Two Rockman Arrange albums, reviewed

We all know that I love video games. I’ve made no attempt to cover that up at any point in my life. I’ve downplayed it a lot, but never outright hidden the fact that my number one hobby is spending hours with a controller in my hands. It’s not a glamorous hobby, and most certainly not one that wins me any points with the fairer sex, but it’s what I do, and there’s no point in trying to deny who I am. Given, I spend a lot less time with video games than even a year ago, but it’s still a fairly prominent part of my life, and where a huge portion of my personal funds are directed.

So how could this inherently geeky hobby get any geekier? Well, it doesn’t help that I listen to lots and lots of video game music, and have shelled out many hard-earned dollars importing huge game soundtrack collections. You’ve heard me go on many times about how I’m absolutely fanatical about Yoko Shimomura and Motoi Sakuraba’s works, and how I nearly messed my pants in excitement when my copy of the Okami soundtrack arrived, but I never really talk about any of the music that relates to my most deep-rooted video game obsession: MegaMan.

It’s sad but true, I never really blog about how deeply I love the music from the many hundreds of MegaMan games out there. I may have mentioned it in passing many years ago when I wrote that article about why I’m such a Mega-fanboy, but other than that, I’ve never really touched on it for more than maybe a short paragraph once every God-knows-how-long. Today, I shall begin to remedy this situation though, as I have not one, but two discs worth of shimmery remixed Mega-goodness. Enter the 20th Anniversary Rockman 1-6 Arrange albums.

Left: Wily. Right: “Mr. X” (Spoiler: It’s Wily in disguise!)

I recently purchased these two arrange albums from Play-Asia, and have been listening to them maybe not quite as often as my fanboyism might lead you to believe, but more than enough. I’m sure that there are still people out there who would be shocked to learn that people produce and pay for soundtracks to video games, and possibly even more shocked to learn that I fall into the latter category. It’s no surprise to long-time readers, but the last time I mentioned that I collected video game soundtracks, there was an obvious air of confusion afterward. My parents even, who I’ve explained it to many times, are still dumbfounded whenever I receive a new one in the mail. I can understand that it’s a very niche genre, yes, but how is it so hard to understand? But I digress.

As the whole “Rockman 1-6” part up there might have clued you in on, these two CDs specialize specifically in music from the original run of MegaMan/Rockman (I’ll be using Rockman from now on. First-timers, they’re the same thing) games on the NES. Depending on your knowledge of all things Rockman, you may not be surprised by this fact, but overall the CDs weight very heavily in the favour of material from Rockman 2, whilst the first, fourth, and fifth games are all represented very sparingly, with only one dedicated track per disc. Yes, I know and agree that Rockman 2 was completely epic in every respect, especially as far as music goes, but you’ve gotta give the underdogs a little more credit. On the upside, my personal favourite tracks are the medleys, and every game gets its respects (due or not) in those tracks.

The ROCK CD, which was the first one I got, is obviously more oriented towards rock-style remixes. In that respect, it does not disappoint. The albums opens with the most killer “Boss Mix Medley”, which alone is reason enough to look into this disc. It is an impeccable track that combines a handful of what are essentially throwaway pieces (boss music is usually a 30-second loop at best) into a hard-rocking six-and-a-half-minute tour-de-force that will melt your face right off. It is simply awesome. Its follow-up track, “Cutman Mix”, does it perfect justice, as it takes the already stellar Cutman theme, changes the pacing a little, and makes the whole thing a wonderful sequence of guitars hammering out the verses and screaming solos like they’re going out of style.

