Video Game / Mighty No. 9

Here for you, at your Beck and Call.

"'Mighty' is defined as possessing great and impressive power or strength, especially on account of size. The mighty nature inside a tiny man can make the hardest task routine. And the smallest spark in a mighty man can power the impossible dream."

—The staff roll theme "Mighty", by Mega Ran

A Creator-Driven Successor to the classic Mega Man series, created by its famed director Keiji Inafune. Like its predecessor, it is a platform game of the action and Run-and-Gun variety, along with the predecessor's system of growth and progress via Power Copying. The plot involves the titular "Mighty Number" robots, originally peace-keeping combat androids, who go rogue after an unknown computer virus turns them against mankind. Now it's up to Beck, the ninth and final of the Mighty Numbers, to defeat his older siblings, aided by his partner Call and his creator, Dr. White.

The production was staffed by many former Mega Man developers, and Mega Man Zero developers Inti Creates. The project was successfully funded through Kickstarter, becoming the site's third highest funded console game project in the process. Not only did the project reach its funding goal on September 2, 2013, 29 days before the due date, but after reaching its $3.5 million stretch goal, the game was promised to be released on Windows PC, Mac, and Linux operating systems, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, all three platforms of the eighth generation, and Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita handhelds. Thanks to their partnership with Deep Silver, an extra DLC stage centering around a mysterious robot named "RAY," who possesses similar Xel manipulating abilities to Beck but her body is constantly deteriorating, was not only funded, but also made RAY a fully playable character in a separate story campaign once unlocked.

Originally scheduled for an April 2015 release, it was delayed until September 2015. Then it was announced in the backers-only private forums, and later at Gamescom 2015, that the game was delayed again and aimed for a February 9th, 2016 release on consoles, with the handheld versions releasing later on (the handheld versions ended up never coming out). The game was delayed at least one more time during development, before it was finally released on June 21, 2016 for North America and Asia, and worldwide on June 24 of the same year. It turned out to be Comcept's swan song; the game's poor reception and ultimate failure resulted in the company's downfall, and in 2017 they were bought out by Level-5.

In addition to his own game, Beck also co-stars in Mighty Gunvolt, a spin-off of Inti Creates' own Azure Striker Gunvolt series of 2D action-platformers that involves the titular Gunvolt, Beck, and Gal*Gun Double Peace heroine Ekoro coming together for a Retraux Mega Man-style adventure that borrows levels and enemies from all three games. Beck, followed by Call and RAY as DLC, would also go on to co-star in the game's sequel, Mighty Gunvolt Burst, which effectively takes Mighty No. 9 and adds both Gunvolt and elements of the Gunvolt series into a proper crossover game.

The game's official website can be found here. An animated series of the game was being produced, but the game's disastrous launch caused it to be cancelled. You can still see the trailer here.

A pseudo-sequel and spiritual successor to Mega Man Legends, Red Ash was announced on Kickstarter in July 2015, with different versions of Beck and Call living in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world. Unlike Mighty No. 9's runaway success, Red Ash was met with backlash and its future is uncertain. While it was picked up by a publisher when it seemed the Kickstarter would ultimately fail, nothing has been heard of it since. A single episode of an anime series aired briefly, but was quickly pulled and is now near impossible to find.

The eight Mighty Numbers have been infected by the virus spreading throughout the USA, causing them to go rogue and have taken over certain key areas throughout the country:

• Mighty No. 1: Pyrogen, is wreaking havoc on the Oil Platform in Louisiana. Beck's ReXelection gives him Fire Explosion and RAY's Variable Code gives her Ignite Gear.
• Mighty No. 2: Cryosphere, has turned the Waterworks Bureau in Minnesota into her playground. Beck's ReXelection gives him Frozen Liquid and RAY's Variable Code gives her Liquid Nitrogen.
• Mighty No. 3: Dynatron, has began stealing electricity from the Power Plant between Illinois and Indiana. Beck's ReXelection and RAY's Variable Code respectively gives them Electric Seed.
• Mighty No. 4: Seismic, is mindlessly tunneling through the Mines in Wyoming. Beck's ReXelection gives him Strong Charge and RAY's Variable Code gives her Drill Anchor.
• Mighty No. 5: Battalion, has taken over the Military Base in Nevada to assemble a robotic army. Beck's ReXelection gives him Remote Cannon and RAY's Variable Code gives her Gatling Shot.
• Mighty No. 6: Aviator, has hijacked the Radio Tower in Georgia. Beck's ReXelection gives him Gyro Boomerang and RAY's Variable Code gives her Hunter's Aim.
• Mighty No. 7: Brandish, was last seen on a Highway in New Mexico fighting against his infection. Beck's ReXelection gives him Sword Slash and RAY's Variable Code gives her Bloody Squall.
• Mighty No. 8: Countershade, has seized control of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.. Beck's ReXelection gives him Ricochet Shot and RAY's Variable Code gives her Phantom Mode.

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Mighty No. 9 harnesses the power of these tropes:

• 1-Up: Appearing in this game as Xel Cores levitating above ground with colorful rays of light surrounding it.
• 2½D: The game is presented in 3D graphics with 2D gameplay.
• Achievement System: The PC, Xbox, and Wii U versions have 70 achievements^note referred to as "Accomplishments" in the Wii U version whereas the PlayStation versions have 31 trophies. These requirements for unlocking varies from "completing the game X difficulty", "clearing a stage without taking damage", "chaining X amount of 100% Absorption combos", and "fighting the bosses with Beck's buster". The game also features some unorthodox achievements, with requirements such as "clearing a stage without using normal movement", "only dash a minimal number of times", and "staying off the ground longer than 1 second".
• Action Bomb: Bomb Hoppers (Mine stage) and Shackle Bombs (Prison stage) are self-destructing xel robots that explode upon encountering the player. Bomb Hoppers can be stopped from detonating themselves if the player can destabilize them quickly, however Shackle Bombs are impervious to attacks, so the best recourse is to push them away and steer clear when they explode.
• Air-Dashing: Beck and RAY possess the ability to air dash multiple times as long as they are airborne, as well as perform a Dive Dash to quickly descend onto the ground but will not have any control until they have landed. The Dive Dash, however, can be used offensively when attacking enemies up close to quickly absorb their xels without dashing into/near them. Call can also air dash by using the propulsion system the Patch plugged into her back, but she lacks the Dive Dash ability that Beck and RAY has and has a hovering ability instead.
• Alliterative Name: Gregory Graham, William White, Soichiro and Seijiro Sanda, and Bill Blackwell; it's safe to assume this was just the idea for the human cast.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: Invoked with the physical Kickstarter reward copies. Backers can choose between either a Japanese Famicom-styled package designed by KIMOKIMO that features Beck performing his iconic pose and the Mighty Number behind him (shown here) or a Western NES-styled package designed by UDON featuring Beck emerging triumphantly from a fiery inferno, with the Mighty Numbers as well as an energetic Call (except she's anything but in-game) and a Patch behind him (shown here).
