Trivia / Mighty No. 9

• All-Star Cast:
  • The Japanese dub features Ayumu Murase, Mao Ichimichi, Atsuko Tanaka, Jun'ichi Suwabe, Akio Suyama, Takehito Koyasu, Motomu Kiyokawa, Wataru Takagi, Misaki Kuno, Miyuki Sawashiro, Tetsu Inada, Naomi Kusumi, Showtaro Morikubo, Kōki Uchiyama, and Hōchū Ōtsuka.
  • The English dub is no slouch either, it features Yuri Lowenthal, Jason Spisak, Dave Wittenberg, Matthew Mercer, Fred Tatasciore, Mick Wingert and Steve Blum among others.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Not long after the "Masterclass" trailer was released, Inti Creates CEO Takuya Aizu expressed that he outright hated the trailer on Twitter.
  • While the character of Mighty No. 9 himself is not considered to be this (as he has made many a playable cameo in Inti Creates' other games since his game's release), the entire game itself is considered to be this by many involved in it, including Keiji Inafune himself.
• Creator Killer:
  • The fact that Keiji Inafune attempted to pre-emptively create a multimedia franchise including sequels before the game was released, coupled with the Obvious Beta nature of the finished product, severely tarnished the goodwill he had from gamers.
  • While nearly all of the games that Comcept had previously produced had been critical and/or commercial failures, this game was the final nail in the coffin for them as an autonomous company. Afterwards, they were bought out by Level-5, who proceeded to lay off most of its staff, leaving it only as a shell of its former self.
• Development Hell: The Mighty No. 9 animated series, which was funded on Kickstarter alongside the game, was supposed to debut in early 2016. A teaser trailer was released but nothing else on the series has materialized since, nor has there been any reason given for the delay. The handheld ports are in a similar situation, looking less and less likely as the years go by and both handhelds become regulated to last-gen hardware.
• Dummied Out:
  • In the game's unlockable Sound Test, there are a few voice-over lines of the Mighty Numbers that have gone unused with the game proper, some of which suggest having them say something upon being defeated by Beck instead of the other way around and differently from Beck saying "C'mon, snap out of it!" after battling them.
    Pyrogen: "My flame... will burn, forever..."^*Pyrogen voice sample No. 11
    Cryosphere: "No, not cold, not cold!"^*Cryosphere voice sample No. 12
    Dynatron: "It'zzz my energy! All mine! You can't have any..."^*Dynatron voice sample No. 14
    Seismic: "CANNOT LEAVE SITE UNTIL JOB IS—"^*Seismic voice sample No. 14
    Battalion: "My army! The war... cannot be stopped!"^*Battalion voice sample No. 15
    Aviator: "The show must go on!"^*Aviator voice sample No. 11
    Brandish: "Agh! Do what you must!"^*Brandish voice sample No. 18
    Countershade: "Must... fight... the power...!"^*Countershade voice sample No. 15
  • There are also some unused voice lines for Beck and Call in the Sound Test as well, some possibly hinting how Beck reacts to being graded at the end of a stage, along with Beck or Call pointing out how low their HP is if they have taken sufficient amount of damage.
• Fan Community Nicknames: Official update posts have been nicknaming the Kickstarter backers as "Beckers."
• Feelies: The retail version of Mighty No. 9 includes a double-sided poster (one side features the artwork seen on the page article, another with a promotional art of Beck with the other Mighty Numbers behind him), a voucher for the game's DLCs, and an art booklet featuring artwork of the characters, enemies, and renders of Beck's ReXelection forms. Certain Kickstarter backers would receive other extras such a foldout constructible box in the style of NES and/or Famicom game, accompanying retro-styled manual(s), a special USB flash drive that includes a DRM-free copy of the game for PC that's also in the style of a NES and/or Famicom cartridge, and a Mega-Xel plushie.
• God Never Said That: Keiji Inafune never said that the Mighty No. 9's disastrous launch^note The console versions have had framerate issues, with some players reporting crashes, and even claimed to bricked consoles which wasn't true was "Better than nothing" — that was actually another person entirely.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: For PlayStation users in Japan, as of November 15, 2019, Mighty No. 9 (along with Homefront: Revolution and Saints Row IV) ceased digital distribution from the PlayStation Store due to expired publishing rights by Spike Chunsoft. On the plus side, physical copies of the PlayStation 4 version can be found for relatively low prices.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The console versions have a Signature Edition for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which includes a retail copy of the game (which also includes a voucher for the Ray Expansion and Retro Hero DLCs) and a Beck figurine with three interchangeable faceplates. Only 10,000 units were produced, each one having a number out of the 10,000 written under the display stand.
