Capcom may not think there’s a market for Mega Man games anymore, but that isn’t stopping Mega Man’s creator from creating his own brand new (and amazing looking) Mega Man-style platformer.
Today at PAX Prime in Seattle, former Capcom producer and Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune announced his latest project: Mighty No. 9, a Kickstarter funded, old-school 2D platformer that bares more than a passing resemblance to Capcom’s forgotten mascot. Like Inafune’s most famous creation, Mighty No. 9 is about a boy robot who specializes in stealing his enemies’ special abilities. Unlike Mega Man, Mighty No. 9’s hero doesn’t simply copy his enemies’ attacks and color-schemes; instead, he incorporates the parts of defeated robots into his own body, allowing him to complete change his form and his abilities depending on what parts he has equipped.
Besides being designed and directed by Inafune himself, the new game’s development team also features a lot of other Capcom veterans, including former members of the Mega Man, Street Fighter, and Darkstalkers teams. The game’s art is being directed by Shinsuke Komaki, who previously worked on the beloved Mega Man Legends series, while the game’s music is being composed Manami Matsumae, who scored the original Mega Man game for NES. Other members of the team have also worked on games like Mega Man 9, Mega Man Zero, and the Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.
Mighty No. 9 is currently in development for the PC, and Comcept says that they plan to release the game on Steam and as a DRM free download. The team says that they’re considering porting the game over to consoles, Macs, and Linux PCs, but they’ll have to see how much money their Kickstarter campaign raises before they can announce additional platforms.
Mighty No. 9 has already managed to raise over 270k in the span of a few hours, so it’s probably safe to assume that Comcept will get enough funding to finish the game and port it to every viable platform available. There’s still almost a full month before the game’s Kickstarter campaign closes, but you might want to get your donation in soon, as it seems like a lot of the premium rewards have already sold out.
Capcom management continues to assert that they simply don’t believe that there’s an audience for Mega Man games anymore, but the quick success of Mighty No. 9’s Kickstarter campaign proves otherwise. Personally, I donated 60 bucks for the game as soon as the Kickstarter campaign opened, and I probably would’ve donated more if I had more money to spare (I just moved this week and started taking classes at a new university, so I have to curb my spending.) That’s money that could have gone to Capcom had the actually decided to produce a new Mega Man game themselves, but I suppose Capcom’s loss and everybody else’s gain, as Mighty No. 9 looks like it’s on track to be a proper successor to Capcom’s poor, neglected Blue Bomber.
Mighty No. 9 is scheduled to be released sometime in 2015. The game’s fundraising campaign will end on October 1st.