• Another Side, Another Story: Through Downloadable Content, Beck's rival RAY can be made playable for her own run through the full main campaign.
• Anti-Frustration Feature:
  • Each time you get a new weapon, the stage it will be most effective on will gain an Advice button in the main menu. The owner of that weapon will give you hints if you listen to it, and they'll show up to back you up in the stage regardless. This makes finding the right order to fight bosses a lot easier than Mega Man games, where the player was expected to intuit the order or experiment with valuable limited ammo, at the cost of being somewhat handhold-y and spoiling the boss weakness order.
  • If you approach a tight passageway and dash, your character will automatically preform the "low" version of their dash that allows him to enter that space. Like the above example, this also backfires slightly: Dynatron's level has giant One-Hit Kill turbines that can only be passed with a low dash but don't automatically cause you to low dash, which can cost you a life if you were expecting otherwise
  • Beck's hitbox for absorbing enemies with a dash is noticeably larger than his actual hitbox. Useful if you would have barely missed them otherwise, or if you want to absorb an enemy on the opposite direction of where you want to go.
  • Recovery Xel pick-ups can recover both Life and Xel Energy meters in this game instead of being dedicated pick-ups like in the Mega Man series. ReXelection/Variation Code can recharge some of their Xel Energy on their own when equipped (Beck's Countershade ReXelection recharges faster than the others due to its very limited energy capacity). Successfully absorbing an enemy's xels can also recharge Xel Energy to an equipped ReXelection/Variation Code form.
  • Getting a Game Over on a stage causes Patch to show up more often if the player decides to retry. He'll pop up whenever the player dies and at predetermined locations in the stage, and each time the player dies the items improve in quality up to receiving extra lives. There is a setting in the in-game options that can disable this if players want to restrict the item quality to default from losing lives. On Hyper mode, however, Patch support is removed entirely.
• Assimilation Plot: The whole deal with Trinity prior to Beck's Xel treatment. If left alone, she will spread and absorb all of the Xels into herself and take control of any Xel-based robots she comes into contact with forever. In the game, she has already covered the Battle Colosseum and has taken control of most of the weaker robots and turned stronger ones into rampaging rogue robots.
• Attack Drone: The backer-exclusive Mega-Xel form not only makes Beck's body change in various colors, it gives him the ability to create up to three Xel drones that attack by shooting a laser beam in different directions when enemies get near them.
• Audience Participation: Aside from the Kickstarter funding, Mighty No. 9's community is basically a revival of Mega Man Legends 3's Devroom, complete with an enemy design contest.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • After their infections, the Mighty Numbers largely become this. It even shows in their voice clips, prime evidence being Pyro's "Mighty No. 9" call sounding perfectly normal while his battle dialogue is frenzied and maniacal.
  • Brandish is a subversion. Rather than being a sadist, he fears that his own body is turning against him.
• Badass Family: The Mighty Numbers, a group of nine robotic siblings with some industrial purpose who, in their spare time, dominate in competitive robot fighting.
• Bait-and-Switch: In the beginning of Mighty No. 7's design post, it is claimed that the ninja design showed off at the D.I.C.E. game design summit was fake, and that the real design was... an apple. Before long, this design was destroyed by the legitimate Mighty No. 7, and the team admitted that this fakeout was inspired by some joke fanart.
• Bell-Bottom-Limbed Bots: Being Spiritual Successor of Mega Man, the game naturally has these for its robot designs. Beck, Mighty No. 1, and Mighty No. 5 have large forelegs. Mighty No. 4 has large forearms.
• Black-and-White Morality: Averted. According to an interview with Koji Imaeda in a MIGHTYCAST podcast, the story writers will try to avoid doing a "good guy beats the bad guy" type of story, mainly concerning the 3 doctors, to make the story a bit more serious. This means that neither of the 3 doctors would become the absolute "Dr. Wily" or "Dr. Light" archetype of the story. This concept stuck. There's most certainly an antagonist of the game, true, but there is no actual Big Bad in play here.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: 8-4's English localization has typos, grammatical and spelling errors in some areas, as well as even mistaking RAY as male in one of the tips for her weapons. They also left out some dialogue strings unchanged from the beta versions during RAY's DLC stage.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: Invoked by Deep Silver's "Masterclass" trailer, with disastrous results and animosity towards the game/developers, to put it lightly.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: Those that pledged at least $60 are rewarded with a Golden Beck costume that turns Beck's entire body (including his face) gold.
• Book Ends: When player are greeted the Title Screen, the background theme is "Hope". After beating Beck's story, the first background theme that plays during the ending and credits, "Mighty No. 9 Main Theme", is an extend version of Hope.
• Boring, but Practical: Beck's Arm Cannon. It shoots as fast as you can tap the button and is indirectly the best weapon against bosses, such as Brandish (whose weakness forces Beck to charge at him despite him using swords), because the boss's Mercy Invincibility is so short. Beck can wail on them and their invincibility will only protect them from a few shots.
• Boss Rush: An optional game mode was planned since they hit the $2,000,000 goal. It is unlocked after beating the final boss, and Boss Rush mode uses the Hard mode version of the bosses.
• Breakable Weapons: Using Seismic's weapon against Brandish not only hurts him more than your other weapons, but can also break his swords. However, despite being wide-open for further attacks until he rebuilds his swords, he moves around much faster without them, which can make his attacks harder to avoid.
• Brick Joke: When one of the trailers for the game when it was to be released on February 9th boasted the multiplayer capabilities of the game, they said that you could probably play with a guy named "Vernon". The "Masterclass" trailer had Vernon himself say that he was ready near the end.
• Call-Back: The initial funding goal ensures the game having six initial stages before the final one. An additional $300,000 guarantees eight initial stages. As the Kickstarter page's FAQ explains:
  In order to set our initial funding goal, we had to ask ourselves what was the cheapest we could make a game that we could still be 100% proud of, that fulfilled all the promises we wanted to make, and that could stand on its own as an evolution of this genre. To find our answer, we actually looked to the past to the amazing original wellspring where this genre first came jumping and blasting its way into this world. Long-time fans will understand, then, when the answer we came up with was "six"; Six stages and main bosses, and then...an additional final stage and challenge...
• Cephalothorax: Battalion has his face on his torso.
• Character Title: Based on Beck's numerical designation in the Mighty lineup.
• Chest Insignia: More like "Headphone Insignia". All of the Major Robot characters in the game are associated with a symbol/logo/insignia/emblem enclosed by a circle. You can find their symbol on their person by looking at their "headphones" / auditory sensors and on their Xel Core though you'll only see it when their bodies are destroyed or when it's taken out.
  • Beck: White — 3 circles connected by lines forming a triangle.
  • Call: Pink — The letter C. ^note Which makes her symbol look like the Copyright logo.
  • Pyrogen: Orange — A Y-shaped symbol with a circle on top and another circle on the lower right side. ^note This is probably a reference to an ancient Asian symbol that symbolizes fire.
  • Cryosphere: Blue — 3 overlapping lines forming a simplified snowflake.
  • Dynatron: Yellow — lightning bolt.
  • Seismic: Brown — A hexagon.
  • Battaltion: Green — 3 lined up bullets.
  • Aviator: Cyan — The letter H, making it resemble a helipad.
  • Brandish: Red — A scissor of ancient design.
  • Countershade: Purple — The plus sign making it resemble crosshairs.
  • Trinity: Magenta — 3 circles with lines that converge at the center.
  • RAY: Black with a purple glow — A slashed number zero. Formerly or supposed to be an upside down version of Beck's symbol.
• Chip Tune: The developers plan to include "retro" music and sound effects as an option.
• Cold Sniper: Mighty No. 8◊ is a robot with a sniper rifle for an arm.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Most of the major robot characters in the game has a color associated to them, along with anything associated to them like their Power Ups and the color of their symbol.
  • The timing of absorbing enemies is color-coded to indicate how quickly or slow you absorbed them: gold (100%) being instant or near-instant, green (90-70%) for average, and blue (60% and under) for very slow.
  • If it has magenta static, it's lethal. This doesn't have to be Spikes of Doom, however; for example, the Waterworks has malfunctioning water purification systems, which are functionally identical to death spikes.
• Colorful Theme Naming: Two of the three doctors who built the game's robots are Dr. White and Dr. Blackwell.
• Combo Breaker:
  • 100% absorption chains can be broken if the player absorbs an enemy too late or loses a life.
  • Mid-air multiplier bonuses reset if the player switches to a different weapon midway of a chain (e.g. absorbing one airborne enemy with Beck's buster then changing to Seismic form to destabilize and absorb another nearby).
• Competitive Multiplayer: The $4,000,000 stretch goal is an online battle race where both players compete to reach the end of the level (the player's opponent is depicted as a ghost image), and an enemy defeated by one player is sent to impede on the other's progress. Both of these goals have been met.
• Computer Virus: A nasty one is said to turn the robots in Beck's world against humans. He is one of the few who is not affected.
• Continuing is Painful: If you die, you take a substantial score penalty. It may not sound like much, but in stages where chances to earn points are difficult and/or slim, this can be extremely debilitating to your rank.
• Cool Plane: Mighty No. 6 has the characteristics of a helicopter.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: The $2,750,000 stretch goal is an online co-op version of Challenge Mode where players one and two control Beck and Call through the stage.
• Crossover: Beck from Mighty No. 9 was featured with Gunvolt from the Azure Striker Gunvolt and Ekoko from Gal*Gun: Double Peace in Mighty Gunvolt, a crossover game featuring characters and bosses from their respective series. Beck and Gunvolt teamed up again in Mighty Gunvolt Burst.
• Cut and Paste Environments: One criticism of the game is that almost every stage is a slightly-redressed version of the same industrial layout.
• Cyber Cyclops: Some of the rogue robot enemies of the game have a single black eye with a white pupil and red eye socket.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Unlike every other game on a Nintendo platform, B is confirm and A is cancel by default on the Wii U version. You can, however, swap these buttons from the Options menu.
• Darker and Edgier: Compared to the original Mega Man series (though nowhere near the level of its successor series). The Mighty Numbers were made for combat in a Blood Sport as the "circuses" part of the government's Bread and Circuses policy and they were turned amok in an apparent terrorist attack.
• Dash Attack: The AcXelerate Dash, which forms the crux of the gameplay and defines it as something other than a Mega Man Expy. As Beck's Arm Cannon shots are woefully inefficient at defeating enemies, he must dash into them to absorb their Xel when they become low on health. Not only does this get rid of enemies instantly, certain enemies grant Beck Power Ups, and absorbing multiple enemies in a row at 100% Xel Absorption Rate racks up a combo that earns bonus points and allows Beck to earn an AcXel Recovery I faster. This move is also vital for boss fights, as attacking them without using the Absorption Dash at the right time will cause the boss to restore its lost HP.
• A Day in the Limelight: One of the later stages has you play as Call. This was made possible by meeting the $3,700,000 stretch goal during the Kickstarter funding period.
• Death from Above: At certain points of the Oil Platform stage, Cinder Spires will attack the player from the background by lobbing fireballs from their chimneys, with their frequency of fireballs being shot varying on difficulty.
• Defeat Equals Friendship: Upon defeat, not only do Mighty Numbers return to their default programming, but will also help out in certain stages, mostly by dealing with background obstacles or deactivating traps.
• Denser and Wackier: The trailer for the animated series adaptation has a dramatic voice-over while Beck comically fails to get copied powers under control. Time will tell if this'll be the case in the series proper or just for the trailer.
  • The animated Beck's personality is probably based on the backstory notes, which say that Beck "was never able to display his true talents in the Battle Colosseum, and came to be seen as the weak link holding back his team of fellow Mighty Numbers. Gradually he lost more and more self-confidence...until! The global robot rampage!"
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • The back jump maneuver, which is performed by pressing Jump while holding down the Action Shift button. This makes you jump away from where you are facing, but you gain invincibility frames during the jump animation, allowing you to graze through most attacks unharmed.
  • Beck's Pyrogen ReXelection is Atomic Fire as a shield-type weapon; the explosions it creates has a very short range, but it can be charged up to increase the range and damage of the explosions, and can protect Beck from missiles or other projectiles that can be shot out in the air. There is, however, a consequence of holding a charge for too long, causing Beck to overheat and leaving him vulernable to enemy fire.
  • His Countershade ReXelection has a very limited amount of energy to use and its ricocheting shots can make it difficult to use, but at the right hands, it can help Beck quickly weaken some enemies for Beck to absorb while replenishing energy for his ReXelection.
  • Beck and RAY's Dynatron ReXelection/Variation Code lets them shoot bits that latch onto enemies. Beck's version is a spread shot of multiple bits, however, does less damage if too few of them manage to stick, while RAY's version uses a single stronger bit that can send sparks of electricity along the surface. In either case, they can allow Beck and RAY to indirectly absorb enemies within mid-range by using the electrical current from tethered enemies.
• Difficulty Levels: Two additional difficulty modes were added thanks to reaching its $1,500,000 goal. You start off with Normal mode, but upon clearing Normal unlocks Hard and Hyper modes. Hard mode alters enemy and boss behavior as well as the stage hazards. Hyper mode uses the changes from Hard mode but also removes 1-Up Cores and support from Patch, and you take more damage than before. The Retro Hero DLC adds another difficulty level, Maniac, which uses the enemy behavior from Normal mode and you get access to all weapons from the start, but you only have 1 HP.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Mighty No. 4, to the point where his character design carries the aesthetics of construction vehicles.
• Downloadable Content:
  • The RAY Expansion DLC adds a new stage for Beck in the story mode (Vermilion Destroyer), and upon clearing said stage, unlocks the ability to play as RAY in her own side-story.
  • The Retro Hero DLC adds a new fourth difficulty level, Maniac, and a voxel-styled skin for Beck when playing under said difficulty.
• Dual Boss: The mid-boss of the Waterworks involves two robots playing Pong, with Beck in the crossfire. Each paddle has its own HP and must be destroyed separately, and when one paddle dies, the other speeds up its shots (or both if they're weakened enough and present on screen). The boss is also fought twice, the second time involving weaker robots, but alongside freezing shots from Cryo.
• Dub-Induced Plotline Change: The English localization has very different characterizations for a lot of the cast, especially Beck and RAY.
• Eagleland: The game takes place in the USA, and thus far seems to be more of the mixed variety from some given NPC behaviors, such as Mr. Graham attempting to appeal to patriotism in his address and Dr. Sanda's rather persistent fondness of different fast food types.
• Edge Gravity: Just like in Mega Man, it's possible to have small portion of your foot on a ledge and not fall off from gravity.
• Elemental Powers: About half the bosses were based on elemental themes (the other half revolve around combat technology).
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Par for the course for a Mega Man style game. The game also adds an "Advice" button to the select menu for each stage whose boss is weak to one of your weapons, with the owner of that weapon being the one to help you out. The official order is Fire > Ice > Artillery > Earth > Blade > Electric > Sniper > Helicopter > Fire.
• Elevator Action Sequence: One takes place in the Battle Coliseum as Beck takes a slow elevator ride while fighting off enemies and avoiding hazards on the way down.
• Emergency Energy Tank: AcXel Recoveries, which can be accessed in the pause menu and come in "I" and "II" flavors. The AcXel Recovery I can be automatically gained via absorbing lots of Blue Xel, while AcXel Recovery IIs are handed out extremely sparingly by the game. Both recharge Beck's health to full, which can mean the difference between life and death in a tough situation.
• Engrish:
  • Some of the characters with their Japanese voices sometimes speak out some words in English, such as Dr. Sanda and Aviator.
  • The entirety of Dr. White biography in one of RAY's cutscenes. ^*Approximated transcription
• Expy: It comes with the territory of spiritual succession.
  • The Kickstarter page uses tons of imagery associated with the Mega Man series, such as blue borders on character portraits, the character select screen, etc.
  • Beck is one of Mega Man, being the only one of a series of robots not to be reprogrammed and has to fight them and absorb their powers.
  • Call is one of Roll being the blue hero's red/pink colored blonde haired female companion and forming a pun with her male partner (Beck and Call, Rock and Roll). Her H design is similar to a number of characters from works by Osamu Tezua.
  • In place of Dr. Light/Right, Mighty No. 9 has Dr. White and Dr. Sanda.
  • Dr. Sanda has more in common with Professor Ochanomizu / Elefun in terms of appearance and role in the story as a secondary scientist/father figure to the main robot character(s).
  • In place of Dr. Wily, Dr. Blackwell. Though he has more in common with Dr. Tenma and Dr. Weil in terms of appearance. He also isn't the Big Bad, instead being the inventor of Xel technology and being framed for the "terrorist" attack, which was actually an accident.
  • Combroids fill the role of the Sniper Joe. Combroid-Riots have a gun and shield, reminiscent of Sniper Joes. Combroid-SS is a stronger variation that shoots more often, similar to Sniper Joe 01. There's also Combroid-Gorilla, which is based on other Mega Man enemies that cling to walls and ceilings and lack shields.
  • Patch is a small robot that gives the player items, similar to Eddie.
  • The virus in the backstory is basically Roboenza or the Maverick Virus under a different name.
  • Mighty No. 1, 2, and 3 are, of course, expies of any and all of the elemental themed bosses.
  • Mighty No. 4 is one of Guts Man, being a bulky robot themed around Earth and construction with a massive underbite. He even mimics the Super Arm in battle. (Though the power he grants is totally different.)
  • Mighty No. 5's appearance is most reminiscent of Napalm Man, as a heavy artillery-themed robot. Though the power he grants is most similar to Crash Man (a bomb that sticks to walls), which can tie him all the way back to the original Bomb Man, as a ranged explosives and weapons expert.
  • Mighty No. 6 is one of Gyro Man with his helicopter theme.
  • Mighty No. 7 is an amalgam of Proto Man and Cut Man, with a hint of Zero. His scissor weapons appear to be at least partly inspired by Kill la Kill's Scissor Blade, though both look like the Red Scissor.
  • Mighty No. 8 is similar in concept to Search Man, although he might be more in line with his Battle Network incarnation, due to using a sniper rifle rather than homing missiles^note as well as having one head. He's also reminiscent of Bass.
  • The first Mega Man game had Fire Man (Pyro/1), Ice Man (Cryo/2), Elec Man (Dyna/3), Guts Man (Seismic/4), Bomb Man (Bat/5), and Cut Man (Brand/7).
  • RAY is one to Zero and Proto Man.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: Mighty No. 8 has one. Note how in this image of the bosses' basic silhouettes◊, all of their eyes are distinguishable except 8's. Official artwork shows that he does have normal eyes, but he normally uses the scope built into his hat to aim.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Most of the Mighty No. models have something asymmetrical about them, ranging from the overt (like Mighty No. 5's entire body) to the subtle (Mighty No. 1's leg patterns).
• Fembot:
  • Mighty No. 2, also known as "Cryosphere" or just "Cryo", though you wouldn't be able to tell from her appearance alone. KIMOKIMO has stated in the artbook that she has a normal face under her helmet, but neither concept art nor the game ever reveal what she looks like without it.
  • Mighty No. 3 has a much more defined figure under her cloak, which would be more Robot Girl if not for her torso being a lightbulb.
  • This is what Trinity is in her "true form" prior to being reconstructed into a more human-like body by Dr. White.
  • RAY borders between this and Robot Girl. She would be entirely robotic if not for her human face.
• Foil: Call is not as much of a Ridiculously Human Robot as Beck is. However, both learn and grow in similar ways over the course of the story, and in the end Call starts to show signs of becoming more human-like.
• Forced Tutorial: When players start out on Normal (or Maniac since the game's general behavior is the same as Normal), they're restricted from attacking and dashing (though back-jump shots are still possible) until their first encounter with the Robosec in the opening stage so they can learn how to move, jump, and grab onto ledges first then how to fight enemies afterwards.
• Four Is Death: Maniac mode is the fourth selectable difficulty of the game and you die in a single hit unlike the previous difficulty levels.
• Frictionless Ice: In Cryosphere's stage, the frozen surfaces will make you slide if you carry momentum. Oil slicks commonly found in Pyrogen's stage also has a similar effect.
• From a Single Cell: From all the robots forms being basically made in Xel, as long as the Xel Core is intact, the entire rest of their body will eventually be regenerated if destroyed. Such as Beck, Call, and RAY's Xel Cores retreating to a safe spot when "killed" to heal.
• Gainax Ending: Bordering on No Ending. What's your reward for beating the game? Three still images and a 3-and-a-half hour-long credits sequence. The player would be forgiven for not knowing that there's even a Stinger at the end of it. Explanation: The other Mighty Numbers get Beck and Trinity out of the collapsing stadium; Dr. White reprograms Trinity to remove the corrupted code that made her go berserk and gives her a more humanoid appearance; Beck returns to the arena with renewed confidence and better performance. After the credits, Dr. White went eventually against his words from an earlier cutscene to never see his father, Dr. Blackwell, ever again only to visit him at the maximum security prison he is held in, but rather than apologize for his actions that lead to Trinity going rogue and causing the viral outbreak, he gives Dr. Blackwell a cold lecture about how his ideals will change the world of robotics with Beck and Trinity.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • At launch, there was a bug that caused the final boss fight to come to a screeching halt under some bizarre and specific, but common circumstances — if the player climbs the steps formed for the boss's wall attacks, it would cause the steps to switch sides as if the boss was going to as well. However, it would never emerge afterwards, with the only course of action being to restart the level.
  • It's also possibly to get stuck after beating the boss in either phase, either because the second phase or the ending cut scene doesn't start up.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: During the online co-op challenges of the game, players can either be Beck or Call during a mission, but only if the player controlling Beck dies (or not clearing the objective in time) that usually constitutes a Mission Failure. Whoever controls Call, on the other hand, can die as many times as possible and she'll return to the mission shortly afterwards, meaning she can take a bullet or two in place of Beck.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: RAY cannot gain passive bonuses (unless she gets them from Patch) as Beck can from AcXelerating into enemies, but there's a good reason for this: it's due to her Xel Core being faulty and badly programmed on Dr. White's part of trying to create a robot capable of manipulating xels, and it wasn't until his third attempt (that being Mighty No. 9, Beck) where he got it right. Her diminishing HP also plays into this as a result of her xel deterioration of said faulty Xel Core.
• Gameplay Grading: You're graded based on these criteria: how quickly you beat the stage, how much damage you have taken, how many enemies were defeated, how many 100% combos you racked up, and your xel absorption average. Based on your performance, you'll receive bonus points that will be added to your overall score and rank.
• Gag Penis: A lot of Dr. White's robots have codpieces or an extra layer of armor plating on their pelvic region. Even the supposed females such as Cryoshphere and RAY.
• Gatling Good: Mighty No. 5◊'s design is based on this.
• Gimmick Level: Each of the stages have a unique gimmick of their own.
  • Oil Platform: Oil spills that can be ignited by fire, either by the enemies or a certain ability from Beck or RAY, and crumbling smokestacks.
  • Water Works Bureau: First half features the plant flooded with water, followed by frozen and slippery surfaces.
  • Power Plant: An electrical blackout and dangerous turbines.
  • Mines: Rogue mining machinery.
  • Military Base: Explosive barrels and heavily-armed enemies.
  • Radio Tower: Strong gusts of wind pushes the player.
  • Highway: Using runaway unmanned vehicles as platforms.
  • Capitol Building: Searching for Countershade.
  • Prison: Psuedo-stealth mission.
  • Robot Factory: A test of using certain weapons as a utility.
  • Battle Coliseum: Masses of proto-xels that harden as blocks and eventually break from sustaining enough damage, then reforms if players move away from them.
• Goomba Stomp: When Beck uses Seismic's form, he can not only jump on enemies to damage them when the treads are active, but also bounce off of them by holding the Jump button.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Every Mighty No. can be knocked on their butt if you hit them a particular way, but how you are able to achieve this isn't explained. If you manage it, you earn a "Fine Play!" bonus and the boss becomes stunned, which allows you to unload on them.
  • One section of Dynatron's level has a seemingly impassable turbine that you need to cross under, with a prompt telling you to use the crouch dash. The trouble is the game only explains how to use the crouch dash in the tips screen, which is a wall of text where it can be easily missed, it was never required in any other level, and using it at the wrong distance will kill Beck anyway as he straightens up. The Hitbox Dissonance makes it worse, as Beck has to practically be on top of the turbine for the crouch dash to work properly.
• Handicapped Badass: Mighty No. 8 is missing an arm, but he is too confident in his abilities to fix it.
• Harmless Freezing: Not so harmless when taking damage from an ice attack that also freezes you, and you'll be left open for another attack unless you can break free in time. When Beck or RAY uses their respective weapon from Cyrosphere against enemies, it freezes in place or slows them down, while also slowing down their xel percentage rate from dropping.
• Have a Nice Death: The Mighty Numbers all have unique one-liners if Beck loses to them.
• Heart Drive: Due to the nature of Xel technology, the bodies of every robot in the series are largely subjective — rather, it is the Xel Core within each robot that could be considered their "true" self. Even if a robot's body is destroyed, they may respawn intact should their core survive. RAY has a strange pyramid-shaped object within herself that appears to serve the same purpose, but it's not a Xel Core, and brother, it does not work.
• Heel–Face Turn: The Mighty Numbers pull this when defeated, a la Mega Man Powered Up. They then help out in certain stages, such as No. 1 burning his way through No. 2's stage to help Beck.
• An Ice Person: Mighty No. 2 has freezing shots that either stop where they land or bounce around. She also has element of Making a Splash, with her hose arm and water tank, but she mostly uses that to make a frozen column of ice to attack from.
• Infodump: The game breaks the Show, Don't Tell rule. The story is mostly told through virtually static cutscenes and Expospeak without even animating characters' mouths.
• Interface Screw: One of the enemies of the game has the ability to disrupt the player's controls by reversing both movement controls as well as the attack and jump buttons. Countershade can also mess with the player's controls if the player take a shot from his purple bullets.
• Joke Character: The Apple Robot. The game devs have so far used it in a Bait-and-Switch update and an April Fools' Day joke in 2014.
• Keeping the Handicap: Countershade is a one-armed sniper who lost his missing arm in a battle, and has opted not to have it replaced because he enjoys the extra challenge his disability brings to combat.
• Leitmotif: The "Mighty No. 9 Main Theme" is a recurring theme throughout Beck's story of the game. For RAY, her recurring theme is "Breaking Down and Longing".
• Loads and Loads of Loading: It takes anywhere up to 20 seconds to restart a stage after death in some of the ports.
