Original Developer Working On Handheld Versions Of Mighty No. 9 Reveals “Zero Progress” Was Made

What a mess this all was. One image that sticks in my mind Is from a video of Inafune playing what we all believed to be a very early build of the game, Inafune was praising the build while playing, saying it was great and so on. We all assumed it was a very early build - it looked so crappy - but turned out to be basically what we got. Anyone else remember the video I’m talking about? No idea where I saw it.

Is this ond of the most disastrous kickstarter campaigns ever? That first video of Inafune presenting the project was great but afterwards the results were just terrible.

Christ almighty, Comcept...

They wanted Unreal Engine 3 to run on the **VITA AND 3DS!!**

That should have told you what the result would be!

Honestly: Is there any reason to begin progress on them after how "acclaimed" the console versions were? The devs should've cancelled those versions and gave those handheld selectors an alternative option for console versions a long time ago before its messy release. lol

Edit: Sorry for the multiple posts, everybody and Nintendo Life. Things were getting a little buggy and slow on my end...

Level-5 aquired comcept so this is on them now.

Level-5 is about as good at communicating and doing things in a timely fashion as a mute, blind and deaf 100 year old man.

Also Stephen how did you managed to post that seven times? Did NL just bug out on me or did it actually post your post seven times?

@StephenYap3 settle down, Stephen. We heard you the first time.

@luke88 Things were slow on my end. Sorry about that.

Regardless it’s disgusting that Level-5 hasn’t even addressed this.

Shame on them.

@Pikachupwnage I was trying to click the reply button and the site just froze. I kept hammering it because I was getting frustrated, so when I reloaded the page, I just found all my comments on there. So, I had to delete all but one. Hopefully everything is fixed now. Sorry about that.

@StephenYap3 haha, no need for sorry, was just joking. 👍🏻

Nothing would've been better™

Meh at least we got Mighty Gunvolt Burst which is 10x better anyways.

@StephenYap3 Do you use the mobile version of the site? Oftentimes when I comment from my phone, it will freeze between almost every character I type, and the page will crash several times on me while making one comment. I don't understand why that happens--it doesn't matter what wi-fi router I'm connected to, so I can only assume it's a problem on Nintendo Life's end.

I know this isn't related to the article at hand, but does anyone else have this problem? It's gone on for me for several months.

What Inafune did was disrespectful in many levels.

@Not_Soos I used my laptop to comment. I sometimes have those freezes when I commenting here.

@rushiosan If it wasn't for him, Mega Man wouldn't have been as big as he was back in the day. I know he messed up horribly with Mighty No. 9, but cut him some slack.

Really sad about this whole situation. Though I always viewed M#9 as merely a stopgap to quell my Megaman thirst. With the compilations and the brand new Megaman all coming out this year, my need and frustration with Might No.9 is all but gone now.

I want to try this game one day, just to see what all the fuss is about. I wanna judge how bad it is for myself.

@StephenYap3 I really doubt about that, Mega Man never was a one-man concert, several people were involved in the development and Inafune just proved us he’s useless without a good team. He had an important role at Capcom, specially in the character/enemy design department for Mega Man series, but I think it’s unfair to credit the whole Mega Man formula to a person like him.

Does kickstarter protect the backers when there are unfulfilled campaign promises? Can they be sued?

Well, at least there is that new Mega Man game, huh?

I think the thing that really made M9 suck is that the movement was just BAD! The controls felt stiff and it felt like it wasn’t your fault when you died over and over again. (Kinda like Mega Man 1)

It seems like he’s more of an idea guy. But clearly he doesn’t know what good movement feels like, or can’t do it himself because whoever was in charge of that did not deliver.

Can we now rename the game to Messy No. 9 now?

@MH4 If you shop around or wait for a digital sale on any console its one, its often at around the fiver mark. Heck, it was a Playstation Gold free game a few months ago with both the PS3+4 versions being offered.

It's a shame, I probably would have played it regardless of terrible-ness on the 3DS...but then we got Mighty Gunvolt Burst.

@Not_Soos : I have been experiencing that for some time too (I use an iPad). I believe it occurs with other websites too and isn't just limited to NL.

