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Topic	Para ranks every classic Mega Man stage theme
Paratroopa1 04/17/21 4:37:52 AM #146:	80. Tomahawk Man (Mega Man 6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz-3Xd43OGo I want to pull back the curtain on the whole ranking process again for a bit. I talked earlier about how I've not-so-secretly been basically re-ranking this whole list as I work my way up it until I feel satisfied about locking something in at the bottom, and the reason I'm so slow to update is because I've been kinda obsessive about the whole thing. I just really like re-evaluating my own ranking process, okay? It's not merely an exercise in insanity - I'm finding myself diving back into these works over and over, narrowing down to more and more precise details of why I like them, and I think the more I do it the more I learn about myself, my tastes, and what drives my creative processes, and yeah I'm just trying to cover for the fact that I'm slowly driving myself mad over a Mega Man music ranking, aren't I. Anyway! The point is, I literally did a save-my-contest by myself to determine #81 on this list and it wound up coming down to Tomahawk Man and Ring Man and I picked the latter to be #81. I've found this process to be sort of helpful, just kinda going over each song and deciding which ones I can't get rid of, until I end up with the one that I can. Faced with the top 80 and the fact that every song past this point is something I consider to be some sort of shining jewel in some way, Tomahawk Man was clearly the most expendable song remaining. I am not here to bury it! Like every track in MM6, it's clean, competent, and creative. The melody really flows well from one section to the next and the harmonizing lines, if not as perfectly brilliant as 5's, are up to par. But it doesn't quite do enough to distinguish itself as one of my faves. Maybe the constant 'galloping' percussion is just a little much for me, I don't know. 79. Cut Man (Mega Man 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsXEqfDL40k Manami Matsumae sort of fascinates me as a figure - she was the first of many people who would compose for the Mega Man series, and yet instead of being the first one to fade into the background, she's actually been by far the most active and public of all of them since. And as a result, she's one of the most well-known names from the series, and yet at the same time sometimes I don't think she gets the credit she deserves for Mega Man 1. 1987 was a time before really high works of art were getting churned out every other day in the gaming industry. Koji Kondo was doing his thing creating iconic tracks in Mario and Zelda, and you had a few other games with some serious bops like Castlevania and Contra, but not many people had really tried something with the sheer level of complexity and ambition on the same level as MM1, which now seems quaint even compared to its immediate sequel. The majority of tracks from this game are enduring and I think their quality doesn't get examined enough compared to the relatively more contemporary games in the series. Cut Man's theme doesn't have quite the same crispness in the bass and percussion that later games have to offer, but what it does have is a timeless and catchy melody and that counts for a lot for me. It's a classic and something of a blasphemy that I have to rank it this low, but I've still got like four Mega Man Soccer tracks to get to so down it goes. 78. Wood Man (Mega Man 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW6Cm-9zJaA We're here, guys. This is like the part halfway through the movie where one of the main characters dies to really ramp up the tension and show you that things are getting real - Mega Man 2 songs are getting eliminated now, and given the soundtrack's status and how highly I consider it, that means we're getting real now indeed. Wood Man's great! But as far as Mega Man 2 tracks go, it's relatively expendable. I mean, just by virtue from being from the holiest of holy texts, it sort of has an unimpeachable place among Mega Man canon, but... well, the percussion line is a little uninspired, and the bass isn't doing too much either, and y'know... yeah. Takeshi Tateishi's knack for a good melody is well on display here though, and it's a fast, energetic little tune that suits a fun and cool looking stage. But by MM2 standards, I think it's kinda forgettable. By MM2 standards! 77. Dr. Wily 2 (Mega Man III) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5255ZliK1c If you're like me and you've played all the classic games but it's been a little while, you'll hear this one and go, wait, did I forget about this one? But it's awesome! Mega Man III GB is, aside from being the hardest game in the classic Mega Man series (I'm NOT FUCKING AROUND when I say this - play it again and find out), also probably the most forgettable and anonymous despite this distinction, especially with most of the music being reused from prior NES games. But damn, the original content in this game slaps, though? I do have to admit though that at the end of the day this is like, one really good melody hook, recapitulated once with a harmonic line, immediately followed by a nice outro that brings us back to the start. It's kind of a short loop and I really feel like I'm in need of a proper B section here to really sort of bring the whole thing together, especially considering this stage is pretty damn long. Still, what's here kicks ass, and I think it immediately belongs in the pantheon of good Mega Man themes despite its position as easily forgotten. 76. Dust Man (Mega Man 4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o65s78WI3oI Another delightly bizarre and confusing piece from Minae Fujii, this one certainly makes... a lot of choices and makes a big ol' mess, and the result is part genius and part junk. It's appropriate for Dust Man himself, who is himself both awesome and stupid as hell looking. The sin here is really the percussion - Mega Man 4 has a penchance for this sort of washed-out percussion style with really noisy hats and snares that occupy a lot of space, compared to the crisper percussion sounds used in most of the other NES games, and it kind of pushes me past my breaking point in Dust Man's theme where the constantly pounding snares (TWO AND FOUR!) create more of a headache than they create a decent sense of rhythm. But oh, I can't stay mad at it! From those first three hauntingly vibratoed notes to the bizarre interplay of the two melodic lines, there's a lot of weird shit that's tried here and it's, I dunno, kind of awesome? It's dramatic, and tense, and I've always felt like it fits the stage really well - for being such a stupid looking robot master, Dust Man's stage with its crushing piston section always really intimidated me as a kid and the chaos of this theme really suits that. This is definitely the soundtrack to being fucking murdered in a gross garbage dump. In a good way? I guess? <cite>Paratroopa1 posted [p:952925127] in Para ranks... [t:79360411]...