Standing in front of Beck is what happens when xel manipulation technology goes horribly wrong and his long-lost sister.
Beneath of the colorful setting and characters in the spirit of Capcom's Mega Man franchise, Mighty No. 9 reminds of us of the horrors when man-made robots goes awry as its spiritual predecessor has and the potential dangers that nanomachines have when in the wrong hands.Unmarked story and character spoilers below!
- The "Potential DLC" trailer.
The video starts in grayscale, with a thunderstorm in the background. A flash of lightning briefly shows a cloaked figure in a dismantled state... And then begins the ominous countdown, from 9 all the way to 1. Suddenly, cue the Interface Screw as 0 fills the screen, followed by a "WARNING!" screen. When we cut back, the screen flashes to show all the Mighty Numbers laying half-destroyed splayed out on the ground. Only Beck is left standing... to face a tall, shadowed robot sporting a demonic glare and a Slasher Smile as pictured. - The Vermilion Destroyer trailer. The ambient music throughout the video, the heartbeat, how RAY's buster arm just explodes into the new transformation plus her screaming in pain, and the creepy text that fills the screen after it.
- "Get crushed...", "Shut up!", "I can see you...", "Didn't you know?", "More..."
- The ending line is "Why, why am I still alive...?"
- If you listen closely while playing as RAY, you can hear heartbeats as her HP diminishes.
- RAY's stage in-game is pretty jarring for a game controlling a timid robot trying to save the world. The second you break down that wall in the beginning of her stage, all hell breaks loose. Worms sometimes swing by to-and-fro in the ceiling and randomly break apart to follow Beck. Some worms can't be affected by Beck's bullets. Small flying bat-like robots will stick to Beck and suck his life out if he doesn't shake them off, along with zombie-like robots that can barely hold their own torso up and charge at you if you get close. To top it off, there's a mountain of robot corpses right before her boss room, and red liquid strewn about throughout the stage which may bring back some memories from a certain cutscene from X's part in Mega Man X4.
- One computer screen says "RAY CORE SYSTEM". The picture below the text showed a core inside a triangle-shaped hole. RAY's core is very faulty, and it's her version of Beck's own abilities. She has the same exact ability to assimilate xels... and unlike Beck, she uses it to eat robots, which is a necessity for her own core to work.
- The ending of RAY's DLC story in Mighty No. 9. When she had thought she'd be able to pull through after being repaired by Beck, her xel deterioration comes back on the way to Sanda Labs and it worse than before, and she quickly became consumed by her feral instincts to devour robots. The climax of her DLC campaign in Mighty Gunvolt Burst doesn't make things any better, as we're presented with her final moments as Raychel in the virtual world before what was left of her sanity finally veered into the deep end as the Vermilion Destroyer.
- The discovery of the final boss, Trinity. Or more accurately, the Colosseum after Trinity assimilated it. Her voice is one part siren, the other part a little girl's scream. One would have to wonder if Trinity went through the same kind of torment that RAY was subjected to before her bad programming got the better of her and turned her into the virus-ridden monstrosity that nearly caused all robots in America to berserk. What probably makes it worse for Trinity is her lack of a mouth or any form of vocal communication prior to her clashes with Beck and being reconstructed.
- Her second form during the final battle, where she turns from a giant blob of corrupted xels to a malformed flower-like worm with segments of her body that resembles eyeballs that twitches sporadically.
- Imagine that, one day, you happen to own a robot made for household use such as the Dust Boxer (a robotic garbage bin), then out of the blue, it goes rogue and starts lobbing dangerous explosives at you or loved one. Now imagine when something made for security or military purposes likes the Combroids or Semi Marus start running amok against civilians or rise up against the military. Despite their cartoony and seemingly harmless design, some of these robots are more dangerous than they let on.
- It takes a while to kick in, but Professor White is surprisingly off-putting. The entire game, he stays oddly cold and distant, never getting particularly excited about Beck's victories, nor overly concerned about roadblocks. When one of the Mighty Numbers shows off their stuff, he's completely blunt and nonchalant about "that's what he's supposed to do," and just overall comes off as creepy. That's not even getting into the stinger for RAY's campaign. Let's just say, there's a reason there's an Alternative Character Interpretation to the character.
- There's something unsettling about looking at a robot's endoskeleton◊ underneath their bodies, such as seeing their teeth, eyes, or circuitry.
GAME OVER
