I'll echo what Jim said on Twitter. The game looks fine, but with all the money and hype pored into it, fine isn't enough. This needed to be outstanding and instead it looks positively mediocre. A lot of people are going to play this, wonder where all the money went, and think less of crowdfunding and Kickstarter as a whole (when they really should just think less of Inafune) and that's sad because there are so many great examples of crowfunding leading to amazing one of a kind games.
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Mighty No.9: Jim Sterling impressions
- Thread starter rockman zx
- Start date
Is this the first title to use Unreal 3 on 3ds? Maybe they lost time and money on R&D?
Anyway the number of platforms they support is mind boggling:
Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS. That's a lot versions you have to program for.
I guess we see explosions with no alpha blending because of the 3DS.
Anyway, the game looked boring.
they were involved very early on in some form. maybe helping with the kickstarter, I don't recall exactly. they haven't really mentioned the game on the podcast in a long time and they usually do when theyre proud of stuff theyre involved with.
SlasherJPC
Banned
Maybe I worded that wrong because that's kind of exactly what I'm saying is way less of a budget for small Indie teams that are making some amazing things in comparison.
We don't have any reasonable expectation that it's worth exploring the MM/MMX formula. What we do know is that Capcom doesn't think it's worth it and Indies aren't being made in this style. I understand that you feel like Shovel Knight gave you the MM experiance but no amount of explaining will ever make that what statement true. Shovel Knight is not a Megaman game any more than Dark Souls is a Zelda 1 game.
Could have MN9 been better? Yeah. I don't think anyone would argue that. But who is going to make it? Inafune didn't do it, Capcom isn't doing and we currently have no indies in the same vain so... what else is there? I understand where you're coming from but I am not convinced we're going to get a better shot than this. This is it.The MM archetype is in a coma.I'm not saying it's dead or nothing will ever come of it but right no I don't think there is any reasonable expectation for a better game in this style than MN9 right now.
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
I see my bad then. I just feel strongly about that there isn't really room for excuses and I do wonder if "it's fine" really what this should be? Or even if is it really "fine" when we look at the gaming landscape.
But then I come from the school of thought that you can't watch at games in isolation. In cases where correlations are strong I think it's very reasonable that those can take influence.
Pls can you read? I write MM like for a reason. Also I don't see how it doesn't explore the MM formula(and a bunch of other games), it did and that's why it's different in its own way.
The same way Axiom Verge, Ori, etc did and give people Metroid like experiences while not being Metroid and that's something absolutely positive. I don't know what you're on about with if this isn't 1:1 MM/MMX it's totally incomparable and an entirely different beast, as if people are making comparison between MN9 and GTA. Or how that correlates to the quality it seems to have ended up with.
Also I can't look in the future but it seems ridiculous to believe that we can't expect future projects from indies that end up being closer to MM while also giving the whole thing their own flavor. Megaman has a lot of fans.
At the end of the day this is not how this project should have ended up. I'm very much interested to see how Bloodstained will end up cause if that ends up a looooooot better I feel like there's not much else to blame than Inafune and maybe his split focus.
You can't tell me that those other medium deals didn't take negotiation time, energy etc that maybe should have gone into this or at least should have gone into communication with backers.
Shovel Knight is as much of a Mega Man game as the Mega Man Zero series is.
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
From what's that? Please tell me more so I can keep an eye on this?
DistortionOfReality
Member
I can't believe I backed this. It just looks dreadful.
The game did not need voice acting as that is not what I backed it for originally.
While I agreed that the final game looks shit but that image was a concept art it was never going to look anything like a still image.
remember what it couldve look like
While I agreed that the final game looks shit but that image was a concept art it was never going to look anything like a still image.
I don't think there's any statement on why or even if he was fired.
My personal take on it was that he was the main one ragging on the Japanese game industry and was likely the one who greenlight all those Capcom games that were outsourced to Western devs. According to Ben Judd, Inafune was the one approving all the games at that time so I believe that when several of those games tanked (and other stuff like Lost Planet 2) he took responsibility and resigned on his own.
Please don't take this as fact though, or take it like I'm presenting it as such. It's speculation based on the little info I've seen.
DistortionOfReality
Member
Oh yeh, THAT is why I backed it. Had pretty much forgotten.
It's from my game, it's called Ghost Song, I frequently make gifs as I develop it
It's kind of Metroid but with more RPG elements and a few mega man influences with the controls.
You are delusional. No one is going to make a full game's worth of art & animation with that level of fidelity in a year with $30k-90k. That's exactly the kind of overconfidence that puts a lot of KS games into trouble in the long run. Someone makes some cool short animation quickly and then figures the rest of game development will go as fast & easy, then reality kicks in and they'll have burned through that kind of money in 6 months without much being done.Even this:
I heard that he did this in eight hours. All they had to do was give this guy $30k-$90k and a year to do all the art and animations.
To be fair, Kickstarter takes a big cut, taxes have to be paid and physical rewards manufactured & delivered all around the world. They never got anywhere near 4 million for the actual development of the game. And then we have to take into account the fact that this was developed for, like, 8 different platforms with wildly varied hardware architecture & power. Perhaps someone can argue it's dumb they did all those versions, but there were a lot of people who only pledged because of promises of Vita, 3DS and other versions beyond PC and current gen consoles. At least Inafune & co will have delivered all different versions, some KS projects have abandoned some older/weaker platforms after it turns out something they made will be impossible to port to lesser platforms without massive changes.
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
That's super rad. Always up for more of those type of games.
I hope I see a thread on gaf or news article somewhere at some point popping up reminding me whenever it comes out! Hope everything goes well for you, best of luck!
Even this:
I heard that he did this in eight hours. All they had to do was give this guy $30k-$90k and a year to do all the art and animations.
That took 8 hours. And it's just a running cycle and some parallax effects. Creating all the animations for all the enemies, bosses and other interactive objects in the game would have taken much longer than you seem to think.
This is what happens when you commit your project to literally 10 platforms and insist on parity for eight of them.
Conversely, Shantae appears to have been developed with PS4/XBO/Wii U/PC in mind first with the 360/PS3/Vita versions coming out later, and the difference in quality is night and day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr_dtRgC144
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
I want to bring up depending on how Indivisible turns out, can we also stop making excuses about how 4 million can never bring something in the realm of what that animation displays?
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/indivisible-rpg-from-the-creators-of-skullgirls#/
Indivisible -> about 2 million.
Like the amount of concessions are made for a project by the "Inafune" feel somewhat ridiculous or maybe not after all I do actually honestly agree that it's on us misjudging what his pedigree actually meant. I mean people remember his Red Ash prototype, that was goddamn embarrassing.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/indivisible-rpg-from-the-creators-of-skullgirls#/
Indivisible -> about 2 million.
Like the amount of concessions are made for a project by the "Inafune" feel somewhat ridiculous or maybe not after all I do actually honestly agree that it's on us misjudging what his pedigree actually meant. I mean people remember his Red Ash prototype, that was goddamn embarrassing.
I think it looks like fun, though I also didn't back this project so I can't say I have the same level of entitlement to how it looks.
This, Yooka-Laylee, and Bloodstained I'm all looking forward to. I didn't back a single one. I figured since they had plenty of people giving them money up front, I'd be one of the guys that gave them money after the product was finished.
This, Yooka-Laylee, and Bloodstained I'm all looking forward to. I didn't back a single one. I figured since they had plenty of people giving them money up front, I'd be one of the guys that gave them money after the product was finished.
Same.
Even Tony Hawk 5 got an OT. Granted it had an insulting title but an OT nonetheless.
With that much money the whole game could have looked like this or close to it. Just need the right person(s) involved.
I know how this stuff works, I'm making my own 2D game, I know the person who made that gif, and he is making his own 2D game as well which looks ten times better than MN09 and is being done by him and 2 friends
Ari (the person who made that gif) would tell you the same thing I juts told you. MN09 could have looked like that. I have absolutely no idea why it looks so bad. I can only speculate but none of my speculations even seem very good. I am baffled.
+ 4 million is a dumb number to throw around since KS projects don't get all of the money to use for actual development. The money that is left really isn't a huge sum for a modern game, especially one that is developed for every even remotely alive platform in existence.
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
It's not dumb because it all evens out in context to other kickstarters. Nobody denies that it's not a lot of money left in the end, we just hammer the point that people with less have done more impressive things. So to say expectations were unreasonable, overblown doesn't seem right.
Also I may seem super anti MN9 but that's not what I want, I hope I WISH I'm wrong and what we've seen and what I've played in the demo is not representative of the level design and just showed of its worst parts, but I think it's reasonable to remain skeptical of that.
