Honestly, as someone who has played this on the Wii U with the frame-rate instability and rare crashing problems (which does not brick the Wii U but some hateful sheep are just desperate to smear this game in a negative light), I had a good time with this game. I couldn't back the because money problems I was facing, I stuck with this game since its inception to Comcept's questionable Kickstarter decisions and the delays that held a pre-order I made about a year ago up longer than expected, but even if I were to back Mighty No. 9 for $100 or even a $1,000 and if it did not meet my expectations, I wouldn't stoop anywhere near the amount of cancer being perpetrated by this game's vocal and vapid hatedom because I know better and there's another doujin game that can fill that Mega Man void for me. As flawed as Mighty No. 9 is, the good outweigh the bad for me, and I'm hoping Inti and Comcept can streamline the game and fix the problems that are hurting the game from realizing its potential with future patches like they did with Gunvolt's PC port.
Comcept has nothing to do with Gunvolt.
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Don't expect Mega Man, but instead, expect a Spiritual Successor with some changes of its own
Expectations can color one's perceptions. Some of the complaints I've seen thrown at this Kickstarted game by Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune are that it's too much like Mega Man, and that it's not enough like Mega Man. Other complaints are that the graphics look old and unfinished, particularly the total lack of mouth movements during dialog (something my then-7-year-old nephew remarked on twice!).
But coming in with low expectations, I'm pretty happy with what I got.
Mighty No. 9 follows the same basic formula as the old Mega Man games. There's an intro level, then you pick which level to go to next from a set of eight, before finally making your way to the final area. You shoot enemies, and defeated bosses give you their powers.
It's better to point out how this game differs from Mega Man. And it does, in a few ways that took me by surprise, but which I came to appreciate.
You defeat enemies not simply by shooting them, but by "absorbing" them - that is, the nanobots they are made of (think Disney's Big Hero 6) - once they've been shot enough. For bosses, you must absorb them after they've taken a certain amount of damage, or else they recover that damage - and this must be repeated multiple times.
This is a surprising touch of brilliance, as it does something shooter games generally don't do: encourage/force you to get close to enemies. You can't simply hang back at a distance and feel safe being far away. You have to throw yourself right into the danger, changing the tempo of the gameplay considerably.
Boss weapons each have their own specific purpose. Use the sniper weapon and you can reflect a shot that hits multiple enemies. The missile weapon can be exploded manually in a fiery circle. The sword can do a lot of close-range damage if swung rapidly. The electric weapon targets multiple enemies and slowly electrocutes them, if it connects.
Rather than having to recover weapon energy to use them, weapons recharge automatically over time, encouraging players to experiment and actually use them. More arguably overpowered weapons take longer to recharge.
The theme is quite different from Mega Man. Without giving too much away, the main villain isn't of the "mwahaha I'm going to take over the world" variety. Instead it's... let's say a bit more "plausible" and original. In a way, there kinda is no true "villain" of this game in the traditional sense. The story caught me by surprise.
The level design is fairly creative, though I think it could have tried some more ideas. During levels, there's a lot of in-game dialog that occurs as you walk around and fight, giving the whole thing a lot of character. Combine that with frantic action of the "Nintendo Hard, yet learnable with practice" variety, and the whole thing scratches an action itch I hadn't had scratched since Freedom Planet. In all, it's a very good, short game.