I should probably quote my long-ass chat rant (from SI) on the matter so I guess I'll do that real quick.
Obviously there's been some cherry-picking of strictly the relevant posts to the subject (this entire post is one big copypaste) as well as skipping sections that deviated.
(13:13:54) Lamda: let's look at MN9 from the very start
(13:14:24) Lamda: inafune going OH YEAH CAPCOM WELL FUCK YOU I'LL GO MAKE MY OWN MEGAMAN AND IT'LL BE BETTER THAN ANYTHING YOU CAN MAKE NOWADAYS SINCE I'M INAFUNE AND I MADE MEGAMAN GREAT BACK IN THE DAY
(13:14:34) Lamda: and then informing the world of his plans
(13:15:10) Lamda: people went batshit nuts in the hype that inafune was gonna go back to the skills that made MM a classic series and bring something fresh and new and exciting to the table for a content-starved fanbase to sink its teeth into
(13:15:19) Lamda: the kickstarter started
(13:15:34) Lamda: money poured in from eager fans wanting as much funding and exclusive merch as they could get
(13:15:56) Lamda: it's inafune making a brand-new megaman-esque title, right? what could go wrong, it's gotta be awesome!
(13:16:07) Lamda: then the delays started happening
(13:16:42) Lamda: people began to grow impatient and annoyed, but many chalked it up to development being a bitch of a process but retained hope that because it was inafune it would be all right in the end
(13:16:50) Lamda: then the videos and trailers started coming out
(13:16:58) Lamda: looking bland and uninteresting as it does now
(13:17:13) Lamda: hope dropped a little but people clung to it still because "oh it's just early in development you'll see it'll be great"
(13:17:19) Lamda: then more delays
(13:17:43) Lamda: then weak attempts to placate people by introducing HOLY SHIT BRAND NEW CHARACTERS THAT HAVE NEVER BEFORE BEEN SEEN AND oh wait that's literally just zero
(13:17:58) Lamda: hope dips a little further
(13:18:18) Lamda: and the cycle of delays and lack of actually invigorating updates to keep people satiated until release continued
(13:18:38) Lamda: eventually people started to get kinda pissed off at the whole thing and expressed their disdain
(13:19:20) Lamda: other games emerged on similar premises of "hey we're gonna revive this series because it deserves it" banking on nostalgia points
(13:19:32) Lamda: things like yooka-laylee exploded and diverted attention from MN9
(13:19:45) Lamda: then you have other industry events like the ordeal with konami
(13:19:58) Lamda: which surely affected some people and how they came to view big-name devs
(13:20:49) Lamda: i know that (if i hadn't already known, that is) if i saw konami openly display how little it understood its fanbase, and looked back at the game i helped fund that's been dragged through dev hell again and again with nothing interesting to show for it
(13:21:09) Lamda: i'd probably grow to dislike that game's head just as i would dislike konami for their bullshit
(13:21:21) Lamda: then you have the demo release which was everything people feared
(13:21:23) Lamda: boring
(13:21:24) Lamda: linear
(13:21:27) Lamda: uninteresting
(13:21:50) Lamda: fun to look at and plop around in for all of five minutes before the initial charm wore off and you realized just how empty of substance it actually was
(13:22:03) Lamda: faith in the project and inafune drops even more
(13:22:30) Lamda: finally after MORE delays one dude gets pissed off enough to share a full-game leak for the 360 build on /v/ and do a full run of it
(13:23:02) Lamda: and lo and behold the entire game from start to finish is just as bland and repetitive and lacking in uniqueness and substance as the demo
(13:23:45) Lamda: people who had doubts but kept clinging to hope, trusting in inafune to deliver because of nostalgia, finally saw what they'd been waiting so long for
(13:23:48) Lamda: and it was shit
(13:23:55) Lamda: all that money
(13:24:15) Lamda: all that time waiting for the team that obviously has no understanding how to handle public relations and marketing strategies
(13:24:35) Lamda: and it went towards a boring pile of recycled shit
(13:25:24) Lamda: oh hey look at all these characters that are totally origina-oh wait, nope, that's literally roll, basically zero with some protoman elements, a jolly fat dude helping out who could easily just be a young thomas light without a beard
//a few minutes later//
(13:31:10) Corvus: so how should they have handled it?
(13:31:37) Lamda: probably by not spending so much time trying to appeal to nostalgia by having shitty recycled character inserts
(13:31:53) Lamda: probably by investing more time in thoughtful game design
(13:32:06) Lamda: probably by having a more competent PR team
(13:33:02) Corvus: yeah, I agree. Now that I think about it, MN9 is pretty much an indirect, desperate attempt to give the fans more megaman.
