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Mega Man: Get Equipped with Thread Shot!
4-So
Spicy
I think the reverence for Mega Man 2 was apparent to me the first time I heard the menu music in Mega Man 9. (Same song). Speaking of MM9, "Hornet Dance" has to be one of my favorite music tracks in the entire series.
Mega Man 4 will always have a warm place in my heart for having an extra castle. Giving me even more Mega Man is good for my soul.
Mega Man 4 will always have a warm place in my heart for having an extra castle. Giving me even more Mega Man is good for my soul.
Double castles are a blight upon the series, the castle levels are the worst part of every Mega Man game.
4-So
Spicy
Pistols at dawn, sir!
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
Yes, which is why Doc Robots are awesome. Remixed harder levels that push their concepts further than you could on a first go.
I looooove the Doc Robot stages. My least fave part of Mega Man in general is only having the castle stages to use your full power sets in.
100% agreed, I wish they had revisited the Doc Robot concept in later games. It's not perfectly implemented in MM3 (Doc is too tall, which makes the fights a lot harder), but I love the way they take the basic traps of the early stages and ramp up the intensity of them. I especially love that you can save your progress through them with the password system! Having a single password for the entire final castle (or castles, heavens forfend) has been a thorn in my side for 30 years now.
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
It's a good thing MM3 has Doc Robot stages because its castle levels are absolutely terrible
MM4 is MM2-2, but worse in every way.
I used to be anti-Doc Robot stages, but in the face of constant (and always shitty) double castles, I've re-evaluated and Doc Robot Stages are cool and more of the games should have used them instead of shitty double castles.
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
They should make a Megaman consisting of nothing but castles
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
you monster
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
not in Mega Man 3 you didn't, and this time it's different weaknesses, and they're interesting to replay now you can slide.
One thing we don't discuss here very often is which Mega Man has the best music. We do lists of best Mega Men all day, but never music goodness. For me, 9, 3, 2 -> the rest. Mega Man 1 would be very high if the "instrumentation" was better, the Game Boy version smokes it for quality.
One thing we don't discuss here very often is which Mega Man has the best music. We do lists of best Mega Men all day, but never music goodness. For me, 9, 3, 2 -> the rest. Mega Man 1 would be very high if the "instrumentation" was better, the Game Boy version smokes it for quality.
Like I mentioned, it's really closely analogous to my overall preference between the games, so that 3/6/7/8/10 grouping is my fondest musically as well. About the only exception is 11, where I'm not that into the soundtrack but the central mechanics, weapon selection and level design are operating at a relatively more interesting level than I'm used to so that I still enjoy the game a lot.
3 has my favourite track in the series in Needle Man Stage, composed by Harumi Fujita who also did Gemini Man Stage and contributed to the staff roll theme. It carries such melancholic pathos that I'm intrinsically drawn to, and she did a lot with that kind of emotive weight in her other works around that time, like the overworld theme from Gargoyle's Quest. I always love when a fundamentally silly and lighthearted series like Mega Man juxtaposes that default state of being with something unexpected that makes the games feel larger than they are. I don't really want or need Needle Man to be characterized literally, as I'm sure he has been in material like comics or whatever else, and this also isn't an angle toward a "Needle Man is a tragic and poignant character in the Mega Man saga" overread--but the music associated with him gives you something to latch onto regardless, which is these games at their evocative best.
4's kind of tragic to me as several tracks in it are as good as anything else in the series--thinking Skull Man Stage (percussion), Pharaoh Man Stage (super-ambitious, hyperactive note and countermelody structure), Dr. Cossack Stage 2 (really tense drama)--but so much of the rest is uncharacteristically, unpleasantly shrill in instrumentation or downright compositionally inexplicable, like the password theme. It was Minae Fujii's only contribution to the series and a solo work to boot, until many years later she was among the all-star cast of returning composers doing 10's soundtrack, and Desert Commando I think exemplifies the best qualities of her past work.
3 has my favourite track in the series in Needle Man Stage, composed by Harumi Fujita who also did Gemini Man Stage and contributed to the staff roll theme. It carries such melancholic pathos that I'm intrinsically drawn to, and she did a lot with that kind of emotive weight in her other works around that time, like the overworld theme from Gargoyle's Quest. I always love when a fundamentally silly and lighthearted series like Mega Man juxtaposes that default state of being with something unexpected that makes the games feel larger than they are. I don't really want or need Needle Man to be characterized literally, as I'm sure he has been in material like comics or whatever else, and this also isn't an angle toward a "Needle Man is a tragic and poignant character in the Mega Man saga" overread--but the music associated with him gives you something to latch onto regardless, which is these games at their evocative best.
4's kind of tragic to me as several tracks in it are as good as anything else in the series--thinking Skull Man Stage (percussion), Pharaoh Man Stage (super-ambitious, hyperactive note and countermelody structure), Dr. Cossack Stage 2 (really tense drama)--but so much of the rest is uncharacteristically, unpleasantly shrill in instrumentation or downright compositionally inexplicable, like the password theme. It was Minae Fujii's only contribution to the series and a solo work to boot, until many years later she was among the all-star cast of returning composers doing 10's soundtrack, and Desert Commando I think exemplifies the best qualities of her past work.
