By 
If you haven’t played the Mighty No. 9 beta, it’s hard to get a handle on just what kind of platformer the game is. The similarities to Mega Man are apparent, obviously, but just which Mega Man game you should be thinking of isn’t quite as obvious. We recently asked project lead Keiji Inafune what kind of game he wants Mighty No. 9 to end up being, within the context of its Mega Man roots.
“The type I’m aiming for is really a hybrid—a mix of all the sort of games I’ve developed up until now… but you have to be able to do it in a way that the user naturally and organically evolves their gameplay style as they’re playing the game,” Inafune replied.
[Related: Inafune said to us that Mighty even takes certain cues from Onimusha.]
“What we’ve noticed that’s happened while playing Mighty No. 9 is that you can start off playing it like an oldschool Mega Man game, but as you do that, you start to get more and more skilled come to understand what the purpose of the dash-absorption is—and you start to tackle more enemies and kill them faster, aim for the highest percent, and just move through the stages more stylishly than you would before. When that happens, then naturally the speed at which you get through the stages increases because you’re constantly learning to utilize your dash attacks.”
He continued, “Since side-scrollers are built differently than the games of yesteryear, you can actually see where your enemies are coming from or will come from—so when you start moving quickly, you are inhibited by enemies, and now you have a good balance between the old-style Mega Man gameplay and organic pace. Of course, new enemies are introduced that, depending on what weapons you’ve absorbed, are harder to conquer.”
“Mighty No. 9 involved all of the efforts I’ve put into games up until now as a creator, and I think that, rather than resemble either X or traditional Mega Man games, it finds its place somewhere in between, where it’s able to organically evolve and not be set to one mold.”