(13:33:14) Lamda: yeah and it failed
(13:33:26) Lamda: probably in part to inafune not wanting to deviate from his little blue baby
(13:33:27) The_Walrus: mn9 is literally inafune seeing an opportunity to get money out of gullible fans and taking it
(13:33:58) Lamda: ^i'd bet money on that...jk funding toward inafune is a bad idea
(13:34:04) Lamda: think about it
(13:34:16) Lamda: how fucking starved for decent official content is the MM fanbase
(13:34:18) Lamda: hell
(13:34:21) Lamda: content in general
(13:34:40) Lamda: even counting fangames--how many of the more popular fan projects are still in development with no real release date announced?
(13:34:48) Lamda: MM fanbase is content starved
(13:35:06) The_Walrus: i think the issue is let content starvation
(13:35:07) Lamda: who better to get a quick and easy buck out of them than the dude who fathered the thing they all want more of?
(13:35:32) The_Walrus: and more the fanbase being used to content oversaturation
(13:36:57) Lamda: like
(13:37:00) Lamda: think about it
(13:37:04) Lamda: why does there NEED to be more shit [continuing or adding to existing storylines]?
(13:37:17) Lamda: like if capcom released a new MMZ series game that was actually pretty good
(13:37:24) Lamda: would it even be necessary?
(13:37:33) The_Walrus: the z series is over so of course not
(13:37:46) The_Walrus: even an elf wars prologue would be so "...why"
(13:37:55) Lamda: exactly, but how do you think the fanbase would react?
(13:38:19) The_Walrus: idk how the fanbase would react at this point
(13:38:22) The_Walrus: a lot of them hate capcom
(13:38:25) The_Walrus: and now inafune and inti
(13:38:27) Lamda: they'd blow up and foam at the mouth to get it and then only AFTER making fools of themselves for acting like rabid dogs would they realize the unnecessariness of the game and bitch online about it
(13:38:32) The_Walrus: so who would be left to care
(13:38:54) Lamda: a lot of the ones who hate capcom are the kinds of gamers who think gaming companies should just pander to their every whim and don't actually understand how the industry works
(13:39:11) Lamda: nobody, that's the point
(13:39:45) Lamda: the fanbase is so fucking dichotomous that it would absolutely buy any new official MM game but only complain about its flaws after they gushed about it
(13:42:27) Rhythm: the fanbase doesn't know collectively what it wants anymore
(13:42:35) Rhythm: they want nostalgia but they want new
(13:42:40) Rhythm: they want sequels but they want a new direction
(13:42:49) Rhythm: they want endings but they don't want it to end
Obviously the above doesn't pertain to literally everyone in the fanbase but it sure as hell applies to a great deal of it
And to think there was a period where I felt bad about not chipping in--looking at things now I'm glad I didn't waste throw any money at this.
Ending pic's pretty cool though so it has that going for it. :P
(https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FyxcDdGD.png&hash=7489a192e15b1b6f8b8c53917f9376e7b3c1c521)
Besides I have a serious doubt: Does the "M2" in the staff roll have any relationship to the M2 team behind Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth? It blows my mind like another nightmare returns... Is here anybody know about it?
(https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1380.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fah181%2FAceearly1993%2F20160701071244_zpsdh7aprsh.png&hash=d2f75e5c205814723d907f6c7185eb6be2a99cb7)
EDIT: Beat the game ... The damage amount of enemies are just SO unbalanced that I have absolutely no idea about it, I can't believe that it's the damn normal difficulty... And there's not even a easy mode, so There must be something wrong within it, maybe the damage amount adjustment was wrong (Probably the damage amount of enemies were planned for a hard/expert mode but was goddamn scrapped and the normal mode eventually loaded it; The original enemy damage amount for normal, on the other hand, was probably unused/dummied/scrapped...or there would be a easy mode for plan but was unused/dummied out/scrapped in the final release...) Or perhaps all I said was fake/lie/theory without root and the damage amount things were totally f**ked up FOR THE FIRST TIME/DESIGNED THAT WAY/ON PURPOSE...
And the most questionable thing is the final boss.
The electrical spiked area mentioned before... There're really no help about it, the design was crazied; Plus the lack of easy mode is sure the pain in the balls when everyone sucked by/suffered from it
Also I think the ending was not written properly (Or the developers were setting further plans for sequels... I can find a little Lords of Shadow 2 in the ending; It seems that the female robot were about to say something but here her dialogue was forced to be dropped by planners)..........
Personally I like her design (the female robot form, after Beck freed her from craziness) but I'm not an in-depth/core fan of her since she was once the goddamn final boss that gave us players all the suffer and torture through the damage unbalanced game.
It's not really a "such bad" game, instead the balance control of enemies' damage was not enough
PS: Playing around No.8 during boss battle was fun and the shots remind me Diamond/Rebounded stone in some Castlevania titles. I like the design of stage and boss though the stage itself was painful and tough. I also like the return of English VA of Sigma but VAT? MMX7? Amazing.
Yes, the game contains lots of X7 parody. Yes, X7.