While I’m generally not a fan of using the same levels but making them harder as a means to make more video game, I really like the Doc Robot levels; having them be harder because you’re coping with the damage you already caused adds a much needed extra bit of zazz, and, as Phantoon noted; the Doc Robot fights feel different from the MM2 fights since you can’t use the same weapons and Doc fights much more aggressively than the Robot Masters ever did
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
For me, everything outside of the Wily Stages are among the best of Mega Man in Man Man 3. The Wily Stages are unmemorable to me to say the least. I think my favourite tracks are Shadow Man, Snake Man and the Intro theme.
Mega Man 9 is a great OST as well; Tornado Man and We Are The Robots (Wily 2) are standout tracks to me. I love Mega Man 5 as a game, but the tracks are pretty dull. They haven't stuck with me at all.
I'm no musician but I always found Crash Man's stage to be weirdly out of place in Mega Man 2 and much, much later I found out it was the only stage track that was a major key. I guess I do have some vestigial musical awareness!
Mega Man 9 is a great OST as well; Tornado Man and We Are The Robots (Wily 2) are standout tracks to me. I love Mega Man 5 as a game, but the tracks are pretty dull. They haven't stuck with me at all.
I'm no musician but I always found Crash Man's stage to be weirdly out of place in Mega Man 2 and much, much later I found out it was the only stage track that was a major key. I guess I do have some vestigial musical awareness!
I like both Dr. Wily Stage 1 and Dr. Wily Stage 2 in 3. The stage theming complements one another between the visuals and the audio as the former plays during the initial intrusion through the castle's sewage system, while the latter I most closely associate with the bits where the unsettling Junk Golems appear out of the castle's piles of refuse. They're not heroic or pulse-pounding tracks, just these soundscapes to a bunch of mire and slog.
I think 5 is the game in the series most in search of an identity to call its own, so that's how the music comes off too: pleasant, done to form, with no particular pitfalls or successes. Solid work by Mari Yamaguchi, with Dr. Wily Stage as a rare standout.
I think 5 is the game in the series most in search of an identity to call its own, so that's how the music comes off too: pleasant, done to form, with no particular pitfalls or successes. Solid work by Mari Yamaguchi, with Dr. Wily Stage as a rare standout.
Each time I play through the games I try to mix it up, do different orders, force myself to use the weapons more. I generally find at least a few things to love about each game, even if the overall whole sometimes doesn't turn out well. I've even started to like Mega Man 4 a little more with each passing year, but Ring Man remains (in my opinion) the worst Mega Man level ever designed in the classic series. And it really sucks because I kind of like the theme, music, and actual level parts of Ring Man.
Y'all are wrong about the the music in Mega Man 5 and I've got receipts. First off, let's take a listen to Gyro Man:
Gyro Man's theme is one of my favorites in the entire series, largely because it bucks Mega Man musical traditions. Whereas the standard robot master stage has a driving, minor theme (cf 7/8 of the levels in MM2), this is a much lighter, happier melody. Sure, it spends a little time in the relative minor, but there's a nice big major resolution after that part and the whole thing is super uplifting.
For something a little more traditional, though, have a listen to Stone Man:
This one is a bit more like a typical MM stage track, but it has an extremely catchy melody. In fact, I'd argue that this game has some of the most hummable songs in the entire series, as in our good friend Napalm Man's theme. Heck, even the weapon get music is a banger.
And of course, the crown jewel of MM5's soundtrack has to be Proto Man Fortress, which aside from being a bit squeedly off the top is one of the most memorable melodies in the entire series.
Friends, not only would I dispute that MM5 has weak music compared to the rest of the series, I would go so far as to say it's one of the stronger entries on that front.
Gyro Man's theme is one of my favorites in the entire series, largely because it bucks Mega Man musical traditions. Whereas the standard robot master stage has a driving, minor theme (cf 7/8 of the levels in MM2), this is a much lighter, happier melody. Sure, it spends a little time in the relative minor, but there's a nice big major resolution after that part and the whole thing is super uplifting.
For something a little more traditional, though, have a listen to Stone Man:
This one is a bit more like a typical MM stage track, but it has an extremely catchy melody. In fact, I'd argue that this game has some of the most hummable songs in the entire series, as in our good friend Napalm Man's theme. Heck, even the weapon get music is a banger.
And of course, the crown jewel of MM5's soundtrack has to be Proto Man Fortress, which aside from being a bit squeedly off the top is one of the most memorable melodies in the entire series.
Friends, not only would I dispute that MM5 has weak music compared to the rest of the series, I would go so far as to say it's one of the stronger entries on that front.
I love Charge Man's theme! Another example of a track that hits some really joyous highs that you don't typically get out of Mega Man.
MM5 might struggle for identity in places but honestly I find it one of the more fun entries to just blast through. It's fairly easy overall, which might be part of why it can be unmemorable, but that just means it's one of the most accessible. If I just want to have a good time with the series but also not have to worry about that one part giving me grief then this is usually the one I boot up.
My biggest complaint with Mega Man 5 is that they changed the noise of an exploding enemy to the same sound as a fully charged Buster shot.
Dreadful behaviour. A cruel trick to play on me after years of faithful service 0/10
Dreadful behaviour. A cruel trick to play on me after years of faithful service 0/10
I think one of the cartoons rebranded him as “Molten Man” and he attacked with “lava missiles”, which is about as close to non-problematic as he was going to get
Not as bad as Mega Man 6's decision to make the sound from your uncharged shot and charged shot identical.
I'll take MM5's sfx any day over that.