• Logical Weakness:
  • Despite water beating fire, Pyrogen can take Freezing Liquid without much trouble. His actual weakness, Aviator's Gyro Boomerang, does make sense as a weakness that can affect him since strong winds can put out fire.
  • Cryosphere is weak to Pyrogen's Fire Explosion since strong heat can melt ice.
  • Dynatron is weak to Brandish's Sword Slash since electrical wires can be cut by sharp blade attacks.
  • Seismic is weak to the Remote Cannon since bombs can demolish things.
  • Battalion is weak to Cryosphere's Freezing Liquid since his bombs need heat.
  • Since Aviator likes to spend the majority of his time in the air, it makes sense that Avi's weakness would be Countershade's long-range Reflect Shoot.
  • Brandish is weak to Seismic's Strong Charge since it can break his swords.
  • Countershade needs power for his cloaking device, and the Electric Seed can cause it to malfunction.
• Long List: The credits go on for almost four hours, mostly because of the long list of Kickstarter backers with the vast majority of backers using an anonymous "A Generous Backer" title.
• Machine Blood: Averted except for RAY's DLC stage, where a pile of dead robots eaten by RAY are oozing a red blood-like liquid from their corpses.
• Meaningless Lives: Although there are extra lives to be found hidden through some stages, their overall worth is diminished as extra lives don't carry over into another stage and you always start with the default number of 3 unless you're on Normal, where you can raise the number of lives from the Options menu up to 9.
• Mercy Invincibility: If Beck takes damage, he'll flash white, during which he can't be hurt again. However, this will not protect him from Spikes of Doom or their equivalents, which many deviously-placed enemies will gladly try to knock him into.
• Mercy Mode: If you have to restart a stage, the quality of items dispensed by your helper robot increases, including full heals, free Power Ups, and extra lives. If you have to restart again, you'll get more extra lives more often.
• Multiplatform: Initially the game was planned to be released on Windows PC, but after a very successful Kickstarter campaign, it was released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, every major platform of the eighth generation, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, as well as on Macintosh and Linux computers thanks to raising over $3.5 million during the campaign.
• Meta Multiplayer: The game features online leaderboards for some of the Solo Challenges, Co-Op Challenges, Battle Race, and Boss Rush modes.
• Mini Mook: The Patlas and Pico Police are the tiniest enemies of the game. Patlas are small, flying drones that shoot the player with a gun from their underside, while Pico Police are miniature quadrupedal drones with police sirens that ram or jump on the player and tries to avoid their attacks by hopping around.
• Multi-Mook Melee: In some stages, such as the Oil Refinery, Capitol Building, and Highway stages, players are locked in an area where they must fend off a few waves of mooks in order to advance.
• Mythology Gag:
  • During cutscenes in Dr. Sanda's laboratory, you can see holographic images of Call's other proposed designs, Call A◊, E◊, and H◊.
  • In a cutscene involving Gregory Graham, you can see drafts of Trinity's boss pattern design.
• Nanomachines: The tiny Xel robots that make up all mechanics in the game's world. Also doubles as a mascot.
• New Game Plus: Thanks to reaching its third stretch goal, New Game+ (and Turbo Mode^note Later renamed Hyper Mode) have been added in the game. The Kickstarter page mentions players can carry over their abilities in a harder "second quest". Starting the game on a difficulty level above "Normal" unlocks all of the abilities from the start (but you still have to play through the eight stages in order to finish the game).
• Ninja: Mighty No. 7.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: How Beck defeats the other Mighty Numbers. By helping them "snap out of it", Beck saves his siblings from the virus's influence and restores their good senses.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • Mighty No. 1 has an attack he can only use when he glows pink, starting when he's at half health or lower. He'll charge across the screen and if he can grab Beck, Pyro will hold on and release a huge blast that ends the fight for Beck.
  • Mighty No. 4's second phase has two more pillars drop from the ceiling to narrow the playing field. Standing under them is not advised.
  • Mighty No. 5's Desperation Attack is to suck in circles, then fire a huge rocket/bullet thing straight. Get hit by that and you're toast no matter how much health you have. If it whiffs, it sticks in the opposing wall for the rest of the fight, and if you walk a little too close to it, Battalion can use it to call an explosion that incinerates half the screen, as well as Beck if he's within range. It can be frozen temporarily by using Cryosphere's weapon on it, preventing Battalion from being able to detonate it.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Maniac difficulty will turn you into one, while Beck sports a retro voxel-styled skin for his default form.
• Our Vampires Are Different: RAY, the mysterious DLC rival character, absorbs Xel from other robots in order to live.
• Pickup Hierarchy:
  • Primary: ReXelection (Beck) and Variable Code (RAY) powers.
  • Secondary: AcXel Boosts or Boost Xels, 1-Up Cores.
  • Tertiary: Recovery Xels.
  • Extra: Points.
• Player Nudge: One section of Dynatron's level has a pop-up telling you to use the crouch dash to get under a turbine.
• Playing with Fire: No. 1 has fire powers based around igniting his body, explosive waves of heat, and the Wrestler in All of Us.
• Podcast: They have their own podcast, "The Mighty Cast" as they are called, which they update every month or so (every week when the Kickstarter campaign was still on-going). The official archive of the podcast audio recordings can be found here. They mainly talk about game development updates, what's been happening in the forums and the fan community as a whole, interviews with the staff and answering questions by the backers.
• Plot Twist: A whole bunch of them in rapid succession near the end of the game. Dr. Blackwell had nothing to do with the events of the game and actually had noble reasons for the act that put him in prison. While Gregory Graham did kick off the events that led to the game's storyline by reactivating Trinity, he lost control of her almost immediately, thereby making him more of an Unwitting Instigator of Doom. Trinity herself is therefore the ultimate Big Bad of the game. Oh, and Dr. White is actually the son of Dr. Blackwell.
• Psycho Electro: No. 3 is presumably cuckoo for cocoa puffs given her Shock and Awe theme.
• Power Copying: Taken to new levels compared to the father series where Beck changes his whole body to match his foes powers.
  • RAY is also capable of this, though to a lesser degree, as she transmutes their weapon onto her claw arm.
• Power-Up: The various types of Xel Beck can get from enemies can give him a variety of special effects.
  • Red: Strengthens your weapons and lowers energy consumption for special weapons.
  • Yellow: Increased defense and immunity to status effects.
  • Green: Increased running speed.
  • Blue: Charges AcXel Recovery I energy and restores weapon energy.
• The Professor: The game has no less than three — Dr. White (creator of the Mighty Numbers), Dr. Blackwell (inventor of the Xel technology), and Dr. Sanda (creator of Call).
• Protagonist Title: Mighty No. 9, Beck, is the hero of the game.
• Punny Name:
  • In the same vein as Mega Man's Rock and Roll, Mighty No. 9 has Beck and Call.