Zombie James
Banned
Before someone whines, "bu-bu-but that was the concept footage!" a reminder that we were given this initial test footage:
Sure, it has a giant placeholder warning at the bottom, but I don't think most of us expected the final product to look much worse.
This looks infinitely better.
Also, as others have said, look at Shantae and Bloodstained. Games with similar budgets that look leagues better.
I'm tired of the "well OF COURSE it doesn't look as good as the concept art" and the "well OF COURSE it's not going to look great with that kind of budget" arguments. Neither of them hold up because we've seen multiple projects with similar budgets live up to their original promises. MN9 has failed to live up to its original pitch and it appears to be largely to be due to bad management on the part of Comcept.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Geez, there are so many cutscenes and dialogue interruptions in there.
Not only is the dialogue all trash, but this is really not the game for that sort of thing. Just a poorly conceived idea from the start.
Not only is the dialogue all trash, but this is really not the game for that sort of thing. Just a poorly conceived idea from the start.
Well, I wasn't the guy that posted that number, but I'm well aware that game development is costly and that you can't take Kickstarter budgets at face value. Regardless, the fact is that they stretched themselves waaaaaaay too thin and as a result the game suffered, which is why other projects with similar budgets have considerably better visuals.
Bloodstained is actually looking quite a bit like the concept up at this point. Maybe if Inafune had shelled out for a developer like Inti Creates they could have made a visually appealing game.
I just hope once you see it, you don't have to see it again. I doubt it has this much polish, but I'm hoping when you go in for a stage after your first time through it, it will either give you the option or just not do the cut-in dialogue.
Before someone whines, "bu-bu-but that was the concept footage!" a reminder that we were given this initial test footage:
Sure, it has a giant placeholder warning at the bottom, but I don't think most of us expected the final product to look much worse.
They apparently put more effort into the test just to make everyone think it would be good
Because the final game looks like utter horseshit
The Albatross
Member
It looks like a mobile ripoff of a console game, and looks like it plays with touch controls.
But this very early footage looks damn close to the concept art - and a million times better than the final product. So it was clearly possible to make something that closely resembled the concept art. Why they didn't keep this art direction is beyond me
Before someone whines, "bu-bu-but that was the concept footage!" a reminder that we were given this initial test footage:
Sure, it has a giant placeholder warning at the bottom, but I don't think most of us expected the final product to look much worse.
Dreadful?
I agree with Jim. It looks like a competent MM clone... What exactly were people expecting here?
I feel like the anti-hype train has distorted people's minds.
LordAmused
Member
Am I paranoid or it runs pretty choppy even in 60p mode on Youtube? I didn't watch the whole video, did Jim talk about optimisation?
I'll give you one guess who the actual developer of Mighty No. 9 is.
exmachina64
Banned
10/10
But this very early footage looks damn close to the concept art - and a million times better than the final product. So it was clearly possible to make something that closely resembled the concept art. Why they didn't keep this art direction is beyond meBefore someone whines, "bu-bu-but that was the concept footage!" a reminder that we were given this initial test footage:
Sure, it has a giant placeholder warning at the bottom, but I don't think most of us expected the final product to look much worse.
The 3DS is literally not capable of such output. Once the 3DS was added as a platform, the ability for the game to look like that disappeared because they wanted to build the game once for every platform.
Dreadful might be a bit of hyperbole, admittedly. But I still think this game doesn't look very good at all
I'm guessing that they want to set up the story, world, and characters for their big cross-media explosion of cartoons, movies, etc. They don't want to do that IN those things for whatever reason, so they did it in the game which led to a bunch of pointless yammering in a genre that never needed it.
The reason is that Comcept decided they wanted to make the game look identical across eight platforms instead of designating the higher-end platforms as the target platforms and downporting to the rest. If they did the latter and focused on PS4/XBO/PC first, it would probably look a lot closer to that prototype footage.
The 3DS and Vita versions are apparently being redone from the ground-up in Unity, and no footage for them has been shown yet, so this argument doesn't work.
(I am pretty certain both versions will be canceled if the console versions don't do well)
WIth the money they raised and the apparent pedigree of the devs it's very reasonable to expect a game that looks better than low tier android marketplace phone garbage
and I do mean garbage