Oct 072015
ROCKTOBER 2015 kicks off with a deep dive into the first three Mega Man games.
0:00:00 – Opening and Title (MM2)
0:13:01 – Cut Man (MM1)
0:14:31 – Elec Man (MM1)
0:16:01 – Bomb Man (MM1)
0:22:42 – Fire Man (MM1)
0:23:47 – Wily 1 (MM1)
0:30:22 – Bubble Man (MM2)
0:31:40 – Quick Man (MM2)
0:33:00 – Flash Man (MM2)
0:44:09 – Air Man (MM2)
0:45:43 – Wood Man (MM2)
0:46:57 – Wily 1 (MM2)
0:55:10 – Title (MM3)
0:56:38 – Spark Man (MM3)
0:57:52 – Shadow Man (MM3)
1:08:31 – Gemini Man (MM3)
1:10:31 – Snake Man (MM3)
1:12:00 – Wily 2 (MM3)
1:19:25 – Ending (MM3)
Yes! YES!! YEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!!
IT’S MEGAMAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!!!
Time to Rock the fuck out!!
Love that Megaman music so much I even made my own compilation video for Robot Master themes. Just so I could listen to them all together whenever I wanted.
Hmm, didn’t mean for that to show the whole video, I just wanted to post a link…
I KNEW in my head Mega Man was due up. This is going to get me through the month, with all them rockin’ tunes from Mega Man Soccer and Rockman Battle & Chase!
Great choice for Rocktober! I love your show and look forward to every release. You definitely have, in my opinion, the best video game music podcast out there. My only gripe is that when you fade into a song, you play the first loop of it during your discussion so I feel like I’m not getting to hear the whole thing. Especially with songs as short as Mega Man’s, it makes the first song and last song of your music segments too short. Perhaps you could do the fade in at the first half of the first loop of the tune. Just a thought. Thanks for the great songs and keep it coming!
MAN. WHAT AN EPISODE. Couple of things…
• Yes, technically the first Capcom song played on vgmpire is from the Cavalcade of Sports episode. In it, you play Capcom World Cup. What’s funny is Chris says “Really?! Our first Capcom song? This is how–” Brett: “Yes, because no one will notice or care.”
WELL I NOTICED. 😛
• So, so, SOOOO glad you played Snakeman. That stage is my all-time favorite Megaman song–which says a LOT amongst the other god-tier megaman songs out there.
• I also LOVE that Dr. Wily song from Megaman 3. I loved it so much… I re-created it on BeepBox! Copy/paste link below:
http://tinyurl.com/pv2vjm7
I did my best, but BeepBox doesn’t give you as many channels as a proper famicom and that drum beat is really hard to get right.
Oh my gosh yes. Thank you for making the decision to put Capcom on the show. As one of the top developers of game titles in the world, it was the right decision to make. Your show will benefit, and we the listeners benefit as a result. Now on to Rockman!
P.S. I hope you find a spot to slip some Mega Drive Mega Man Wily Wars in there somewhere. 😉
Good stuff my friend. I was kinda disappointed in the game choice last year (i am no fan of the mons that poke) but this is exactly what I’m talking about for some Rocktober action. You sir, get a golf clap.
Awesome! Been waiting for a Megaman episode, and what better than a Rocktober to do it. Lots of great memories growing up with the series. Getting Megaman 3 for Christmas as my first owned copy of a Megaman game stands as a great childhood memory.
This episode is also awesome for reminding me about the Chow Yun Fat UN Squadron video. I tried searching for it awhile back when I heard an old episode, but couldn’t find it. Since Grimm mentioned it again it gave me the correct search terms to find it. Totally hilarious. It also led me to another video of Michael J. Fox playing Spark Mandrill’s music from Megaman X in the same vein.
Mega Man 1,2 and 3 aka the only games that people seem to do remixes of the tracks. The tracks are great but I’m so bored of everyone doing remixes of Cut Man, Crash Man, and Wily Stage 1 from 2
Sweet, we finally get our Rockmantober! And it’s appropriate that it’s 101, Mega Man is the bedrock of great game music, along with Castlevania.
YES! Finally! I was wondering if any Capcom titles at all would show up on the show. This is gonna be a real good month, so much good music across the series.
Sorry to be “that guy,” but Harumi Fujita and Yasuaki Fujita are NOT wife and husband!! This has been a common misconception forever. Mohammed from Brave Wave told me when Harumi-san heard about this misconception she laughed really hard. I even had to go into the Capcom Wikia to change this: http://capcom.wikia.com/wiki/Harumi_Fujita
With that said, husband/wife duos in the game composing world do happen! I know recently Yoshino Aoki (Breath of Fire III/IV, Mega Man Battle Network 2/3/6) married Tetsuya Shibata (Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry 2 & 3, SF Alpha 3).
I was always a Mega Man X kid growing up (X1 was the first Mega title I ever played). There was a period in the late 90s where I thought to myself “I’ve seen these games in my old ’92 and ’94 Nintendo Power magazines, I REALLY want to play them!” but I no longer had a NES at the time.
Mega Man 7 was actually my first MM Classic title, and still remains one of my favorites. I also rented 8 on PS1 back in the day and eventually bought it. Love it too!
