Lurker > Raetsel_Lapin

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113.MM8-[Dr. Light's Lab]


[Elimination Pie %]: 7/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 5/10

[YouTube Score]: 15 Likes, 1 Dislike=14 (1/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 715 (7/10)

[Total]: 20/40


Ya know, I think I enjoy this song. It's short, but so peaceful and relaxing that it might be the best of the very short looping ones. This is one of the only two Dr. Light related songs on the list (Destroyed Lab from the seventh game being the other), which makes sense since he didn't do a hell of a lot in any of the games. 8 is probably his most notable role and everyone only remembers it due to his questionable voice acting.

Honestly the voices never bothered me, but then I'm the type of person that thinks Lymle was a top tier Star Ocean character and enjoyed Chaos Wars:




I'll take something I can laugh at over whatever passes for good game voice acting any day.
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73.MM8-[Intro]


[Elimination Pie %]: 8/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 7/10

[YouTube Score]: 53 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=106 (4/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 587 (6/10)

[Total]: 25/40

First, a version of this with the animation, since I'm gonna talk about that:



I wasn't able to appreciate this video when I first played the game. I may have played other games in the series, but the only one I'd finished was 7, so I didn't have much nostalgia for them. Now, watching Mega Man fight Robot Masters from each of the earlier games... now I "get" it, in a way I couldn't have at the time.

Song itself is nice enough. I give it a lot of bonus points because it's one of the few songs I instantly recognized, but it's not that special.
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40.MM10-[Blade Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 8/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 9/10

[YouTube Score]: 163 Likes, 3 Dislikes=160 (5/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 1,336 (9/10)

[Total]: 31/40

I don't know what this South Korean TV show is, but Google is pretty sure you want information on it and not the Robot Master. If you narrow the search down to Mega Man, you'll see that this character features a striking resemblance to an entry from one of Nintendo Power's "design-a-Robot-Master" contests:

http://www.rockman-corner.com/2010/01/mm10s-blade-man-solar-man-inspired-by.html

Swords for arms, check. Sword on head, check. Purple as the main color, check. Black as the secondary color, check. Pointy silver toes, check. Called "Blade Man", check.

Sure the designs aren't identical, but that's an awful lot of similarities to be coincidental... though I'm sure Capcom retains the rights to all contest submissions, so it wouldn't really matter if they ripped it off, would it? *shrugs*


There was also a completely unrelated Blade Man in the PC game called Mega Man 3. I still haven't gotten around to playing that one; I finished the first when I was going through a "must complete every game with Mega Man in the title that is available in America" spree, but I lost interest before reaching that one.. The first isn't a good game, but it's charming in its own way...IIRC everything in it was created by one person & if you look at it as a very early, completely original fan game...it's actually kinda neat. Not good, but neat.
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{...odd that a song gets such a high score for me and I don't devote a single word to the song itself, but my screwy list is what it is.}
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99.MM6-[Centaur Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 6/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 3/10

[YouTube Score]: 87 Likes, 1 Dislike=86 (3/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 1,961 (10/10)

[Total]: 22/40

The song is unique. I don't think I'm a fan of it, but I'll give it credit for being different.


Centaur Man is in my top 10 Robot Masters, though I'm not sure he breaks the top 5. Honestly, the only ranking I’m dead set on is Pharaoh Man as the greatest Robot Master of all time, I'd have a hard time placing the rest of my top 10 in any specific order.

I love that he's based on a mythical creature--Splash Woman being the only other mythical robot in the classic series canon, though there was another centaur in Rockman Strategy--that his design is completely unique (unless you include said Strategy centaur), and that his powers are actually suited for combat. The Centaur Flash attack creates a dimensional disruption that alters the flow of time & can destroy weak enemies.


Yes, it's the third Time Stop weapon and thus completely uninteresting. The description of the attack is great, which is more than you can honestly expect from Mega Man 6. In Power Fighters 2, Centaur Man's weapon was replaced with the Centaur Arrow...a stupid arrow that would occasionally fly at an angle just to mess you up--which I can only assume was done to agitate anyone who complained about the Flash. "Oh, you want a brand new weapon instead of a recycled one? Fine! Maybe you get an arrow that you can't aim! HOW'S THAT? ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!?"


For reasons that I don't think were ever explained, the Rockman 6 manga had the shocking twist that Centaur Man was actually a woman.

http://www.themmnetwork.com/blog/2012/06/23/remember-that-time-centaur-man-turned-out-to-be-a-woman

I think that would have been interesting. The series could have used more female Robot Masters, but sadly, that manga is non-canon. Oh well.


