11. Mighty No. 9
It's impossible to talk about highly anticipated indie games without mentioning Mighty No. 9. The game is still a ways off, but it's already a legend in the industry. The story, in case you've been living under a rock this past year, is that former head of R&D at Capcom and Mega Man series producer, Keiji Inafune, decided in 2013 to lead the charge and become one of the first major Japanese developers to launch a Kickstarter game project. In what some have considered a monumental act of passive aggression against his former employer, the project in question bore a deliberate resemblance to the very Mega Man franchise that Capcom no longer seemed interested in working on.
After becoming the fourth most funded videogame project in Kickstarter history, Inafune's company comcept set to work with a dream team of partners. On primary development duties is Inti Creates, best known for producing Mega Man 9 and 10, the Mega Man Zero and ZX sub-series, and most recently Azure Striker Gunvolt on 3DS. On music composition is Manami Matsumae, who I already mentioned a couple of pages back is responsible for the soundtrack to the original Mega Man on NES. And of course, the use of Kickstarter to seek creative input from fans calls to mind the community-driven "Devroom" that was to be the foundation of Mega Man Legends 3.
Despite some minor hiccups here and there, Mighty No. 9 has already amassed a wealth of potential. Now it just has to live up to it when it launches in 2015 on not just Wii U and 3DS, but also Windows, OS X, Linux, PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox One, and Xbox 360.