At this point the CD goes up and down. I can’t fully appreciate their new spin on the MetalMan theme, but the infamous Dr. Wily theme from Rockman 2 comes out in full force with a wailing guitar duet that just won’t quit. Shadowman’s theme is nice, but is somewhat lost on me, and I honestly cannot believe that they managed to pull a whole 3:30 of non-repetitive material out of a “get weapon” theme for the “Get A Weapon (Rockman 3)” track. The Dr. Cossack theme was never my favourite track from Rockman 4 (though they mixed it quite nicely), and I can’t say the second Wily theme on the disc is overly impressive. “Yamatoman Mix” features an instrument that I’m not smart enough to identify (I may be a moron and it may very well just be an acoustic guitar) which plays a tune in the background of the entire song, and hits the foreground at the beginning, the end, and whenever the electric guitars take a breather between verses. It’s definitely makes the song stand out, and gives it a nice Asian vibe. “Tomahawkman Mix” has what might be the fastest solo on the album, though it could have been so much more epic if it had lasted even ten seconds longer. Like “Boss Mix Medley” before it, “Title Mix Medley” takes all the title screen themes and blends them together into a track that can only be described as awesome. It won’t blow you away quite as handily as the former, but if you’ve got a thing for fancy guitar work, you’ll love it to death.

After getting and playing the snot out the ROCK disc, I decided to go ahead and reunite it with its peppy twin brother, TECHNO. I’ll admit that I’m not a huge techno fan, but I’ve got at least a dozen various other Rockman remix albums on my PC that are mostly techno-centric (which I do quite enjoy), so it was a risk I was more than willing to take. TECHNO opens with a fairly competent “Stage Select Mix Medley”, which like the boss medley, takes a bunch of throwaway tracks and makes them into something worth far more than the sum of its parts. The ROCK disc was all about the screaming guitars and blistering solos, and the TECHNO disc comes right out the gate with pulsing synthesizers and heavy percussion that let you know that it’s going to be living up to its name. Elecman’s theme is next on the chopping block, and it’s slowed down considerably, though unlike another particular mix, does not invoke the feeling that you might be listening to a rip-off of Journey’s “Faithfully”. The constant thump of the bass drums and the peppy synth contrasts the slower tempo and floaty choruses to make sure that you’re grooving and not mellowing out. After that, we see the return of Rockman 2’s first Wily theme, and to tell the truth, I don’t think anyone has ever done a bad remix of this track. Regardless of genre, speed, or instruments used, this is just an overall wonderful piece, and Capcom’s skilled sound crew certainly put it through its paces here. The rock version does it justice with fiery guitar leads, and the techno version will storm you and make you want get up and move move move with its high-speed thump thump thump.

Sadly, those three tracks set far too great a precedent for the following pieces, as they’re simply mediocre in comparison. On it’s own though, “Quickman Mix” has a wonderful metallic vibe going for it, and as much as I want to praise the great, punctuated chorus-type bit, the song relies far too much on the main tune to really be a kickass techno track. “Airman Mix” has an airy (no pun intended) lead-in that lasts far too long, but once it gets going you’ll be able to feel that beat coursing through you. Oddly enough, I feel that this one makes too little use of the base tune, only bringing it in for short bits at a time. “Heatman Mix” doesn’t really do anything for me personally, but I can’t get over how much I love the “Snakeman Mix”. The high tempo and the bridges (which I can only think of as “carnival-esque”) really work for me, and the original tune is peppy enough to inspire at least a little bopping along. The revised Magnetman theme is another one that I consider entirely missable, and the second Wily track on this disc doesn’t exactly inspire me to create a Facebook group dedicated to it. Honestly, the less said about “Starman Mix”, the better. It has a nice spacey sound, but otherwise alls flat on the grounds of impressing me. “Flameman Mix” fares a little better, but only because I really like the original song. Unfortunately, the techno disc does not end on another wonderful medley, which officially makes me a very sad panda, but I won’t dwell on it because it’s a techno CD and I didn’t exactly expect to be blown away by it to begin with.

Besides the fact that they both feature mixes of the “Dr. Wily 1” track from Rockman 2, the two CDs have but one thing in common. That would be that they both contain short versions of all the original tunes used in the mixes. You may look at the track listing and see a robust 20/21 tracks on each, but then you’ll notice that half of them are just the original 8-bit chiptunes directly from the NES games. And that’s not an entirely bad thing, say if you’re trying to educate someone who liked the mixes on the background of the music, but a much better way to do that would be to have them actually play the original Rockman games. Or to play the games and have them watch, because seriously, someone who has never played one of the old Rockman games by this point likely won’t be playing any video games other than Wii Sports anytime soon.