Also, I've heard a few people claim Centaur Man as racist, but I don't get it? Is these some stereotype about Greece and Centaurs that I'm missing or is it just a running gag to call racism on all of MM6's bots, instead of just the actually problematic ones?
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33.MM8-[Dr. Wily Stage 2]


[Elimination Pie %]: 9/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 7/10

[YouTube Score]: 455 Likes, 4 Dislikes=451 (10/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 500 (6/10)

[Total]: 32/40

Much happier theme than the latter two Wily Stages from the 8th game. Not fitting at all for an Evil Skull Fortress, but I think I like it. I hear parts of this song were recycled for Battle Network 3's Title, Final Dungeon, and Ending themes? Just checked out the Final Dungeon theme and I can definitely here it there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL40D70D87E6313A51&v=uKymeuwwtAk

That's slightly interesting. Not sure why this is the song they chose to reuse, but I guess it works well enough.
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83.MM10-[Dr. Wily Battle 2]


[Elimination Pie %]: 7/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 7/10

[YouTube Score]: 171 Likes, 3 Dislikes=168 (6/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 378 (4/10)

[Total]: 24/40

I haven't gone through every game yet, but this is practically guaranteed to be the best Wily Capsule song in the series. While I utterly hate most of the Capsule themes, this is actually a good song for what it is.

...I just realized that with the way Capcom is treating Mega Man these days, this is actually the theme for the final Dr. Wily battle ever. I'm a little sad now...
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Woo! Halfway point!
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89.MM10-[Dr. Wily Stage Boss Battle]


[Elimination Pie %]: 8/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 9/10

[YouTube Score]: 62 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=124 (4/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 116 (2/10)

[Total]: 23/40

Mega Man 10's soundtrack is underrated. I usually hate the Boss songs, but there isn't a bad one in the entire game.
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142.MM10-[Pump Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 4/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 5/10

[YouTube Score]: 141 Likes, 4 Dislikes=137 (5/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 270 (3/10)

[Total]: 17/40

If I had to rank all the Robot Masters, "Evil Water Pump" would be a serious candidate for last place. The song's fine, but... honestly there are several better choices in terms of relaxing music from this series that I'm not sure when I'd ever choose to listen to this.
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112.MM10-[Credits]


[Elimination Pie %]: 7/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 8/10

[YouTube Score]: 15 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=30 (2/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 204 (3/10)

[Total]: 20/40

This song is a lot better than I originally gave it credit for. I had it ranked really low for some reason, but I obviously moved it up.

*two days later*

I did not mean for that first sentence to be a pun.
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97.MM6-[Stage Boss Battle]


[Elimination Pie %]: 8/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 7/10

[YouTube Score]: 168 Likes, 5 Dislikes=163 (6/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 83 (1/10)

[Total]: 22/40


Pretty good, for a boss battle theme. Not nearly as repetitive as most of them are.
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{And with that, I'm afraid I really should be going for the night. I need to get something to eat and things.}
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74.MM10-[Stage Boss Battle]


[Elimination Pie %]: 7/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 8/10

[YouTube Score]: 308 Likes, 3 Dislikes=305 (8/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 168 (2/10)

[Total]: 25/40

You know the theme is good when you get distracted doing something else, leave this playing for 10 straight minutes, and haven't gotten completely sick of the song yet.
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{Probably ranked it too highly, but it's still one of the only battle themes I liked.}
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109.MM9-[Jewel Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 3/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 6/10

[YouTube Score]: 131 Likes, 3 Dislikes=128 (5/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 735 (7/10)

[Total]: 21/40

An uglier version of Crystal Man, who brings yet another Shield Weapon. When you're the seventh person to use a specific weapon & the ugliest one of the bunch, you're pretty much a complete and total failure in terms of design. I guess it's nice that he has the most effective shield in the entire series, but I can't bring myself to care about ANOTHER SHIELD.

The concept art also refers to him as being gay, so... depending on how much credit you want to give Capcom Jewel Man is either an example of diversity or them throwing slurs out to make fun of the robot and gay men in general. ...I have no way of being sure exactly how Capcom wanted their comments to be taken, so for once I shall refrain from speculating.

Song isn't bad.
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148.MM6-[Wind Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 6/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 2/10

[YouTube Score]: 108 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=216 (7/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 77 (1/10)

[Total]: 16/40

A Chinese knock-off of Air Man, inferior in terms of song & character design.
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{Apparently I like a lot of MM6's soundtrack if I felt this was one of its weakest songs and still gave it a 6.}
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34.MM7-[Cloud Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 8/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 10/10

[YouTube Score]: 128 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=256 (8/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 517 (6/10)

[Total]: 32/40

There's apparently a glitch where you can hit Cloud Man before he enters the stage, causing all reality to shatter & instantly killing you.