</cite> <quote>80. Tomahawk Man (Mega Man 6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz-3Xd43OGo I want to pull back the curtain on the whole ranking process again for a bit. I talked earlier about how I've not-so-secretly been basically re-ranking this whole list as I work my way up it until I feel satisfied about locking something in at the bottom, and the reason I'm so slow to update is because I've been kinda obsessive about the whole thing. I just really like re-evaluating my own ranking process, okay? It's not merely an exercise in insanity - I'm finding myself diving back into these works over and over, narrowing down to more and more precise details of why I like them, and I think the more I do it the more I learn about myself, my tastes, and what drives my creative processes, and yeah I'm just trying to cover for the fact that I'm slowly driving myself mad over a Mega Man music ranking, aren't I. Anyway! The point is, I literally did a save-my-contest by myself to determine #81 on this list and it wound up coming down to Tomahawk Man and Ring Man and I picked the latter to be #81. I've found this process to be sort of helpful, just kinda going over each song and deciding which ones I can't get rid of, until I end up with the one that I can. Faced with the top 80 and the fact that every song past this point is something I consider to be some sort of shining jewel in some way, Tomahawk Man was clearly the most expendable song remaining. I am not here to bury it! Like every track in MM6, it's clean, competent, and creative. The melody really flows well from one section to the next and the harmonizing lines, if not as perfectly brilliant as 5's, are up to par. But it doesn't quite do enough to distinguish itself as one of my faves. Maybe the constant 'galloping' percussion is just a little much for me, I don't know. 79. Cut Man (Mega Man 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsXEqfDL40k Manami Matsumae sort of fascinates me as a figure - she was the first of many people who would compose for the Mega Man series, and yet instead of being the first one to fade into the background, she's actually been by far the most active and public of all of them since. And as a result, she's one of the most well-known names from the series, and yet at the same time sometimes I don't think she gets the credit she deserves for Mega Man 1. 1987 was a time before really high works of art were getting churned out every other day in the gaming industry. Koji Kondo was doing his thing creating iconic tracks in Mario and Zelda, and you had a few other games with some serious bops like Castlevania and Contra, but not many people had really tried something with the sheer level of complexity and ambition on the same level as MM1, which now seems quaint even compared to its immediate sequel. The majority of tracks from this game are enduring and I think their quality doesn't get examined enough compared to the relatively more contemporary games in the series. Cut Man's theme doesn't have quite the same crispness in the bass and percussion that later games have to offer, but what it does have is a timeless and catchy melody and that counts for a lot for me. It's a classic and something of a blasphemy that I have to rank it this low, but I've still got like four Mega Man Soccer tracks to get to so down it goes. 78. Wood Man (Mega Man 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW6Cm-9zJaA We're here, guys. This is like the part halfway through the movie where one of the main characters dies to really ramp up the tension and show you that things are getting real - Mega Man 2 songs are getting eliminated now, and given the soundtrack's status and how highly I consider it, that means we're getting real now indeed. Wood Man's great! But as far as Mega Man 2 tracks go, it's relatively expendable. I mean, just by virtue from being from the holiest of holy texts, it sort of has an unimpeachable place among Mega Man canon, but... well, the percussion line is a little uninspired, and the bass isn't doing too much either, and y'know... yeah. Takeshi Tateishi's knack for a good melody is well on display here though, and it's a fast, energetic little tune that suits a fun and cool looking stage. But by MM2 standards, I think it's kinda forgettable. By MM2 standards! 77. Dr. Wily 2 (Mega Man III) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5255ZliK1c If you're like me and you've played all the classic games but it's been a little while, you'll hear this one and go, wait, did I forget about this one? But it's awesome! Mega Man III GB is, aside from being the hardest game in the classic Mega Man series (I'm NOT FUCKING AROUND when I say this - play it again and find out), also probably the most forgettable and anonymous despite this distinction, especially with most of the music being reused from prior NES games. But damn, the original content in this game slaps, though? I do have to admit though that at the end of the day this is like, one really good melody hook, recapitulated once with a harmonic line, immediately followed by a nice outro that brings us back to the start. It's kind of a short loop and I really feel like I'm in need of a proper B section here to really sort of bring the whole thing together, especially considering this stage is pretty damn long. Still, what's here kicks ass, and I think it immediately belongs in the pantheon of good Mega Man themes despite its position as easily forgotten. 76. Dust Man (Mega Man 4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o65s78WI3oI Another delightly bizarre and confusing piece from Minae Fujii, this one certainly makes... a lot of choices and makes a big ol' mess, and the result is part genius and part junk. It's appropriate for Dust Man himself, who is himself both awesome and stupid as hell looking. The sin here is really the percussion - Mega Man 4 has a penchance for this sort of washed-out percussion style with really noisy hats and snares that occupy a lot of space, compared to the crisper percussion sounds used in most of the other NES games, and it kind of pushes me past my breaking point in Dust Man's theme where the constantly pounding snares (TWO AND FOUR!) create more of a headache than they create a decent sense of rhythm. But oh, I can't stay mad at it! From those first three hauntingly vibratoed notes to the bizarre interplay of the two melodic lines, there's a lot of weird shit that's tried here and it's, I dunno, kind of awesome? It's dramatic, and tense, and I've always felt like it fits the stage really well - for being such a stupid looking robot master, Dust Man's stage with its crushing piston section always really intimidated me as a kid and the chaos of this theme really suits that. This is definitely the soundtrack to being fucking murdered in a gross garbage dump. In a good way? I guess? </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
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