Overall, I’d say that these are two very solid albums, and make a very good case of representing Rockman’s 20-plus-year legacy, regardless of how niche it’s become over the ages. I’d recommend both albums to diehard Rockman fans, but only the ROCK disc to the general populace, as the mixes are a little more interesting on that one. If you’re interested in owning them legitimately (and God knows you aren’t), I most definitely recommend procuring them through Play-Asia.com, as I snagged them both for a debatably reasonable price of about $30 each, whereas Amazon is charging $42.99 for the ROCK disc and a whopping $72.99 for the TECHNO CD. It’s not cheap either way (retail game soundtracks never are), but at least your wallet won’t get completely raped if you order from Play-Asia. Of course, if you’re up to searching for a better price, I won’t stop you.

So I won’t miss you

Edwin had informed me that in the previous post I had made a typo and dated it the 32nd of February. He then joked that the shortest month had suddenly become the longest. It’s funny though, that February has been abolutely crawling by for me. Don’t know why, but rather than obsessively checking the time to make sure I wasn’t wasting any, I’ve been pressed to find ways to while away my free time. I don’t know if March will put time back in its normal paces, but here’s hoping.

In other news, I watched The Omega Man whilst unable to sleep a couple mornings ago, and despite many, many parallels, it’s very different from the most recent revisioning of the story, I Am Legend. For most of the first half of the movie, you’ll notice all sorts of similarities between the two, having Neville blazing through town in a red car in the opening scene being the most obvious. Even scenes that are completely different, like where he’s reciting lines along with a movie (Woodstock and Shrek, respectively), had me thinking “Hey this is just like in the other one!”.

I think that despite the fact that the movies branch out in very different ways in the middle, I Am Legend is probably the better film overall, but The Omega Man has that wonderful 70’s vibe that I cannot help but love. The one part where I think The Omega Man excels over its newer counterpart would be the scenes where Neville has his shirt off. Charlton Heston’s physique isn’t going to make the common man look inadequate in front of his female peers, unlike Will Smith’s, who they will seriously not shut up about. I mean, come on girls, it’s Hollywood. You can’t possibly expect that kind of rippedness from Average Joe! So stop gushing about the scene where Will Smith is not wearing a shirt, please. If you have to, you can at least have the courtesy to do it while I’m not around. Jeez.

So yeah. I got a semi-review and two complaints out in one blog post. I think that’s pretty good. I guess it’s back to killing time for me then. I’m sure there’s probably something productive I could be doing.

Whatcha gonna do?

You may have heard something recently about the next Guitar Hero game. If you haven’t, I have some news that may disturb or excite you: It’s all Aerosmith. Yeah. Harsh. I mean, it’s just an “expansion” like the 80’s edition, but still. There are a lot of other bands I’d much rather have entire Guitar Hero games based on. Off the top of my head, let’s see…

  • Tesla
  • Helix
  • The Ataris
  • Rush
  • Sons of Butcher

And the list goes on, really. I mean, I like Aerosmith, but a whole game worth of them is a lot to take. I really don’t see myself buying into this one. Which is sad, because I’m pretty much ready to drop money on new Guitar Hero games at the drop of the hat. But Aerosmith… Man, I really wish it was Tesla instead. I fuckin’ love Tesla.

This damn girl’s spun my head right around

Last week was without a doubt the most eventful seven days of my life to this point, and nothing really even happened between Monday and Wednesday. I am completely worn out right now, and should be catching up on sleep instead of blogging it up. Alas, old habits die hard.

In between all the things that keep me out of the house, I’ve been enjoying No More Heroes like it’s nobody’s business. It’s the biggest third-party Wii title for a reason. I know there are those out there who may not completely agree, but I think it’s totally living up to the hype I had built up around it, and that’s saying something because I’ve been watching it intently ever since the first trailer was leaked.