That's great. There are glitches where you can instantly kill Turbo & Spring Man, but if you try that on Cloud Man then the universe implodes. I think that moved him up a few points on my hypothetical Robot Master rankings alone, and I always kinda liked him to start with.


Song is bright and happy, one of the better tracks in the game.
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61.MM10-[Chill Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 7/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 7/10

[YouTube Score]: 177 Likes, 2 Dislikes=175 (6/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 619 (7/10)

[Total]: 27/40

"Chill Man's primary job as an arctic natural observation robot was to stop glacial melting caused by global warming. He enjoys photography and uses photos of his experiences in the arctic to raise awareness on the Internet of the importance of nature."

...man, now I can only picture him as a Robotic Al Gore.

"Chill Man is the first known ice themed Robot Master to have at least one buster. The others have hands and snow gloves."

That, however, is kinda interesting. Sets him apart from the other Ice Bots.

This is another song that I keep moving up and down the list, it's fluctuated like up and down six spaces today.
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That's fine and I'll try to keep it bumped; I also shouldn't have any problems being around at that time, though apologies in advance if my computer decides to act up again.
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Bump?
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87.MM10-[Strike Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 4/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 5/10

[YouTube Score]: 202 Likes, 1 Dislike=201 (7/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 1,092 (8/10)

[Total]: 24/40

The song starts off as possibly the best in the entire game, then gets goofy after 42 seconds. I get that it's supposed to be a baseball organ or something, but this is (thus far) the only song to change so dramatically at the end of each loop. It just completely kills the immersion.

"Strike Man's weakness to the Triple Blade may be a reference to the baseball term "Three strikes and you're out"

It may be a reference of how blade can cut through the baseball too."

Okay, that's funny. Someone pointing out the weakness related pun (I never got the "three strikes" bit before now), then someone else feels the need to point out that swords are sharper than baseballs. And this is on the Wiki! So far, no one has bothered to remove that random comment.

I think I had a rough time with this level. I thought Evil Baseball would be one of the easiest guys to go after, but that was a mistake... might have been the hardest stage in the game, or at least it felt that way.

Also, did anyone else have flash back to TaleSpin's NES game's fight against a giant, mechanical baseball? No? Alright then.
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77.MM9-[Concrete Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 7/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 6/10

[YouTube Score]: 169 Likes, 2 Dislikes=167 (6/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 576 (6/10)

[Total]: 25/40

I didn't even get the "concrete jungle" pun about having his stage take place in a jungle. I can't decide if that pun is so terrible that I hate the stage, or so terrible that I kinda love it. Concrete Man is a mid-tier Robot Master; he's got a decent design and a good weapon, but he doesn't really stand out.

The Concrete Shot is great. I love that it's one of the few Weapons that also helps with traversing the levels. It can deal damage, trap weak enemies, create small platforms, and can harden magma. It's rare you find a Weapon so versatile in this series.


Song is okay.
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173.MM4-[Dr. Wily Stage 1 & 2]


[Elimination Pie %]: 2/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 4/10

[YouTube Score]: 17 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=34 (2/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 94 (2/10)

[Total]: 10/40

You mean the real villain turned out to be Dr. Wily after all?!? I am shocked! Shocked, I say!
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134.MM3-[Stage Select]


[Elimination Pie %]: 3/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 2/10

[YouTube Score]: 182 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=364 (9/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 340 (4/10)

[Total]: 18/40

Another song I like, but it's just too short to score very highly. I do like that this is the first game where Mega Man's eyes follow your cursor around as you scroll, which was a nice touch. And... that's all I've got. Hard to speak at length about a Stage Select screen.

...this is a 10 minute long loop of the song? That's just excessive.
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{Unfortunately, I didn't really get into The Megas until after everything was already ranked (though I do briefly talk about one of their songs later on; no points for guessing which one, since my signature basically tells you). I'm not a fan of their stuff based on the first two games , but I've listened to History Repeating - Blue on a regular basis the past couple weeks and really like that album.

Its counterpart, History Repeating - Red, doesn't work for me as much. It takes itself too seriously on most of the songs--not that Blue didn't occasionally go too far, with Dr. Light turning into a homicidal maniac singing about how much he wants to watch Wily die, but Top Man & Magnet Man themes were brilliant. There was a build from it starting funny and getting more serious as the songs progressed; Red starts with a depressed Mega Man and doesn't really let up.


