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Topic	Para ranks every classic Mega Man stage theme
Paratroopa1 10/12/21 4:02:00 AM #335:	10. Mega Man The one that started it all. I've said it before, but for 1987, this game was just ahead of its time in so many ways, when games just didn't HAVE soundtracks like this, thematically vibrant and cutting edge with the tools it had to work with. Even if it now lives in Mega Man 2's shadow, I think it still holds up today. 9. Mega Man 9 I feel like I've done more complaining about this soundtrack over the course of this ranking topic than I've done actually singing its praises, but truthfully, I DO like this soundtrack, even if I think it's one of the lesser of the NES-styled ones. Still, the very fact that in 2008, they decided to even release another NES-style Mega Man with another NES-style soundtrack was beyond my wildest dreams, and there's plenty of great hits in here. My biggest complaint is all of the direct lifting that it did from Mega Man 2, which makes the soundtrack feel weirdly incomplete. It's a small detail, but details matter to me, and I feel like original themes in all of those spots would have gone a long way, something that Mega Man 10 remedied. 8. Mega Man 7 I'm as surprised as you that it ranks this high, given the way I basically dumped like two-thirds of the soundtrack in a landfill early on, but maybe I was a little unfair in my initial assessment, and the hits here are really good, even if they're guilty pleasures. What sealed this as high as #8 for me though was the fact that this game just KEPT coming up high on all the auxilliary lists - great boss themes, ending themes, etc. And as far as SNES games go, this was probably one of the best-sounding out there. 7. Mega Man III (GB) It's cheating, a little bit, and since it's mostly a rehash of older stuff, I decided to make #7 its ceiling, since above this are the really great original soundtracks. This is one hell of a greatest hits combo, though - probably the four most iconic MM3 themes in Spark, Snake, Shadow and Gemini, as well as some good MM4 themes. And out of all the GB games, I think that this is the crispest port of the NES tracks. It's still not PERFECT - I prefer the NES versions, which can leave the GB versions feeling like they're the diet version of the real thing, which is the other reason I can't rank this higher. But they're not bad at all! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxaB464ycCk See? Not bad! It isn't quite as pretty as the NES version, but it sounds good overall, and it even fixes a little bit of that 'cross-talk' problem between the two leads that I mentioned before, so in some ways it's actually an improvement! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AScjUlCqfQ4 A section of Snake Man isn't quite as nice - a little mushy - but the B section sounds absolutely spot on in my opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob8LehvbsW8 Don't love what they did with the intro riff of Shadow Man, but again, everything here sounds like a pretty close facsimile of the original. I won't go over all of them, but they're generally all pretty good sounding. That, combined with the fact that this game has some great extra themes - the Wily stage theme is fantastic, and the get weapon and password themes are top tier too - make this one a really good package. One last thing - I didn't do stage clear or game over theme rankings, because they would have been just too silly - there wasn't really enough to talk about in either of them since they're mostly just short jingles. But this game DOES have my favorite game over theme in the series, and I wanted to highlight it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GCZOWA8hXI This game is, in my opinion, FAR AND AWAY the most difficult game in the series (seriously, try playing it if you don't believe me - Dust Man's stage in MMIII is the hardest level in the entire franchise, no joke), so I heard this game over theme a LOT when I played it as a kid, and it still stands out to me. I dunno why, it's just the coolest game over theme in the whole franchise for some reason, and it's unique to this game. Please play this theme at my funeral as my casket is lowered into the ground. 6. Mega Man 6 Into the real heavy hitters now. I don't have that many takes left to say about Mega Man 6, I don't think. For me, it's the least great of the greats. All of the NES soundtracks are great and this one's no exception. Lots of cool themes here with interesting world music concepts. Not a single theme here that I would consider truly top tier, but nothing that I consider anywhere near the bottom, either - just consistent quality across the board, which still makes this one of the best soundtracks on the NES. <cite>Paratroopa1 posted [p:958951147] in Para ranks... [t:79360411]...</cite> <quote>10. Mega Man The one that started it all. I've said it before, but for 1987, this game was just ahead of its time in so many ways, when games just didn't HAVE soundtracks like this, thematically vibrant and cutting edge with the tools it had to work with. Even if it now lives in Mega Man 2's shadow, I think it still holds up today. 9. Mega Man 9 I feel like I've done more complaining about this soundtrack over the course of this ranking topic than I've done actually singing its praises, but truthfully, I DO like this soundtrack, even if I think it's one of the lesser of the NES-styled ones. Still, the very fact that in 2008, they decided to even release another NES-style Mega Man with another NES-style soundtrack was beyond my wildest dreams, and there's plenty of great hits in here. My biggest complaint is all of the direct lifting that it did from Mega Man 2, which makes the soundtrack feel weirdly incomplete. It's a small detail, but details matter to me, and I feel like original themes in all of those spots would have gone a long way, something that Mega Man 10 remedied. 8. Mega Man 7 I'm as surprised as you that it ranks this high, given the way I basically dumped like two-thirds of the soundtrack in a landfill early on, but maybe I was a little unfair in my initial assessment, and the hits here are really good, even if they're guilty pleasures. What sealed this as high as #8 for me though was the fact that this game just KEPT coming up high on all the auxilliary lists - great boss themes, ending themes, etc. And as far as SNES games go, this was probably one of the best-sounding out there. 7. Mega Man III (GB) It's cheating, a little bit, and since it's mostly a rehash of older stuff, I decided to make #7 its ceiling, since above this are the really great original soundtracks. This is one hell of a greatest hits combo, though - probably the four most iconic MM3 themes in Spark, Snake, Shadow and Gemini, as well as some good MM4 themes. And out of all the GB games, I think that this is the crispest port of the NES tracks. It's still not PERFECT - I prefer the NES versions, which can leave the GB versions feeling like they're the diet version of the real thing, which is the other reason I can't rank this higher. But they're not bad at all! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxaB464ycCk See? Not bad! It isn't quite as pretty as the NES version, but it sounds good overall, and it even fixes a little bit of that 'cross-talk' problem between the two leads that I mentioned before, so in some ways it's actually an improvement! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AScjUlCqfQ4 A section of Snake Man isn't quite as nice - a little mushy - but the B section sounds absolutely spot on in my opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob8LehvbsW8 Don't love what they did with the intro riff of Shadow Man, but again, everything here sounds like a pretty close facsimile of the original. I won't go over all of them, but they're generally all pretty good sounding. That, combined with the fact that this game has some great extra themes - the Wily stage theme is fantastic, and the get weapon and password themes are top tier too - make this one a really good package. One last thing - I didn't do stage clear or game over theme rankings, because they would have been just too silly - there wasn't really enough to talk about in either of them since they're mostly just short jingles. But this game DOES have my favorite game over theme in the series, and I wanted to highlight it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GCZOWA8hXI This game is, in my opinion, FAR AND AWAY the most difficult game in the series (seriously, try playing it if you don't believe me - Dust Man's stage in MMIII is the hardest level in the entire franchise, no joke), so I heard this game over theme a LOT when I played it as a kid, and it still stands out to me. I dunno why, it's just the coolest game over theme in the whole franchise for some reason, and it's unique to this game. Please play this theme at my funeral as my casket is lowered into the ground. 6. Mega Man 6 Into the real heavy hitters now. I don't have that many takes left to say about Mega Man 6, I don't think. For me, it's the least great of the greats. All of the NES soundtracks are great and this one's no exception. Lots of cool themes here with interesting world music concepts. Not a single theme here that I would consider truly top tier, but nothing that I consider anywhere near the bottom, either - just consistent quality across the board, which still makes this one of the best soundtracks on the NES. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
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