The most obvious victory for No More Heroes is the characters. Travis Touchdown is one of the baddest asses I’ve ever seen, and might even be more awesome than Dan Smith from Killer7. He’s an ex-pro-wrestler otaku who’s current job just happens to be killing. He’s blunt, crude, and quite possibly insane. And that’s before you factor in all the other UAA assassins, who are all reasonably interesting in their own rights. It’s just too bad that the main objective of the game is to make them all dead, because I wouldn’t mind seeing a few of those characters fleshed-out in a sequel/spin-off. Ah well, win some lose some I guess. Various other support characters linger about in the few main attractions of Santa Destroy, but none of them have nearly enough screen time. I say this because the few lines/actions/etc they are given are usually either straight-up hilarious or absurd to the point of hilarity.

Shinobu, the samurai schoolgirl, WILL murder you. Many times.

I suppose I should mention somewhere that the game is fun, too. The meat, which would be fighting the other assassins, is incredible. Like their personalities, each battle is completely different and provides many new and exciting ways to be killed. Hacking your way through legions of same-dressed goons on your way to each assassin showdown will provide plenty of fun too. Tons of games have had you battle through masses of enemies, but only No More Heroes makes it worth it by pure style alone. The animations and sound effects bring you right into the action, and within seconds you’ll lose yourself to the fight. Mashing the A button swings the beam katana, but every time you finish an enemy, you’ll swing the Wiimote to finish them off. Grabbing stunned enemies invokes a motion-activated wresting move, and no matter how you choose to dispose of the hordes of peons, each and every kill will be absolutely thrilling.

The biggest complaint point I’ve heard so far is the overworld. I’ll give those complainers a small degree of merit, because truthfully, it is pretty janky. Hitboxes on cars and people are enormous when compared to the actual models (which are blocky and poorly textured), and more often than not, when you’ve flown off your bike because you’ve rammed into a car at full speed, you won’t have been anywhere near that car. On the other hand, buried treasures and Lovikov Balls (essentially GTA “Hidden Packages”) are marked on the map. I cannot even imagine how to explain how much I like this. Yes, it takes the challenge out of finding them all, but I have never enjoyed hunting for unmarked baubles. Besides, you still have to manually search the entire city to find all the dumpsters, many which contain new T-shirts. So if you need that hunt-and-find element, it’s still there. In any case, fooling around in Santa Destroy isn’t nearly as bad as some make it out to be, but the city could certainly have benefited from a little more time in production.

I honestly could not mention everything I love about this game and keep this blog-post length, but at the same time, I don’t really want to spoil all the fantastic surprises, jokes and nuances that make the game so irresistible. So I’ll end on this note: No More Heroes is something to be experienced. If you have a Wii, you should definitely at least rent it as many times as it takes you to finish the game. If you don’t own a Wii, go steal one from a smarter family member or friend (but not me) and then play it. It’s not something to be missed.

Satisfaction guarantees

It’s kind of sad that despite how much I enjoy Guitar Hero 3, I’ve almost completely neglected it ever since Rock Band came into my home. I feel bad for this, but aside from maybe like “F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.” and “Knights of Cydonia”, the song list is at least 27 times better in Rock Band. It may have something to do with the infinitely superior DLC support; I suppose you just can’t compete with new material every week. I’m still waiting on a Def Leppard pack though.

As much weight as the track list may carry, the other big difference is the drum kit. I mainly play alone (or online, which isn’t much different), so the multiplayer aspect isn’t a huge draw, but those drums are like a little bit of Heaven. They’re extremely hard to learn, but I’ve got it down to the point where I can at least manage to scrape through most songs on hard, so I’m doing okay as far as game progress goes. But just playing for fun, the normal difficulty is more than enough. It provides a challenge, but doens’t have quite enough tricks to really throw you off. Learning to play the drum kit has given me a much bigger satisfaction payoff than playing the plastic guitar ever did. It feels absolutely amazing just to pound away to the beat, and accomplishing hard sections without missing a note is total bliss. I could recommend Rock Band based on the drum section alone.