Said first song from Red being their take on the Stage Select Theme: "On a Dog". It's one of the three best songs on Red (Harder Than Steel > On a Dog > I'm Not the Breakman? Sounds about right)... there's a bit of dissonance in the song, in that Mega Man is depressed about being reduced to Dr. Light's assassin and on the verge of tears...while flying on a robot dog. It's great and it blends the absurdity of Mega Man 3 with the serious story they're trying to tell in spite of the source material. It just works for me and I can no longer hear this theme without the chorus getting stuck in my head.


...unfortunately for this song (and Mega Man 3 in general), had I gotten into these songs earlier, they would have gotten a much higher Rambling score. This song in particular would get a 10/10 if the above were added to its write-up & it probably would have hit higher under Elimination Pie by being associated with a song I like. Alas, we live in the world where I spent time commenting on Hyadain music and not The Megas.


EDIT: Make that Hard > Break > Dog.}
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62.MM8-[Tengu Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 7/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 3/10

[YouTube Score]: 436 Likes, 11 Dislikes=425 (9/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 836 (8/10)

[Total]: 27/40

Saturn version is better:



Honestly, the Saturn version of the game was just better in general. Besides the better Tengu Man song, you could also fight Cut Man and Wood Man. Not that the fights were interesting, but they were neat Easter eggs. Besides the Saturn version, Tengu Man had a third theme in Mega Man & Bass:





That one is more of a "call waiting" or elevator type song, but probably the best of the three themes. Which leaves the one I'm actually ranking in a rough spot. Being the worst of three themes for one character, it's not something I can justify giving a good score to.

Tengu Man himself is another okay Robot Master that I don't have any strong feelings about. He gives two different weapons in 8 and & Bass, so I guess that's neat.
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{As far as I'm aware, Tengu are supernatural mythical Japanese birdmen.

And again my high bias for Mega Man 8 is on display as "bottom tier song from that Game" & "worst version of three different themes" still manages a 7 under Elimination Pie.}
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[Editor's Note: This probably isn't even the 10 worst things from Rockman X Over, but wow, that graphic is horrible.]

[Editor's Note: Yes, I can put my own editor's note inside my own rambling messages.]


Ice Man appears to have two personae, referring to himself as a soldier (in the first person) and as a commander (in the third person). He is often scared when others show up, prompting the commander persona to have him attack. Nothing about his mental state is displayed in the manual, however, so it's reasonable to assume he is adopting the commander persona as an imaginary friend rather than a split personality.

And he's insane. Does he have a murderous split personality or just an imaginary friend that tells him to shoot people? WHO KNOWS???


Sadly, I could keep going with this all night. I haven't even gotten into how much fun he is play as in Powered Up (yay freezing enemies!), the insanity of his attack officially being 200 degrees below 0, the vast number of appearances he's made in games & spin-off media! The nonsensical English manual for the first game, where Ice Man leads one of the 7 Empires of Monsteropolis!

...the more I write, the more I become convinced that Ice Man is secretly the greatest character in all of written history. Is he a vile cyborg Emperor of a damned civilization? A military leader that's gone insane from war? A cute Eskimo-like robot that helps people? A soccer player? A racecar driver? A God of Sex immortalized by Sammy Hagar? Ice Man is everything to everyone! ALL HAIL THE ICE MAN!

....his song's still subpar though.
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{Pretty sure that's the longest write-up.}
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79.MM1-[Ice Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 6/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 4/10

[YouTube Score]: 153 Likes, 3 Dislikes=150 (5/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 4,846 (10/10)

[Total]: 25/40

The song starts off as one of the absolute worst, but gets better after 14 seconds. Still not something I'd want to listen to, but I don't mind it. The music does sound kinda icy...like the high pitched beeping makes one think of shimmering ice crystals, no?

...just me, huh? *shrugs*

There are a lot of things I could say about this stage and Ice Man himself: First, those disappearing blocks! They're easier here than in later stages, making this a decent introduction to the series' platforming elements. And... Well that's about all I have for the stage, but I actually remember parts of the stage and can visualize them in my head, which is something! Especially since, as I said, I don't really remember the original version of the first game.

As for the character: Poor Ice Man. Such a generic name, it's hard to find information on him. Let's try Googling Ice Man and see how long it takes to get a hit on him!

