LogFAQs > #955337545

BONUS RANKING: WILY STAGE/SPECIAL BOSS THEMES

This is sort of an awkward ranking, but I looked at the final battle themes and decided I wanted to keep those to their own list. But there aren't really as many "Wily boss" themes as I thought there would be, and it's sort of an awkward and unsorted list when combined with the other miscellaneous boss themes, but ah well. Not to mention that a few of these are used as final boss themes as well.

There's a strong likelihood that I forgot something to include on this list, forgive me if I did so. And of course, as usual, whether or not I include entries and whether or not I separate or combine them is basically arbitrary.

13. Mega Man 8 (Duo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CINLGtoFi_g

Those horn samples that I really don't like return, although I think this may be the last time I have to talk about them, actually. They sure to make an ignoble appearance though, producing a bland, uncertain melody with one really random, out of place note. This is a really terrible character theme, if that's what it's meant to be - it doesn't really seem to know what it wants to do and completely fails as a leitmotif of any sort. It's just bad!

12. Mega Man & Bass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhCn02rTHbM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdBlYY1li_M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn1fjtnVnXY

MM&B seems to have a habit of producing a few real stinkers in its soundtrack, and this is one of them - an unpleasant and annoying track for some boss fights that go on way too long and cause this theme to badly overstay its welcome. This is a rare case where I prefer the SFC version - I think the instrumentation is better and less grating, for what it's worth. This gets used for the final battle as well, so you get to hear way too much of this one.

11. Mega Man 8 (Bass)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7nhtb04J0

It's Bass's theme, which is cool, but with all of its teeth removed. Gone is the really punchy bass and now it just kind of has a bland techno vibe with some really ill-considered chord progressions added to it. The synths in the background aren't really adding anything either. Nothing here works for me.

10. Mega Man 8 (Midboss)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IoNKYtMNlI

I'm pretty sure this is the only mid-boss theme in the entire series, which is weird! Mega Man 8 might also be the only game with five different boss themes in it, and this is somehow the best of the ones on this list, although that is saying incredibly little. It's perfectly bland and not outright bad like the previous ones and that's all I can really think to say about it - it does its job.

9. Mega Man V (Terra)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOs_JvBuGks

I'm sure what they WANTED was 'intimidating' - what they got instead was 'silly,' which seems roughly part for the course for MMV. It's certainly a... memorable motif I guess, since it's just those same five notes in a chromatic scale, gradually ascending, but it really comes off as sort of comical and it's not very interesting to listen to.

8. Mega Man: The Power Battle/Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters (Yellow Devil)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG5eGe3_kb0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv8q8gdROP8

This is almost certainly the most obscure song in the franchise to appear in two different games - I'd wager you forgot this one exists unless you weren't starting directly at the OST, like me. This is one of the weirdest songs because as far as I can tell, it's the ONLY unique theme in Power Battle, and one of just a couple in Power Fighters. Really beats the hell out of me! This is actually a pretty big jump in quality because this is a perfectly okay track, even if it is a D-lister. The Power Fighters version is better because obviously it is - everything in Power Battle sounds terrible, but Power Fighters actually uses some samples that aren't pure garbage. I probably could have been talking more about Power Fighters' soundtrack throughout all of this, but it was too much work. (There's also a neat arrangement of MM2 Wily 1 when you fight Mecha Dragon but I'm not including stage theme arrangements here.)

7. Mega Man 10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGiid1FK3gg

It's okay, but not one of Mega Man 10's bigger hits. It's pretty memorable when you arrive in the first archival room, since that's just a very cool boss fight and it's notable since MM9 didn't have a unique Wily boss theme. I think it gets a little annoying after a while.

6. Mega Man IV (Ballade)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5ZaA_0MPKk

Much like Terra from MMV I think this one is teetering on the brink of being silly rather than intimidating, but it's got much better ideas, and ends up being kind of catchy. I think I like this theme more for the ways its motifs later get used in MM10, though.

5. Mega Man 7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huDeUlKBsv0

Gets dangerously close to being annoying but never quite gets there for me - I think the melody's entertaining and the urgency suits the idea of a hard boss fight without getting too frantic. I have good memories of this one because the Guts tank was really hard for me as a kid, so I had to hear it a lot and I eventually associated it with being challenged. Low bar to clear - this list is a rough one.

4. Mega Man 11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AnNFcCKl6E

Ugh, CHRIST, can Mega Man 11 ever just NOT? It does it again! It does the same thing that literally every Mega Man 11 song does! It starts out with what I think is actually a pretty sick idea - it really nails that 'scary monster discordance' vibe that all the Wily boss themes want but I think it really nails the character the best out of all of them, until it hits :33 and turns into another gag-worthy happy cheesefest. Then it kind of loses the plot again for a bit until it really abruptly lunges back into the good part, like it's desperate to go there because it's so badly out of ideas. This didn't need to be over a minute long, probably. This is not a good list of songs.