  • In a meta sense, "Dr. White" puns on his Mega Man counterpart, who is "Dr. Light" in the US and "Dr. Right" in Japan.
• Rank Inflation: In the main game, you are graded based on your performance and score. From lowest to highest rank: D, C, B, A, and finally S.
• Red Herring: The "supposed" first phase of the "actual" design of Mighty No. 7 in his design post is this, what with it being not subtly entitled as "Red Herring", a fact which foreshadows the Bait-and-Switch.
• Remixed Level: "Challenge Mode" features short missions on custom or remixed versions of levels; "Online Beck & Call" mode is a two-player co-op mode with an added emphasis on teamwork; "Online Battle Race Mode" is said to have "slightly customized versions of single-player stages".
• Retraux:
  • The $3,800,000 stretch goal (which has been met) is an option to enable 8-bit music and sound effects. Note this does not include retro-style graphics, just the sound.
  • The Retro Hero DLC changes Beck's character model to a blocky, low-poly voxel version of himself when playing under Maniac difficulty.
• Robo Family: The Mighty series of robots created by Dr. White. The even refer to each other as siblings.
• Robot Buddy: Beck has one named Patch that's essentially an Eddie Expy. If you come across him, he'll chuck some random items at Beck, from Power Ups to AcXel Recovery II to even extra lives. If you die repeatedly, the quality of the items he drops improves.
• Robot Girl:
  • Call, created by Dr. Sanda as an assistant for Dr. White.
  • There's also Trinity in her new form and the DLC character RAY, who borders between this and Fembot due to the fact that the rest of her body is robotic with the exception of her face.
• Scoring Points: Enemies assimilated by your AcXelerate Dash awards points, but their value depends on how fast you were able to assimilate destabilized enemies, starting from 100% and it quickly lowers over time. By chain assimilating multiple enemies at once in without touching the ground, you can gain a score multiplier that boosts score, starting from x1 to x3. Performing specific feats, such as clearing an area or enemy arena quickly as possible, also rewards bonus points with a fixed value. Extra points can be earned based on your performance when clearing a stage that adds to your final total score.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty: Most levels are fairly tame but have specific spots that lead to multitudes of deaths, usually right before reaching the bosses.
• Sequel Hook: After all is well again, White visits Blackwell in prison, informing him that the source of the world's salvation was Trinity absorbing the empathy and caring nature from Beck's heart. He's determined that this has been a proving ground for his algorithm for self-delegated robots, and that it will revolutionize the world. However, the cynical Blackwell retorts in that cleaning up White's own mess isn't a cue to get on his high horse, and the very real point in that just because you give robots the ability to make ethical decisions, it doesn't mean they will. It's honestly unnecessary at best and dangerous at worst, thus he remains unconvinced. White leaves in frustration, but not before revealing in a worrisome manner that a good deal of his motivation is to "show everyone who doubted him". Left alone, Blackwell muses to himself that now only time will tell if Beck, who has ushered this in, will bring the world a bright future, or a chaotic one.
  ...Then only time will tell if this Mighty No. 9 — This "Beck" — is a blessing...or a curse. Hmph.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: A pair of Sniper Joe expies, Combatroid-Riot and its slightly more durable variant Combatroid-SS, are armed with a bullet-proof shield to block most attacks, then swivel their torso and counter with their body-mounted gun.
• Shock and Awe: Mighty No. 3◊, based off a desk lamp and a Raijin. She throws out "electric seeds" bases on the thunder drums of her oni inspiration that act as tethers for her lightning blasts.
• Shout-Out: Mighty No. 9 is an allusion to Cyborg 009, right down to the main protagonist's serial number. One of the boss Mighty Numbers resembles a baby, the one assigned as 3 is the only clearly-visible female of the group, and several of the others appear to uphold National Stereotypes, so time will tell how tight this homage will be.
  • The No. 9 in the title may be a reference to the eight previous Mega Men: Rock, X, Zero, Vent and Aile, Grey and Ashe, Rock Volnutt (AKA: Mega Man Trigger), .EXE, and Subaru/Geo^note when combined with the FM-ian War-Rock/Omega-Xis.
  • Another theory about the number, presented by Maximillian, is, Mega Man's Japanese name being Rock, which is similar to "roku", or 6. 9 is just 6 rotated 180 degrees.
  • Additionally, the "Mighty" in the title may be a reference to "Mighty Kid", one of two working titles for the original NES game.^note The other is "Knuckle Kid".
    • The "Mighty" in the title may also be a reference to Tetsuwan Atom (or "Mighty Atom" in English), Astro Boy's original Japanese title (of which "Mighty Kid" was originally inspired by), which would make it a combination of the original two classic Japanese robotic Kid Hero manga.
  • The Kickstarter video is FULL of Mega Man shout-outs. To wit:
    • The camera scrolling up the side of a building a la Mega Man 2.
    • A blonde lady and her pink poodle resembling Roll and Rush walk by Inafune (who's wearing all blue) in front of a construction yard.
    • One of the construction workers is wearing a Met helmet.
  • Brandish appears to share some resemblance to Haggleman.
  • No. 8 seems to be a shout-out to Jigen, with his beard, Cold Sniper attributes, and his eye-obscuring radar dish/hat which likely helps with his aim.
  • Comcept directly referenced Turtles in Time when talking about how they chose a "sewer" setting for RAY's stage, but not only that — in keeping with her "monster" theme with vampire aesthetics, her stage enemies and music are a clear love letter to Castlevania.
  • One of the game's achievements is named "Super Fighting Robot".
  • RAY herself is a walking homage to Getter Robo (particularly to Getter Robo Armageddon), from her character design resembling Getter-1 to some of her weapons (e.g. Bloody Squall and Drill Anchor) referencing some attacks seen in the series. Her pose during her Electric Seed Variation Code sequence also bares a striking resemblance to Kakashi's Chidori.
  • Beck's Brandish ReXelection turns him into a ninja with a flowing scarf and a lightning-fast blade attack á la Strider Hiryuu.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • Beck's Battalion ReXelection, which may be too awesome since it's an expy of Mega Man 4's Drill Bomb that allows Beck to unload high-powered explosives that can weaken/destroy enemies with ease, especially with its high energy count and the AcXel Power buff.
  • Beck and RAY Cryosphere's ReXelection/Variation Code can freeze weakened enemies, making them easy pickings for 100% Absorptions and has plenty of energy to go around.
  • Their Brandish ReXelection/Variation Code gives them a lightning-fast sword that lets them cut though enemies like a hot knife through butter, deflect some bullets, and can be used indefinitely (only their respective charged abilities consume energy).
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Mighty No. 2, Cryo's Waterworks level, features this in its latter half following an initial underwater segment. If you didn't like ice physics, try working with them over instant death spike pits.