"Showing results for iceman". You know the character is awesome when Google assumes you failed at typing the name of other, more popular characters. So we start with Marvel's Iceman's Wikipage; then a pair of movies "The Iceman" and "Iceman"; Otzi the Iceman; three more wiki pages for Marvel's Ice Man; a National Geographic autopsy; NOVA on PBS; more about one of the movies. We're out of the first page of results.

PAGE 2: Oh look, it's a bunch of pictures about Marvel's Ice Man! And more links about him! "The Bell's Beer Iceman Cometh Challenge" mountain bike race. The Ice Man from Florida, "who provides a very important service to people and businesses looking to keep their drinks chilled". This is how irrelevant you are ICE MAN, this guy from Florida comes up before you do. On the plus side, if I ever open a business in Florida, I know who to call.

...I legitimately don't think searching for Ice Man by itself will ever actually find the poor little robot. I'm actually getting random fursuiters before him. On to page 16 of search results and I get...lyrics for a Sammy Hagar song??



Freeze ya to the bone ladies, this man is pure sex
You ain't seen nothin', till you seen him flex, ow

Oh, God. This song is so laughably terrible. And now I will forever associate it with a tiny Eskimo robot. This is so stupid that, were I to rank all the Robot Masters, Ice Man just shot up like +50 Rankings. </.<

Also a Bruce Springsteen song called Iceman, but that's less funny. And...Then Google runs out of search results. Let's try this again, we go back and search for Ice Man and tell Google that yes, we really did mean to have a space between those words.

"Iceman (Bobby Drake) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics"

...

Search for "Ice Man" with quotation marks. We finally get a result for the Mega Man character...at the 7th result. After Florida Guy. -.-' Okay, so we go to the Megaman Wiki and...OH GOD WHAT DID THEY DO TO ICE MAN'S SPRITE?!?

http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Ice_Man?file=BossQuest13.png

That thing is hideous. That frowny face...the eyebrows that seem to be his frowny face ONLY BIGGER. Those giant eyes bulging out of his head! That's just hideous! After all that effort to find the poor little guy and he looks...like...that.
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{1.This marks the first of my three personal favorite songs to fall. I previously referenced it, saying I thought it came in at "38th" on my list due to YouTube dragging it down...I was close; turns out it was at 36. I said it was my favorite, but I think it's more my second favorite at the moment.

[Note: Since my scoring system doesn't exactly favor my favorites, even Se7en can't be sure what my other two favorite songs are. I'll point them out when we get to them, obviously.]

2.I briefly considered giving my three favorites a score of 11/10, to sync up with the bottom three getting 0/10s... but didn't because that's stupid and not a thing. Also, one extra point wouldn't have helped this song much.

3.I'll get into Hyadain's stuff later. For now, let's just say there are some "interesting" remixes of some Mega Man 2 boss themes that will be referenced when said bosses start dropping.

4.I was completely wrong on the stage, I'm pretty sure there are no bubbles in it at all. The only bubbles I can find are in Tengu Man's stage, so I was probably thinking of some stage from 7... Burst Man, maybe? Did that have you riding bubbles?}
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36.MM8-[Aqua Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 10/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 10/10

[YouTube Score]: 21 Likes, 1 Dislike=20 (1/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 2,524 (10/10)

[Total]: 31/40

"I'm Aqua Man! But you can call me "Handsome Guy"."

I know this song is going to score terribly on Se7en's end (I suspect MM8 in general is going to get trashed because there's no way I could describe this game's songs as getting the player "amped up"), but I love it. I think I want to put this on an mp3 player, then just play it on an infinite loop whenever I need to calm down. I was stressed out earlier, but this song actually made things a bit better...*contented sigh*

I'm pretty sure I remember this stage, with the riding bubbles that rise into the air to make progress. It's not the first or last time the series did it, but having been horrible at every game before 7, it was new to me. At least, I think it was? I certainly remember it more clearly than other bubble riding segments.

Aqua Man himself is rather "bleh". I'm sure his internal water tanks aren't actually glass, but they look so fragile and you actually can shatter them, which makes him seem incredibly frail for a boss. I'm also not sure if he's supposed to be a gay stereotype or not; between the rainbows, the frailness, the voice, trying to get Mega Man to call him handsome... it felt like everyone was calling him gay (or worse) as an insult. And I can't be completely sure Capcom wasn't specifically aiming for that.

((You may question how I can praise Hyadain's songs, which seem to exclusively revolve around the Robot Masters falling for Mega Man after their boss encounters, while complaining about the internet calling Aqua Man gay. There's a difference between having to put up with gay slurs shouted about a character for years and a talented musician making some...interesting remixes of boss themes. Besides which, I do dislike his songs when he takes it too far, like Crash & Heat Man's songs--the latter of which, I never even linked to or mentioned before now. Also, his stuff is more like fanfiction...like there's a difference between "Metal Man x Mega Man" fics and everyone calling Aqua Man a ***.))

You probably expected me to talk about DC's Aquaman here. Too bad, I don't know enough about the character to get into it. I've always sort-of wanted to read some of the Aquaman comics, particularly the story where Aquaman got a magical hand made out of water--which is equal parts "completely absurd" and "ludicrously awesome"--but I'm too cheap to actually spend money or effort getting the issues. Call me if they ever do a Marvel Unlimited type deal where I could easily read their old stuff for a monthly fee.
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164.MM4-[Credits]


[Elimination Pie %]: 4/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 4/10

[YouTube Score]: 31 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=62 (3/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 10 (1/10)

[Total]: 12/40

It's okay.
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{Didn't recognize the song; if I had, or if I'd tried to look up any info on it, it would have gotten a much higher score just from talking about it. Oh well.}
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183.MM3-[Dr. Wily Stage 5 & 6]


[Elimination Pie %]: 3/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 1/10

[YouTube Score]: 16 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=32 (2/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 115 (2/10)

[Total]: 8/40

It's dramatic and menacing, but it does nothing for me. It just fades into the background, quickly being forgotten.
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124.MM5-[Star Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 3/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 3/10

[YouTube Score]: 72 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=144 (5/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 1,453 (9/10)

[Total]: 20/40

There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds

Whoops, wrong Star Man. Too bad, I could use some David Bowie music as a break from all these 8-bit songs... listening to these for a few hours a day, every day, is starting to get to me ya know? Well, not like complaining will accomplish anything especially as A.I'm doing this voluntarily; B.I still want to do it; And C.No one will read this complaint until the work is finished anyway.

Music is a bit too high-pitched for my tastes. Star Man is a bit bard to find information on, Google assumes you want David Bowie, some movie, or the DC character. Or characters, perhaps, as I think Google just told me it's a legacy character? Don't think I've heard of them before, never read much DC outside the Death and Return of Superman arcs...

Oh, there's also Pro Wrestling (NES)'s Starman. ...not that I have anything to say on that end.


Once you find info on the right Star Man, you'll see there's not much there. Created for space exploration, blah blah blah. He doesn't even have a trivia page and I'm fairly certain every other Robot Master I've searched had at least one trivia. When you beat him you get the Star Crash and Super Arrow. While the Arrow is mainly used for transportation, it's also the weakness of one boss... the only transportation item that can be said about. So Star Man gave you two weapons. That's kinda interesting, I guess?
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52.MM8-[Grenade Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 9/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 8/10

[YouTube Score]: 363 Likes, 3 Dislikes=360 (9/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 151 (2/10)

[Total]: 28/40

A sadomasochist robot that gets off on all forms of pain, giving and receiving.

...nope, we're done here, there's nothing I could possibly add to that.
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155.MM4-[Stage Boss Battle]


[Elimination Pie %]: 2/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 2/10

[YouTube Score]: 248 Likes, 6 Dislikes=242 (8/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 196 (3/10)

[Total]: 15/40

A slight error led to me losing two of my write-ups, this being one of them. Suffice it to say I didn't like this song to begin with, but like it slightly less for having to give it two write-ups.
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{A pretty big gap between the two songs that I had lost the write-ups of. The other one (MM4 Item) came in 179th place, back in post #49.}
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78.MM1-[Guts Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 6/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 5/10

[YouTube Score]: 154 Likes, 1 Dislike=153 (5/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 1,423 (9/10)

[Total]: 25/40

Not a bad song at all. A bit repetitive--okay a lot repetitive--but it's definitely better than than the four Mega Man 1 songs I gave lower scores to. Which goes without saying, I guess. The song doesn't really make me think of anything about the stage: It's not Earth-y or "Moving Platforms Dropping You in Holes"-y, but it's alright.

I hate Guts Man's stage. I think those platforms gave me the hardest time of anything in the NES games. I guess it's nice that I at least remember the stage, but blech. Guts Man himself is forgettable; I don't care about the design or his powers and I'd honestly rather be stuck with Top Man's "crash into things and pray it does something" spin than Guts Man's "hope the designers placed a rock for you to use" arm. His name doesn't even make sense in English! You would think being "guy that throws rocks" he would be Rock Man, but no! Rock Man is the power-copying main character (who has nothing to do with rocks or rock music), while Guts Man is named for the Guts Pose invented by Japanese Boxer/Actor/Comedian Guts Ishimatsu.