When it does happen, I usually just give up trying to write a comment at all.

I never understood why people were ever interested in this poor man's Mega Man.

Not even crapcom do things right by Mega Man.

God, what an unmitigated disaster this all was.

At least the project showed how much demand there was for Mega Man out there, and now Capcom is fully reviving the Blue Bomber.

As an unwise man once said: "it's better than nothing."

I will forever maintain that the failure of M#9 was due to Inafune's ambition clouding good judgment. He tried to make his company take off by riding the Mega Man fandom's thirst for new games, and tried to get off the ground too fast. Red Ash should've come after M#9 was completed.

Inafune wasn't a con-man, he was trying to develop a game like he was still at Capcom, and forgot that if things went south, he had no safety net.

What a mess.

I'm one of the Kickstarter backers who picked the portable version. On one hand, even though it doesn't look like I'll get my game, they did make sure the physical material was sent out to us. On the other, they've been silent without regard to a consolation and it's deafening. I wish Level-5 would step up and close this unprofessional chapter.

Speaking of which, the good thing that came out of this is that there was a resurgence in Mega Man talk at a time when Capcom abandoned the IP and we only got a cameo on Super Smash Bros: one could argue this experiment gave Capcom the push to do a better game and cater an exposed Mega Man market. One should also give an applause to Inafune for the amount of money they raised which at the time was high in Kickstarter history, and probably kicked off other smaller studios or creator attempts at indie games (which were antithetically successful!).

Schon erwartet....

I'd feel bad if I backed the base game let alone the actual handheld version . I remember Shantae was a project around same time, yet that turned out to be a very nice game.

I see brand new copies of the Wii U version for just £5. Worth the plunge?

I still have an unclaimed activation code for this game in my Humble Bundle account. What a waste of money that was.

@NiaBladerunner
Send me your email and I'll give it to you for free.

Tried the PS4 version in an IGC giveaway a while ago, and it seems like a solid title with expected Mega Man vibes and legacies. Perhaps I'll end up playing it via RP after all - while the game is predictably better than what all the fanship-intoxicated reports would have you believe, there's no denying it's had - and is apparently still having - a notoriously troubled production.

This was the worst "Mega Man" game I've ever played so I don't think putting it on the 3DS or Vita would make it any less dismal.

At what point do governments start looking at these kickstarters and questioning if they enable easy fraud and ban them all? So as not to ruin it for the legitimate ones there should be a limit to how many goals are set so they are attainable instead of giving the developers a suitcase of money to only deliver on half of the promises or none at all.

@retro_player_22 wish they'd give download codes to another of their games for those who backed portable like I did. Now what.

@rushiosan Grifters gonna grift. Some new guy will exploit nostalgia with fan service and get funding for a game that will never release. People never learn.

@Moonlessky NOPE! It's the reason participating in an unregulated market is (generally) a bad, bad idea.

@Not_Soos This happens often to me. I haven't used a PC to browse the web in years. I visit websites only on my phone.

Have had no issues with ANY other website (gaming sites, news sites, forums, etc) except for Nintendo Life. With NL the whole site will suddenly gets sluggish as hell. And typing in the comments section becomes a hassle since there is lag during the whole process of typing letters and stuff. So I rarely spend time here because the whole experience of participating stinks.

The site needs to be optimized for mobiles. Again, I have absolutely no issues with any other gaming, news, sports or forum sites. Its just Nintendo Life that sucks on mobiles.

It's not going to happen.
And that's probably for the better.

I bought the game for PS4 when Gamestop had it clearanced to $5 new. For that price, it wasn't that bad, plus it came with the download code to get the downloaded version for not only PS4, but also PS3 and VITA...so, I traded the actual game in at another retailer, which gave me $15 in cash...so I made out, and still had the game for all 3 consoles. Other than that, it isn't a game I'd pay more than $15 for, but it's not as bad as what everyone states it is. Most of the hate for the game, I believe, came from how long it took to finally arrive. I've never given any money towards kick starters, as I'd be afraid of just wasting money, but I can see why people would be upset. I've still been waiting for the Toe Jam And Earl game to finally come out that's been announced over 2 years ago.