• Snowy Screen of Death: Upon losing your final life, the Game Over text appears then fades out with static before players are prompted their choice to retry the level or quit back to Sanda's lab.
• Sound Test: Completing the game will unlock a sound test feature within the game's main Options menu under the Audio section, which not only lets you listen to the game's soundtrack, but also lets you play the sound effects and voice samples of the game.
• Spikes of Doom: Spikes are a constant hazard, especially with purple sparkles in their area, and it's lights out for Beck, Call, or RAY if they so much as glances at them. However, Beck and RAY can gain powers to circumvent their hazards.
• The Spiny: Punishers, Axecuters, Shackle Bombs, and the Prison variations of Semi-Maru Cannon and Semi-Maru Rocket cannot be absorbed. The latter two downplay it since they can be destroyed, but must be shot repeatedly.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Azure Striker Gunvolt. While Gunvolt features a much more involved story about a teenage boy born with the power to control lightning who teams up with a resistance group fighting a major Japanese conglomerate using other psychic-users in cruel experiments on a regular basis with a dark anime artstyle, Mighty No. 9 features a simplistic plot about a timid and doubtful robot boy with xel-manipulating technology who reluctantly answers the call of stopping a viral outbreak causing robots throughout the United States of America, including his Mighty Numbers siblings, to turn against the human race all while featuring a colorful and cartoon-ish artstyle. Gunvolt's gameplay also plays something akin to the Mega Man Zero series while doing away with the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors gameplay of its spiritual predecessor (up until Copen became playable and taking some inspiration from Mega Man X), whereas Mighty No. 9's gameplay harkens back to the classic series and retains certain elements from it in addition to giving few the copied abilities some form of platforming utility.
• Spoiler Cover: Those evil set of eyes on the retail version's cover art behind the characters? They belong to the final boss. Those with the Kickstarter DVD-ROM version of the game are greeted with Trinity's first form on the cover.
• Start My Own: A real life example; a bunch of ex-Capcom devs creating a successor to one of Capcom's once-dormant franchises.
• Status Infliction Attack: Cryosphere's ReXelection and Variation Code for Beck and RAY respectively can freeze enemies, slowing their movement speed, slows down their Xel destabilization rate, and inflicts damage over time.
• Sticky Bomb: The Remote Cannon, Beck's ReXelection he gets from Battalion allows him to shoot powerful explosives that can stick to enemies and surfaces, which can be detonated manually by pressing the Attack button.
• The Stinger: After the credits, Dr. White confronts Dr. Blackwell about how Beck was about to purify Trinity by sharing his "heart" subroutines, giving her empathy and kindness to stop her rampage. Dr. Blackwell retorts that this is not merely unneeded but actively dangerous, as he believes robots left to develop their own minds and conscience are too unpredictable. It's clear that Benedict wants robots to stay as non-sentient machines while Will wants them to become more, much like Shade was demanding during his stage.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: According to the backstory, the Mighty Numbers were built for industrial purposes. However, they were also involved in Robot Wars-type spectator sports.
• Take That!:
  • An update on the Kickstarter page has one towards Michael Pachter.
  • On the developer's part, the game's credits has an unintentional one to itself; the backer credits has someone who named himself "Kamiya was right," a reference to an unflattering statement Hideki Kamiya had made about Inafune. Hideki Kamiya had his reservations on this game before its release because it was a knockoff of Mega Man, according to him.
• Telescoping Robot: As Beck can reconfigure his xel-based body extensively to use the more exotic powers, this is a given.
• Theme Naming: All of the Mighty Numbers' names are actual words, though they don't necessarily have to do with their powers or talents. Beck, Seismic, Aviator, Battalion, and Brandish are all at least semi-known words. More obscure are Pyrogen^note a chemical signal in animals that produces a fever, Cryosphere^note the parts of the Earth where water naturally exists as ice, Dynatron^note a type of oscillator commonly used in World War I to send Morse code signals, and Countershade^note an artistic technique involving painting objects or people where the painter uses gradients to cancel out the objects' or people's natural shadows.
• The Virus: The primary conflict of the game is to stop to the sudden rampant robot rampage, figure out why this is happening, and put a stop to it once and for all. Turns out it's being caused by a computer virus created by a dangerous perpetual assimilator robot known as Trinity.
• Time Trial: Half of the game's EX Challenge for Solo and Co-Op modes consists of time trials that challenges the player to complete stages or boss battles for the fastest times.
• Title Scream: A computer voice will say "Mighty No. 9" when greeted with the title screen. The characters of the game will also say the game's name at the title screen after beating the game for the first time, including the Japanese voice actors who will pronounce the game's title in English.
• Toilet Humor: If you've defeated and thus saved Pyrogen before going through Cryosphere's stage, near the end, Pyro tells Beck that "all that's left is to flush Number 2". He's referring to Mighty No. 2 (Cryo), and "flush" because they're in a water works, but you know full well what the joke here is...
• Totally Radical: The trailer looks like it came straight out of the 90's.
• Turns Red: When a boss' HP reaches a certain threshold, some will unleash their desperation attacks against Beck, or in a few cases, Dynatron creating a barrier to ward off attacks, or Seismic, who alters the arena in his boss battle. Bosses will sometimes attack more frequently when their HP is low.
• Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Players start out with Normal on a fresh system save file, but after beating the game, they unlock Hard and Hyper modes. Maniac mode, however, is exclusive to a DLC.
• Utility Weapon: Some of the ReXelection and Variation Code abilities can be used for traversing through obstacles or alter platforming abilities.
  • Seismic: Beck can take advantage of the faster movement speed of the caterpillar treads and bounce off enemies by jumping on them, while RAY can use the Drill Anchor as a grappling hook to instantly grab a nearby ledge.
  • Aviator: Beck can use the helicopter propeller to jump higher and slow his descent.
• Video-Game Lives: You start out with 3 lives per run, but you can increase the starting amount up for Normal mode.
• Weak, but Skilled: Beck has been described as the weakest of the Mighty Numbers but has the unique ability to absorb Xel Nanomachines from other robots to gain their powers.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Despite wielding a water-based weapon, Cryosphere takes extra damage from the Fire Explosion.
• A Winner Is You: The ending isn't bad on paper, but having everything past the end fight with Trinity realized with just three still pictures, without any narration or much in the way of context, comes across as a bit of an anti-climax.
• Wreathed in Flames: Mighty No. 1◊, in a way invoking muscle mass.
• You Are Number 6: Aside from their regular names, the gladiatorial team of robots known as the Mighty Numbers ("The Mighty Robots" or just "The Mighties") are also known by their number designation, similar to how sports team members have a number designated to them. It also refers to their creation order with the exception of Mighty No. 9, Beck, who had two other "siblings" (RAY and Trinity) prior to his creation.

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Call: "Initializing power down sequence... Bye for now."