...I swear Guts Man was named as such just to troll American audiences that couldn't possibly grasp the reference. Whatever. Somehow he, along with Cut Man, has the most appearances in the series. Guts Man is everywhere. I fail to see why the worst character in the original game keeps showing up, but he does, and that's got to count for something.
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{Don't get me started on that red robot named Blues...

EDIT: And I know Guts Man's stage isn't that bad. There's just something that feels off with the timing on the platforms that kept messing me up the first time I played the game.}
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I've never tried ranking all the soundtracks. I'd have a hard time deciding how much a few bad songs should drag down the entire soundtracks score...


...maybe add the Elimination Pie score for each game's songs together & divide by the number of songs to find that game's average value? Eh. Probably too much work and doesn't factor in how I'd take a soundtrack with one great song over one with a bunch of average songs.
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39.MM7-[Junk Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 8/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 9/10

[YouTube Score]: 89 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=178 (6/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 1,102 (8/10)

[Total]: 31/40

The best version of Junk Man's theme is the original. It might be the most Lufia-esque out of all three, but that just makes it one of the most nostalgic songs in this entire topic. Lufia may have been the second RPG I finished completely by myself; my mother was big into RPGs, so she played everything and we went through most of them together, but Lufia was something I went through on my own. It's not a good game, but it felt wonderful at the time. Lufia 1's soundtrack is one of the very few soundtracks that I instantly recognize, so... it's nice having something remind me of that, even if this isn't quite the same.

I'm burned out on talking about Google results, but in the unlikely event anyone cares, the main results are for junk removal services and a Wikipedia article about people who sell scrap for profit. Also some movie that looks terrible and I have no interest in reading about.


When you finally find info on Junk Man, there's not much there. He's just an ugly, Frankenstein's Monster-esque thing with yet another shield weapon. Easy stage, easy boss, boring weapon, boring design.
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84.MM8-[Astro Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 7/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 6/10

[YouTube Score]: 16 Likes, 1 Dislike=15 (1/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 1,732 (10/10)

[Total]: 24/40

Not bad.


I always kinda liked Astro Man. He's not cool or anything, he's a whiny coward that can be defeated before he can perform a single attack, but...I dunno. I still kinda like him. Astro Crush is a fun weapon, letting you drop meteors on everyone's heads. Strangely enough, when Astro Man uses the attack, the meteors he drops are actually little green copies of himself.

[You probably thought I was going to make a "Man or Astro-man" reference here, didn't you? Well you're technically correct. I know of the band since they did the closing credits for Space Ghost Coast to Coast, but that's all I've ever heard from them and I don't care to look up anything else they did.]

*a few days later*

Oh, who am I kidding? I've got to hear at least one song. Let's just search for the band on YouTube and take the first song I find: Surf Terror? Sure, why not?



That's...I don't really know what that is. Instrumental surf punk rock with B horror movie intros? I might actually like this? I should try to remember to listen to more of their stuff later. It's this weird combination of the familiar (I grew up listening almost exclusively to oldies, so this fits right in) and abnormality that seems intriguing. Really need to listen a whole album at some point.

And isn't that really what a Music Ranking topic is all about? A chance to find new music that you enjoy enough that it justified all the work you put into said topic? Granted, the songs that inspire such reactions should probably be the songs you were supposed to be ranking, but that's just how erratic my rankings can be. You suggest I listen to Mega Man songs and I fall in love with a band that I vaguely recalled from old Cartoon Network shows.
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{Have not listened to any other songs from that band, though I still plan to listen to them at some point.}
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48.MM7-[Burst Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 8/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 10/10

[YouTube Score]: 146 Likes, 1 Dislike=145 (5/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 546 (6/10)

[Total]: 29/40


And this marks the 200th write-up. After this, I am done.

...

Well, I still have to format all the Mega Man 7 rankings. Then assign the final point values to all 200 songs. Then arrange them in the correct order. Then find a way to get this giant text file to Se7en. So...not, not really done at all, no. Oh well, it's still a significant milestone.


So, Burst Man. He's got the best Robot Master theme in 7. His design is like a combination of Bubble Man & Bomb Man. Not the biggest fan of it, but hey, anything being compared to Bubble Man is good.
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150.MM6-[Intro]


[Elimination Pie %]: 3/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 1/10

[YouTube Score]: 86 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=172 (6/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 574 (6/10)

[Total]: 16/40

The opening is rather annoying and, while the song improves drastically, it's too short to make up for the slow start. The cutscene that goes with it is nothing special either: Dr. Wily puts on a cheap disguise and hosts a Robot Tournament, then steals the 8 strongest robots to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!

