Mighty No. 9, spiritual successor to the once-prominent Mega Man series, is finally out, putting an end to both the wait and the drama that surrounded the game in recent months — right?
Wrong.
Considering the lengthy development time, hype and subsequent disappointment surrounding the game's crowdfunding campaign, one would assume that creator Keiji Inafune would be keeping a low profile, while the game that everyone once thought would be a return to the Mega Man series gets skewered by the public.
However, to celebrate the launch of Mighty No. 9, Inafune did quite the opposite: he appeared on a live stream to talk about the game. Also, as if the decision to appear on stream after all the drama before the launch wasn't weird enough, the stream (which, like the game, was delayed) was strange in its own right.
From the start, it was clear that Mighty No. 9's makers weren't particularly pleased with their product, and then, there are comments like this that really drive that message home:
"At the end of the day, even if [Mighty No. 9] is not perfect, it's better than nothing" pic.twitter.com/1kFLWbq8xu
— Wario64 (@Wario64) June 21, 2016
"At the end of the day, even if it's not perfect, it's better than nothing." These are the words of Ben Judd, someone who knows his way around the industry and has worked on titles such as Viewtiful Joe, God Hand and most recently "helped on the campaign for Mighty No. 9."
In his defense, however, he's only translating the words of Inafune himself, who spent more of his time explaining why the game didn't meet expectations than celebrating the game's launch. In fact, at one point, he even defended his team, saying they "put everything into making this game" — something that many who have played the game would find quite hard to believe.
Of course, a stream of this nature wouldn't be complete without "stream monsters" chiming in, and their comments exemplified how much of a disappointment Mighty No. 9 has been so far. Dissatisfied customers complained about how their codes weren't working, many of which came up as "deleted," presumably due to explicit content. In fact, one person was so disappointed that he asked several times if he could get his name removed from the credits.
Even with all of these negatives, there is at least one amusing positive that came from this: Inafune is already ready for a sequel.