Back to the subject of this game, I think that even if they did get it out on 3DS, it would become an instant flop. As the other versions of it are not extremely cheap, who would pay probably the $30 mark for it on 3DS?

@Knuckles-Fajita "They wanted Unreal Engine 3 to run on the VITA AND 3DS!! That should have told you what the result would be!"

I'm having Wii U PSTD flashbacks of Projects Cars and Yooka-Laylee. 😛

@Angelic_Lapras_King I’ll probably wait for the physical Wii U version to hit the bargain bin at Walmart. I’m not sure if it has yet.

@GC-161 Yep, sounds just like my problem, and I also haven't had any issues on other sites. I thought about creating a forum topic to raise awareness if it wasn't just me experiencing it. Perhaps I still will at some point.

@Muddy_4_Ever Isn’t that Shenmue 3?

It's going to be a tarnished end to Inafune-san's career. A man so determined to show up Capcom that he pulled an Icarus. I won't hate the man for his past contributions, but him and his company Comcept have really made a mess of things.

I hope that 100% progress is made refunding handheld backers then. shakes head

Die monster, you don’t belong in this world!

@Vriess I am more of a psychical release gamer, but thanks for your kind offer. Maybe give it to someone here who backed the handheld version?

@JLPick From what I have seen, most of the hate didn't come from how long this game took to release. Whilst I haven't played it, it does look very ugly and washed out and doesn't seem nice to play. Shantae 1/2 Half Genie took longer to arrive, but wasn't panned on arrival. That one was a great game.

With the amount of time passed, the game reputation being what it is, and MegaMan making a comeback, should it even matter at this point?

@Not_Soos Yeah. It's like the keyboard on your phone can't keep up with your typing. I thought it was my phone getting old. I'm actually glad to hear it's not just me. It happens so bad on some comments I just choose not to leave one. It's happening as type right now but not very bad.

I do really wanna see this on 3DS, but I doubt it will ever come if the backers don't band together to get their money back.

@Not_Soos Just informing the administrators would do the trick, IMO. I haven't done it myself because this site is not included in my daily (web browsing) routine. So I didn't think it was worth the trouble for me.

But if you're a regular, then it would make sense to do something about it.

I mean browsing this site on my phone is like playing Skyrim on an unpatched PS3. With the game running like if it was a PowerPoint presentation.

And my phone can handle pretty much 99.9% of sites on the net. I dunno what's the deal with Nintendo Life that seems to demand so much of it.

But hey, it's better than nothing!

@MH4 it did back in July. That's where I got mine. Keep your eyes peeled.

So they hired a porting company, and failed to provide the source code and assets... Did they expect them to create new ones? Who does that?

@NiaBladerunner
No problem. To whomever wants the digital version (plus DLC) for free, send me your email. Oh, and it's the Wii U version btw.

@Not_Soos used to all the time.. What phone are you on?? I know it sounds nuts but my keyboard was my problem. I was using Swiftkey, but switched back to Gboard and it quit.

@cloud36426 Samsung Galaxy S6

I didn't play M#9 until far after I'd played Mighty Gunvolt on 3DS and Mighty Gunvolt Burst on Switch, and when I finally did I was shocked that those '8-bit' titles felt far better than the game that they spun off from.

I got two levels into M#9 before I couldn't take it anymore. The gameplay was stiff and dull, the level design was just irritating and I felt like I was experiencing some kid's Mega Man "inspired" story instead of something fresh and original.

Glad I didn't contribute to that KS.

Trolololol, what a mess!

So, my question is, will there still be a 3DS version? Nintendo UK's website has it listed as "TBD" for months now. Take a look at Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition in Europe for example, the game was released in North America in September last year, with no mention of a European release...until a year later, when it appeared in Europe on September 20th, 2018. So I presume that this will happen again with this game, in development hell until a year (or two) later, before finally being released. They canceled the Vita version citing technical issues I think. So I think the 3DS version is still a ways off in development, but is still planned for release.