The last few years have been very rough for Mega Man fans as games like Mega Man Legend 3 have been cancelled while nothing else Mega Man related seems to be in the pipeline at all. The only bright spot in recent times has been the announcement of Mega Man in the upcoming Super Smash Bros. title coming to the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.
Now we have some positive news, that while it isn’t about the Mega Man series itself, it is about as close as you can get. Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune, who left Capcom in 2010, has since started his own game company Comcept and launched a Kickstarter in the last couple weeks for a game, Mighty No. 9, that he is working on that appears to be a spiritual successor to the Mega Man series without actually having the rights.
Mighty No. 9 sounds like it will have plenty of old school elements in a 2D world. You will be able to move through the stages while shooting enemies. You will acquire special weapons and abilities from bosses you defeat across eight levels. The main character Beck is able to transform his body into different shapes based upon the enemies you you defeat.
As of this time, the Kickstarter for this game has already surpassed $2 million with 20 days left to do. They only asked for $900,000 to fund the game for PC, which happened very quickly. As with most Kickstarters, there are multiple stretch goals based upon how much money they raised beyond the initial funding. So far the stretch goals met are two more stages, a Mac and Linux version, New Game Plus and Turbo Mode, a making-of documentary, and boss rush mode.
The next stretch goal, which is the most important one for me, is at $2,200,000 which will allow the game to be released on Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U. There are still remaining stretch goals beyond that. At $2,400,000 a challenge mode will be added. At $2,550,000 they will add an extra end stage and boss. At $2,750,000 they will add Beck and Call Online Co-Op Challenge Mode. There are three stretch goals beyond that, two of which are unknown. $2,900,000 and $3,100,000 are not given at this time but $3,300,000 is listed as making versions for Playstation 4 and Xbox One.
As a huge fan of the Mega Man series, I really hope to see the funding continue on this so I can at least get a console version. The premise sounds fantastic so I can’t wait to play it. The game is estimated to be finished in April 2015 if everything goes fine. Check out the video below from Keiji Inafune below to hear more about Mighty No. 9 from the man himself: