The Music of Mega Man: Ranked for Your Pleasure
It’s no small secret that music is considered a very significant part of the Mega Man games. After all, the Blue Bomber himself and his sister were originally named for Rock and Roll, only to be later joined by Blues, Beat, Tango, and others.
And then with the X series, the whole thing kind of started to fall apart in regards to punny names. But that’s neither here nor there for the intents and purposes of this story, for this is about the undertaking of one ScrewAttack G1 member to create a ranking of music from the original Mega Man series.
Boiled down to its core numbered entries, the original, aka Classic series has nine games. And among those nine entries are 120 songs, which Jknight253 has decided to rank. Every stage theme, every Robot Master theme, every Wily stage, every intro and outro theme.
For the sake of easy consumption, the list is being divided up into groups of 20, with each entry containing a sample and some commentary. So far, only #120-#100 and #99-80 have been done so far (meaning the first batch is actually 21 songs), and you can find them here and here, respectively.
With a list this vast, a person can only be left to wonder: which song will be number one?
News Credit: Capcom*Unity
Filed under: Community Developments
i love Megaman Music :3
I have to say Megaman 6 and 8 (Saturn version) on my favorite MM Music.
So it’s being ranked by one person? Is this person even knowledgeable in music?
Let’s see… based on one opinion… accompanied by generic unnecessary comments… meh.
What’s the point?
I’ll pass.
Now I want to do the same thing but with the X series. But I have nowhere to host it. :/
Well i think the opening stage from Zero 2 was one of the greatest (and then Tornado Man) as it just highlighted everything great ’bout the Blue Bombers brand
We can host it as a fan-made article if you’re up for it, DTN.
“With a list this vast, a person can only be left to wonder: which song will be number one?”
Like we all don’t know, that it’s gonna be MM2′s Wily Stage 1 theme…
>_>
We need to give all the other MegaMan songs the credit they deserve…I love Wily Stage 1 from MM2 but we can’t treat it as the end all to be all.
one person is somewhat meaningless if you ask me… i went to the first one and i already question his pickings
I understand that while SOMETHING has to be on the bottom of a list, this guy’s picks for the bottom of the bag bunch are some of my favorite songs. (Search Man? WHAT? Blasphemy!)
what?! Ringmans theme was awesome!
I love almost all of the music form 8.
And I certainty like Hardman’s theme.
“I know that Gravity Man is one of the more popular songs in Mega Man but I’ve never been a fan of Mega Mans space tunes for reasons mentioned before”
Bias.
Ranking.
Mixes just like oil and water, eh?
At first I saw Wily’s stage theme 4 from 8 and agreed. After that, I have agreed on very little. And when I got down to that quote, I stopped caring where they’re at and just started listening to music. >_>
I gotta say, although the endeavor is a noble one, I don’t think he really puts enough logic into his decisions. His strike against Mega Man 7′s ending theme is an eyebrow raiser. He finds the song a great ending tune, but repetitive. Part of that has to do with how it’s constructed relative to the game itself. Moreover, he cites that it loops every thirty seconds, when the song loops about every minute. That’s half as many repetitions as he suggests there are. It’s kind of a neat read, but it’s so glaringly subjective and his knowledge of music doesn’t seem quite adequate to really do justice to the series on a whole.
I know I love the main theme song for Mega Man 9!
That would be awesome Lance. The only issue I’d have with it is taking an objective standpoint. It might turn out more like “DTN’s Favorites” than something based more on composition. I’m gonna do a sort of “test run” on my own time and see how I feel about it. Being a musician, I would think I could pull it of unbiased, but I don’t want to post anything until I know for sure.
>> DuctTapeNinja, I think in order for your article to be unbiased, you’d have to break down every song by complexity of composition, note, and instrument.
Too bad this dude Jknight253 doesn’t understand that.
Also, you may need to reference Gentle Giant, UFO, and Iron Maiden quite a few times. =p
I don’t know, I don’t agree with alot of his rankings. I don’t about you guys, but I think Search Man’s theme from 8 is alot better then where it is ranked. But I’ll keep watching his list, some of his reasons are appealing
I think Megaman 7 has the best Wily Songs in the series.
So they leave out MM&B? Granted, it didn’t have the best music in the series, but it still deserves its due.
The overhype about Wily’s Stage 1 BGM in MM2 is getting old already.
I like Search Man’s songs as well as the rest of 8′ songs and Ring Man’s song isn’t sloppy. sigh, I along with many others here could make a better list, oh well.
I liked Tenguman’s theme.
It’s soothing! ^^
Reading some of these comments about it not being a true reflection of the best MegaMan songs makes me think we should hold a vote on the forums or something. Then we could list the top 10 or so favorite MegaMan songs from the fans : )
I’d vote on something like that. I also agree that Wily’s first MM2 stage music is starting to get on my nerves. It’s a great tune but it isn’t the best in the series I don’t think. I’ll watch them as long as he doesn’t rate Bass’ theme really low. Or has that already happened?
I’ve given this list a pretty good skimming over, and there are some things I agree with and some that I don’t.
First off, it seems to me like this is being treated like a Capcom-official list, which is definitely isn’t. It just one person’s opinion, and the fact that he waded through this many songs in the first place is something to be admired.
I myself am a music major at Bradley University as well as a life-long avid Mega Man fan, so I like to think that I know what’s going on in that respect. I’ve thought about this long and hard, and I think the reason we deem these songs as “great” is the experience tied to them. For example, take Mega Man 8. A lot of the compositions themselves aren’t really that great. However, the first Wily stage theme has a great sinister feeling, like you’re heading towards the heart of the beast. I can’t help but smile when I listen to this song and remember the solid stream of curse words that came from my mouth and how I never wanted to hear the words “Jump!” or “Slide!” again.
I’m really excited to see the rest of this list develop.
I think my favorite songs in the classic series have to be SnakeMan’s level, SparkMan’s level, the MM3 title theme, the MM3 Get Weapon screen and the boss room music from MM7.
Yes I know I’m being MM3 heavy but the main theme gives you that”YOUR GOING TO PLAY A GREAT GAME!” feeling.
I fail to see how any of you think this is an “official” rating system.
It’s noteworthy because it’s a humongous list, not because it’s supposedly unbiased. There is no way to make an unbiased list of musical ratings for reasons inherent to what humans are.
I really find it strange that this guy dislikes MM8 music so much. I’m really quite fond of it.
If an effort was organized to get a couple hundred knowledgeable/well-known music composers together to evaluate each track and give their opinions, and if a rank list was made from the sum of these individual evaluations, THEN that would be something I could sink my teeth into. THAT would be worthy of a news post.
I don’t agree with a lot of his choices, but it’s still an interesting read. Not many people know where they consider that many Mega Man songs in their favorites, so it’s worth something at least.
He mentioned a few times how the song goes with the level. While I feel that Wily Stage 1 and 2 from Mega Man 2 is a great song, I don’t feel that it goes with those levels that well. It’s almost too epic for what you are doing. It’s not a perfect match if you ask me. Still, it might not be his number 1 pick and either way, it’s fine. It’s just his list, nothing official or anything.
Leave it to TMNT to host a bevy of intelligent ranters with viable points.
Now that someone said something nice, can we move on? Where’s that next Megapaluza installment? I want to see if Flame Mammoth’s stage is the next choice. (Additionally, don’t forget Avalanche Yeti from X8!)
I’m also a graduate from Harvard University with a PhD in quantum rocket physics theory.
Buncha whiners.