LogFAQs > #953355010

I didn't forget about this yet!

65. Wind Man (Mega Man 6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u-LyAzviN4

A strange sort of miracle occurred when ranking these songs that really goes to show just how much of a mockery my own attempts to corral my own opinions are. I'm just driving home one day, right - this was like a month ago, probably - and bam, this song just kind of appears in my brain. Hey, it's Wind Man's theme, I think. I ranked you like, what, #130 on my list? Seriously, it was something like that. I didn't really have much thoughts on the track in particular - one of the weaker tracks in MM6, I thought, not that memorable - and suddenly the melody is on my lips and I'm like, damn, that's hummable as fuck, and I'm actually jamming to it? And some kinda fuckin' switch in my brain, the one that's labeled "Liking Wind Man's theme" just gets switched on and just like that now it's #65 on the list. I dunno, it's just kinda really good and I didn't notice for like 26 years? Turns out it just sorta burrowed into the back of my brain and stuck around for a while. It's a very MM6-y track - I think those first 10 seconds really exemplify the MM6 'sound' better than any other track, with the slow attack on the lead that kind of gives it a violin-like sound and the harmonic character that I can best describe as 'kind of a royal fanfare vibe' and while the track isn't particularly unique I think the melody is pretty well considered overall. Really like the interplay between the two lines in the B section at :30. Lotta nice little touches here. To think I almost wrote it off! This is why you should always call me out on my bullshit when I rank stuff, things I ranked low were probably actually awesome and my brain is too dumb to realize it yet. (It's ok, you guys are the same way with Mega Man II GB, give it time)

64. Jewel Man (Mega Man 9)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCEb5PuqfGg

A certified banger of a track, pretty uncontroversially, I think. It's short-ish, but it hops right into the meat of the track and it's good. I've spent like the last 10 minutes trying to recreate that reverb effect on the lead in Famitracker and I can't figure out how to make it happen so it's either cheating or some kind of magic I can't figure out, but it's a cool effect. (I wish there was like a music equivalent of imgur where I could just upload a two-second clip to demonstrate what I'm talking about.) I wanted to recreate this one because I'm not really a huge fan of that 'nasally' lead being used again, but after having tried plugging different instruments in there, I came away thinking that it was probably the best choice after all. Anyway, it's the little things that make this one really stand out for me - especially those little staccato (quick and short) notes in the C section, they please me.

63. Dr. Wily 1 (Mega Man 9)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k28-zcBVE30

Straight out of Dr. Wily stage central casting, it's "Flash in the Dark" from Mega Man 9! There something that's almost pandering about this theme - its intentions to try to recapture MM2 Wily 1's lightning in a bottle are so transparent that this stage literally features flashes of lightning in the background, and it really does come across as being written as though it wants to be the platonic ideal of a Wily stage theme. It's got all the hallmarks - set the key to D minor, so cliche that I literally sometimes refer to it as "the Wily key" (I guess technically it's D aeolian since ain't nobody using the harmonic or melodic minor form in a video game piece), turn the BPM up to about 160, and harmonize everything with nearly weeping sincerity until the drama is up to 11. And hey, it just kinda works. It's transparently exactly what I expect to see out of a Wily 1 theme, but it comes together really nicely regardless - it's a crowd pleaser, it sets a blistering energy level for its stage, and given that MM9 is a game intentionally meant to invoke nostalgia, it does exactly what it sets out to do on that front.

62. Plant Man (Mega Man 6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN_7Wy0RT00

Really neat little tune that often time slips my notice but never fully exits my memory - I kind of forget it's there a lot of the time but whenever I hear it I go, oh yeah, this is actually pretty sick. There's just a lot of activity in this theme, everything's always moving but it never gets overwhelming, everything's placed and shaped really nicely. I continue to like the slow-attack lead that MM6 uses a lot - listen for how the notes kind of 'fade in' smoothly instead of popping in, giving it a sound that (charitably) sounds like a string instrument. I think MM6 is sort of making vague gestures at the idea of world music and as such is sort of trying to approximate more natural instrumentation, as well as the NES can anyway. I'm not really sure if this theme is trying to suggest the idea of Latin American music in any way - if it is it's lost on me - but it's a cool theme regardless that uses the NES's assets well.

61. Dr. Cossack 1 (Mega Man 4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUCLT7cj4FU

Yeah, this is my preferred Cossack stage theme. I have no idea why this theme is so damn iconic but it really gets me energized whenever I get to the Cossack stages. I'm not sure if I'm just imagining the idea of it somehow having some connection to Russian folk music, or at least a sort of vague suggestion in that direction ala MM6, or if I'm just kind of making that up wholesale because of all the snow and the St Basil's Cathedral-esque architecture and the general Soviet Russia vibes (it's weird how this game was one of the last artistic works to depict the Soviet Union during the era of the Soviet Union), but either way this song has kind of a unique character to it, and it just bangs, what can I say? It's a pretty short loop, and the bassline sort of leaves its post for the second half and forgets to provide any low end, but I'm just here for that sick part at :13 where the arpeggios come in. The short loop means we can get back to that part as soon as possible!