman X.

 So far, I've been mostly positive about the game, because, as I said before, it does have some very good ideas. However, not matter how good those ideas are, they all go down the drain once you actually start playing the game and discover that level design is terrible. There's an almost sick over-reliance on one-hit kills spikes to add challenge to the game, a few times hiding behind some ugly text-boxes due to in-game dialogue nobody wished for, just like Gunvolt, except that you can't turn the portraits off!! Sometimes you'll have to react seconds flat because the pit you needed to fall through had spikes hidden off-camera. Megaman and Megaman X had always had some of these, but those games weren't as focused on speed as Mighty No.9. You are expected to dash through stages, but also be wary of spikes that could turn up at any moment. The Mines stage is particularly bad about all of that, one time I was going through the stage I got so fast I got stuck between a wall and a drill and I couldn't go down below because I ended up on the wrong side of the first drill, forcing me to commit seppuku. The Ice stage is another bad one, with slippery floors and framerate drops. One stage that received some praise, I think, was Shade's looping stage... which was boring at best and annoying at worst, as you play hide and seek with the boss. And dying meant doing the ENTIRE chase again, and his hiding spots never changed. LAME. Another point of contention was Beck's dash. Fun most of the time, but it's too imprecise and MANY times the game required me to dash into tiny platforms, often times ending in my death.

 Let's talk about Call, Beck's sister. She gets an entire level for herself that is pretty much Metal Gear Call. And it SUCKS. She's slow, can't dash and her shots are so weak that killing enemies is pretty much a waste of time. Her stage is all about sneaking about, collecting keys and opening doors. Boring. There's this particular segment in which you have to fly through the infamous one-hit kill spikes that nearly made me quit the game. The entirety of  Call's stage is a detriment to the game. As a whole, the game can be fun, and there are a few fun stages, it's a shame most of them are so poorly designed, which, in turn, makes any fun you could've had with the game's admittedly good ideas be very sparse.

 Let's talk about Ray now. There's absolutely no reason as to why she shouldn't be on the disc from the get-go besides gating used copies. Which is incredibly slimy considering this was a fan-funded game. She has one of the very few fun stages, but she doesn't reward Beck with a weapon, instead, defeating her unlocks her as a playable character. The game doesn't even tell you HOW to play as her, what you must do is press up on the D-Pad when selecting a stage and then the game will allow you to pick Ray as a character. She has her own story, but it's so dumb, she speaks too much and says what amounts to nothing. By the end of the first cutscene I was already tired of hearing her voice. As for her gameplay, she is a melee take on Beck that is constantly losing health, making her constantly a chore to play. That's a bit harsh, she's not that awful, but I had more fun as Sword Beck.

 Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Mighty No.9 is a disappointing successor to Megaman. The worst part about it is how many good ideas it had, and the fact that some stages are actually fun prove that the game had potential, but for whatever reason, the team wasn't inspired or experienced(Which would be surprising, considering Inti-Creates, of Megaman Zero and Gunvolt fame, developed the game) enough to care about the levels. That said, I'd be willing to give a sequel a try, because I know that something really fun could be made from this game's foundations.
4.5 out of 10