Did I mention that drumming is the greatest way to relieve tension ever? No? Well it is. Seriously, I can boot up the game and be all stressed or whatever other negative emotions might plague the human soul, and by the time I’m two songs in I feel like I’m on top of the world. It’s like a magic cure for the blues.

As much as I would love to continue jabbering on about drums and Rock Band, or Hell, actually playing the game, I have homework to do. Yeah. Homework. From work. Trying to get ahead is a pain.

Getting “the talk”

My mother turned the most mudane conversation into a completely uncomforatable experience today.

You see, we were simply talking about shoes. I’m not a big shoe-type guy, so at one point I mentioned that I felt that shoes were little more than foot protection. And then she noted that I was going to be needing a lot of foot protection soon. Only “foot” was a euphamism.

There’s a story about why exactly I’d be needing such a thing, but we’ll save that for a more appropriate time.

Photo fun

You know what I really love? Facebook. For one, it’s actually rekindled my sense of friendship. It’s not like MySpace was, where all I’d ever do was change my profile song. I’m actually posting on people’s walls and pictures, and even playing Oregon Trail online! Oregon friggin’ Trail! I’ve been kind of down on people for the last however long, but as of late, I’ve found that I’ve become much more comfortable around people on the whole, and I credit this development entirely to Facebook, for giving me an easy way to dip my toes into the waters of socialization.

But even better than that, it’s a place where I can post the most inane photos of myself and people can’t help but see them! Yeah, I can put up all the pictures I want here, but like three people will ever see any. Facebook pretty much forces them on others. Take the moustache picture I posted a while back, for example:

Totally hilarious, and people actually brought it up in not-internet conversation. It’s hard to come up with gold like that, but I’m thinking that my Facebook page will now play host to a gallery of humorous pictures of myself, along with the ones that are there simply to please my vanity. Now it’s just going to be a challenge figuring out things that will be just as or more funny than that picture up there.

I’m ready to go off

Time for a very quick Band of the Month post. Why quick? Because I really can’t come up with a band that I want to yap about but haven’t covered in the past. Maybe I’ll have to start renaming bands? Nah. I’ll just have to go outside my favourites, I guess.

Anyway, this month is a total cop-out. I’ve selected the Matthew Good Band as BotM for February, but I already did pretty good coverage of them back in October of oh-five when I gave Matthew Good the title. It’s understandable then that there isn’t much else to elaborate on.

I guess if there’s anything to say that I haven’t said on that page or in the (poorly-kept) CD archive, it’s that the MGB was the first band I really got into. Van Halen was the first rock band that I ever listened to by choice, but MGB completely enraptured me. Good’s solo career continues to keep me interested, and I’ve listened to his latest release, Hospital Music, no less than 30 times since I bought it. What can I say? He’s a frickin’ genius.

That’s really all I’ve got to say today. And hey, it’s 4:30 in the morning on a Sunday. Give me a break. I should have been asleep like forever ago.

matthewgood.org

Wikipedia entry on Matthew Good Band

Buy Beautiful Midnight

Buy The Audio of Being

Smashing good times

So now that January is over, I can really claim 2008 to be far superior to 2007. January sucked total balls last year, and really set a bad precedent for the months to follow. January ’08, however, has been filled with nothing but awesome. Okay, maybe there have been a few downers here and there, but they’ve been entirely my fault and not the world trying to stick it to me. In conclusion, I think I’m going to be happy this year. Don’t let my sullen disposition and Facebook page fool you; I’m quite content on the inside.

Things are only going to get better though, and I can tell you this with no reservation, because today somebody posted a video on YouTube that features every character’s final smash in Brawl. And I mean every character, so you should know there are spoilers ahead, and if you care, don’t watch this video.

I was kind of excited about final smashes when they were first announced, because I thought it would be neat for every character to have a one-shot, incredibly overpowered, absolutely fantastic finishing move. And while some are more broken than others, for the most part, they deliver. Seeing screens on the Dojo was kinda meh, but watching them in action is pure bliss. PK Starstorm!! Ha. I love it. Did I mention that I love the background music? At this point I’m anticipating the soundtrack almost as much as the game proper.