• The Merch: For those that backed at least the $175 USD tier, a large Mega-Xel plushie was included with the other eligible rewards.
• Quietly Cancelled: The ultimate fate of the 3DS and Vita ports.
• Schedule Slip:
  • The game grew infamous for this. It was pushed back from an April 2015 release, to September 15th for America and 18th for Worldwide, and then got further pushed back to the first quarter of 2016. After promising no more delays, with the release date said to be February 9th, 2016, it was again pushed back to a tentative date, and finally released on June 21st, 2016.
  • Some of the backer rewards were also subjected to this, which didn't ship until over a year later, also likely due to mismanagement of the project's budget.
• Stillborn Franchise: The team intended to produce movies and a cartoon about the game, but after the game failed disastrously, the plans have likely been abandoned.
• Trend Killer: The game’s high profile campaign combined with the mismanagement during production and underwhelming final product was the finishing blow to the crowdfunding boom in games, which was already developing a poor reputation due to several cases of games massively underdelivering, getting cancelled, never releasing, or straight up scams. While the occasional game still uses the crowdfunding model, they have to deal with the stigma the model got from this game.
• Troubled Production: Mighty No. 9 went through some very serious delays and problems in regards to funding. The game had three huge delays, stretching the initial release period from 2013 to 2016, which the developers claimed were due to a number of issues (the change to Unreal Engine 3, separating the team to work on the multiple ports and the last and most suspicious, fixing a bug in the multiplayer modes, which were implemented as stretch goals). Despite gaining far more than they asked for in regards to money on Kickstarter, the project had numerous funding issues and several times used Kickstarter again to drum up more profits for things like DLC, movies and TV shows, none of which the original Kickstarter group wanted. Keiji Inafune also attempted to start another project for Red Ash, which flopped rather spectacularly when several dubious methods for funding the game came to light to the general public, of which included the game getting rescued by a relatively unknown Chinese developer to save the game's failed funding with whatever money the project received being used for potential DLCs. Fast forward to 2016, and the delays, funding issues and the release of the universally reviled "Masterclass" trailer by Deep Silver was the final nail in the coffin for a number of online fanbases. The game released to average to bad reviews, and there are those hold the game up as an example of being careful who you give your money to on Kickstarter, with almost all faith in Keiji Inafune from some (if not most) fans being lost.
• Vaporware: One of the Kickstarter's final stretch goals was ports to the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS; however, last time either of these ports were mentioned were a brief statement in 2017. Due to Comcept having been acquired by Level-5 and stripped back to a skeleton staff by the end of the decade, alongside both platforms also reaching the end of their lifespans by then, it's generally accepted that these versions were Quietly Cancelled, with there being no official announcement in order to avoid legal ramifications.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Beck's original absorption ability was going to allow him to change forms, a la Kirby, by dashing into enemies. This was replaced with passive bonuses gained on absorption instead, with Beck only changing forms based on the other Mighty Numbers.
  • No. 8 Countershade was originally going to be female, but the designer was more focused on the radar and optical camouflage aspects of Mighty No. 8's description than its being female, and Inafune liked the resulting gunman design, so Shade became male.
  • The very first concept design of No. 2 Cryosphere had her looking like a female figure skater. A concept design had her faucet originally being on top of her head and resembling a ponytail, before it was moved to her hand for her final design.
  • Towards the end of the Kickstarter campaign, nine potential designs for Call were up for voting, with the top three being colored and refined for a future vote. Designs A◊, B◊, C◊, D◊, G◊, and I◊ did not make the top three, and E◊ and H◊ didn't make the final cut. Designs A, E and H would eventually be used as alternate outfits for Call in Mighty Gunvolt Burst, while the normal form of Trinity is based off of Design D.
  • The DLC mission for Ray was almost this, due to insufficient funding. The partnership with Deep Silver allowed it to be implemented, which also led to Ray becoming a playable character.
  • Renegade Kid offered to develop a 3DS version of the game. Nothing really came out of it.

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