Also Mr. X (Wily's alter-ego) calls Wily a fool, either in hopes of convincing Mega Man they're different people (though if Mega Man can't recognize the face, hair, or voice then there's no point bothering with the charade) or because he realizes how stupid this is.
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121.MM7-[Intro Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 4/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 5/10

[YouTube Score]: 1,009 Likes, 14 Dislikes=995 (10/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 80 (1/10)

[Total]: 20/40

This song gets over a thousand likes?


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And another.
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157.MM3-[Stage Boss Battle]


[Elimination Pie %]: 4/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 3/10

[YouTube Score]: 192 Likes, 2 Dislikes=190 (6/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 72 (1/10)

[Total]: 14/40

Well it's less painful than Dr. Wily Stage Boss Battle, but not by much.
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{Again, a bit too harsh of a write-up, but I still don't really like many of the battle themes.}
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94.MM7-[Dr. Wily Battle]


[Elimination Pie %]: 5/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 8/10

[YouTube Score]: 82 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=164 (6/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 278 (4/10)

[Total]: 23/40

The funny part is that I think I like this song about equal with the Wily Stage Boss Theme, so it makes surprisingly little difference which link is put here. I don't feel right giving this a better Game Ranking score than said theme, but that's just how things worked out here.
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I think I probably go... 3 > 2 > 8 > 1? I prefer the simpler ones without charged shots or sliding; 8 gets high ranking due to nostalgia, bias towards the soundtrack, and being amused by the cutscenes.


...don't care how hated they are, if they make me laugh, I'm going to enjoy watching them regardless.


Would have to replay the rest of the series to know where they fall. Counting classic spin-offs, Powered Up and V (GB) both rank pretty high. I actually had V as my second favorite for a while (even if it's even easier than 2).
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116.MM8-[Dr. Wily Stage 1]


[Elimination Pie %]: 6/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 2/10

[YouTube Score]: 236 Likes, 5 Dislikes=231 (7/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 413 (5/10)

[Total]: 20/40

Sounds like an aquatic theme to me, like it could be a worse version of Aqua Man's stage. Apparently this is the infamous Jump Jump, Slide Slide part of the fortress. Ugh... it's worth not replaying 8 just to avoid going through that part again. I've always been terrible at sequences like that (never got through Battletoads' Turbo Tunnel) and it gave me more trouble than anything else in the first eight games.
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{At least, someone on YouTube told me this was the song for the Jump Jump part; I never bothered actually checking.}
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91.MM10-[Commando Man Stage]


[Elimination Pie %]: 7/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 8/10

[YouTube Score]: 134 Likes, 2 Dislikes=132 (5/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 174 (3/10)

[Total]: 23/40

A tank in the desert, huh? Well, better than Napalm Man anyway...

...the concept and stage that is. The song obviously isn't better. It's good, but not Napalm Man good.
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{Will go more into Napalm Man issues when his stage theme drops.}
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154.MM4-[Intro 2]


[Elimination Pie %]: 2/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 3/10

[YouTube Score]: 62 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=124 (4/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 524 (6/10)

[Total]: 15/40


Not a fan of the drums, that repetitive do-do-do-do-do-do-do... another short, annoying song that goes nowhere. Perhaps it symbolizes how dull the train ride to Russia (or wherever this game is actually set) was; Mega Man gets all hyped up for battle, climbs onto a train--literally on top of the train because I guess robots can't ride with real people?--and just stares ahead for hours as the train rolls on...thump, thump, thump, thump...

Man, this has to be the dullest intro sequence in the entire classic series, right?
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{I stand by being mean to this particular song.}
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147.MM6-[Start Screen]


[Elimination Pie %]: 6/10

[Individual Game Ranking]: 4/10

[YouTube Score]: 49 Likes, 0 Dislikes. DOUBLE!!=98 (4/10)

[Rambly Babbley Prattle Value]: 110 (2/10)

[Total]: 16/40

For only being 23 seconds long and attached to a bottom tier Mega Man game, this song is actually pretty good.
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{...What's with the Mega Man 6 hate? I know I'd prefer the first three games over 4, 5, and 6 but... well frankly it's been too long since I played 4 through 6 to actually rank them. Though I suppose I'd put it in the bottom half of NES Mega Man games, that seems like an awfully harsh way of putting it.}
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