It wasn’t until Anniversary Collection came out in 2004 on PS2 that I really got to play all 1 – 6. Looking back, it was great to finally get into them, but I got easily frustrated. Lots of rage quits during MM1 and 2, especially 2, thanks to the pink Wily level where if you screwed up with the crash bombs at the boss, you might as well lose all your lives and start that level over. SO much rage quitting. But boy was the music incredible. Crazy to think that Takashi Tateishi only resurfaced recently thanks to the efforts of Brave Wave. Even crazier to think for the longest time he had no idea people loved his music so much!
Of the NES games, I think Mega Man 3’s the best one, musically and gameplay-wise. “Spark Man” is just excellent (NESkimos cover is excellent, as well as Armcannon’s Spark Mandrill/Spark Man fusion), and Snake Man, and Top Man (another favorite). Yasuaki Fujita overall is one of my favorite retro game composers: Mega Man 3? Breath of Fire? The Capcom Logo SFX? Hell yeah! God-tier game composer.
I have to give kudos to The NESkimos and The Advantage for really making me appreciate classic Mega Man music before I finally got into the actual games. The Megas do some really great, lyrics-driven covers of MM2+3’s stuff, too.
Just a forewarning to anyone interested in buying Mega Man music: The latest “E-Can” collection has some borked tracks for Mega Man 1 & 2 – some tracks are crackling and staticy (not unlike the current audio issues present in Mega Man Legacy Collection). The older 2002 Capcom Music Generation Famicom Music Complete Works Rockman 1~6 collection doesn’t have static issues but the audio quality isn’t as crisp as the latest E-Can entry. A bit of a bummer, I hope Mega Man 1 & 2’s audio eventually get their proper due in CD/digital form!
So while Wily 1 is indeed overplayed, I don’t mind listening to the original on a regular basis. I think I’m way more tired of the constant covers that track has (it got to absurd levels the past few MAGFests). Like I usually say…”Less Mega Man 2 Wily 1 covers, more Mega Man 7 Wily 1 covers!”
Anyway to conclude, here’s an oldie-old terrible video of me in a hockey mask and my friend Terrence covering Mega Man 2 Wily way back in the day 😉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_psMQfwHRPk
uuugh i thought that husband/wife thing sounded odd, and I looked around to confirm/deny, but the two things I read held onto that rumor. -_-
will put a correction into one of the subsequent rocktobers
well done, sir.
MM-2 Wily Stage 1 is not only my ringtone, but also the barometer of how I judge my friends.
looking forward to next week! keep up the good work.
Mega Man is a series I managed to completely miss out on, looking forward to a month of education.
OOHHHHHH SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET YAH!
rocktober i back!
I’ve been waiting for this ever since this show started. Here we go!
Mega Man music is the gold standard of game music. It moves, it emotes, it startles and surprises. These first three games were the ones that laid the foundation for my love of the character and the series. Like most kids, I think I started with MM2.I rented the first well after beating the second. As you mentioned in the podcast, there wasn’t any coverage of these games back then. Just promotional magazines and word of mouth were the vehicles that helped a game build up its cache back then. My first memories of Mega Man were actually on a black and white TV in the den. Our color TV went out and we played on the old b/w for what seemed like ages.
I don’t think you can cover it all in October. The X series, Game Boy games, arcade games, obscure ports (Game Great, NGPC)? There’s a ton of stuff and I look forward to the next episode.
Yesssss, so glad this finally came up!
Awesome!
The reason Mega Man 3 had no title screen or proper opening was that the game was rushed — against the developer’s wishes — unlike Mega Man 2 where the developers were given time to polish to the extreme. You can feel how much better a presentation Mega Man 2 is over 3, and this is what it comes down too.
Can you please stop talking over the music. When you’re ready to play it, then play it.
part of the reason I talk over it, is because it loops so you’re not missing the actual content of the song, and more importantly because the discussion adds very important contextualization / editorialization that puts it further into the ‘fair use’ zone. The law in this regard is quite hazy, which can sometimes work for you, sometimes against. So I try to play it safe by letting the music play under our conversation and then fade up as it loops. I know other shows don’t do this, and neither do the countless monetized YouTube uploads, but I’m trying to be on the level.
Other than that, I love this podcast! Thanks for doing this.
Already listened to this episode about 4 times. Rocktober off to a great start!
Is there a better intro to a Mega Man game than 3’s? I actually like that there is no opening cutscene – it emphasizes the song way more and starts the game off with swagger. “This is Mega Man 3. You’re going to love it.”
My favorite cover of MM3 Intro is [YouTube] Technodrome – Mega Man 3 Title Theme. They really play up that sweet first part of it in particular.
Anyway, awesome choice for Rocktober ’15!
I… I don’t know what to say about this years Rocktober, you’ve tapped into a deeply rooted part of my childhood and I can’t stop smiling listening to this. Granted I can listen to any of these songs at any time, but listening to it with other people who were having the same experience I was at the same time in history… it does something to me. something good. like a delightful invasion. thank you for doing this series.
also, I never knew anyone found the US boxart artist and asked him about it. that’s great! XD
specifically the Wily 2 music does something to me. it makes me sad and i get that weird feeling in my chest, and not just a nostalgia pang… it’s something more. it’s both hopeful and hopeless. it’s a beautiful song and ghostly terrifying.