Poll Man Too: Mega Man 2 (1988) music poll

what i believe must be "Boss Name" is what immediately popped into my head but i should listen to everything once before voting i think

For me, this one is easy, and it's not Flashman but Quickman! Such a classic theme

the first wily track is very good. Also 'Ending' sounds familiar(and good), but I don't think I've heard it. at least not in the context of megaman

Flashman, duh

Probably my favorite MM soundtrack. Very tough choice, but Bubble Man is maybe the first vg song I remembering loving

The only poll that matters

MM2 might have been the first time I remember noticing basslines and how they functioned

intro/title, though again the wily stages are almost nonstop jams

impossible to contend with the theme tho

btw pretty sure you can sing this over the title music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGdkaFZVyGc

literally all the stage music is soooo good

lol xp

I agree that Quickman > Flashman, that's one of my favorites.

Soooo my impression is that people dunk on Wiley 3&4 for being lazy compared to the other themes (4 notes cycling through all 12 keys). But as a kid I didn't know about keys or anything else, and I loved the haunting simplicity and endless tension of it. I even put it on a dj mix recently. So I'll probably vote for that because I know no one else will.

I went a deep dive with this recently, and it's wild to me that the composer doesn't do anything related to music anymore, he had such a melodic gift:
https://bravewave.net/interviews/takashi-tateishi

Mo: Do you remember the first time you met someone who said they loved your work on Mega Man 2?

Tateishi: You're the first, in 2013. No one else has.

;_;

Mo: Do you remember how long it would take you to compose a track in Mega Man 2?

Tateishi: In the most ideal situation, I'd make a song in the morning and Kitamura-san would approve it in the afternoon, and then the game data would exist that night.

!

i guess i can't actually recall wily stages 3&4 off the top of my head

wily stages 1&2 is in many ways the ultimate music

oh man i like wily 3&4 a lot, it is kind of cursed

this is the best video game soundtrack ever lol. someone please vote for "heatman"

also "metalman" @_@

There are so many good ones, but Woodman makes me want to start a big band with horns behind podiums and shit.

In case any of you hadn't heard this yet, here's The Minibosses doing a Mega Man 2 medley. Pretty well done if you ask me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuxfQjJ-3DM

wily stages 1 & 2 and it's not even that close

so, i actually played this game straight through in ~2 sittings last month --- submitted my dissertation for distribution to committee 45 minutes before the deadline, had some spare time before my partner would be off work... booted up the SNES Mini and this game jumped out as what would be the most comfort-foody, relax-into-good-times activity. mixed up an old fashioned and just settled in. maybe the perfect game of its type, not sure how much that comes from knowing it backwards and forwards from renting it fifty times as a kid but man.... aside from the pain in the ass of cycling out the subweapons, and the silliness of some of the trial-and-error sequencing, it's just so satisfying. of course i was digging the music a ton on that playthrough, but nice now to focus exclusively on the songs.

they're all great, and isolated from the game i really love the uptempo electronic barrages (Heatman, Crashman), but my heart is with all the more melodic things that you can kinda imagine as film or anime music. like if you told me "Bubbleman" was a rejected draft theme song for Kimagure Orange Road i'd believe you. "Flashman" is sort of right in the middle, really tightly-wound to that beat but taking you through solid verse, chorus and bridge sections. "Wily Stages 1&2" is like the platonic ideal of propulsive "keep moving, you're on an action-packed journey" platformer music - you could slot that into almost any NES action title and it'd be great, though i don't know if it's got enough melodic hooks to be the "main theme" of any of them. as an aside, it'd be great to have Adam Bruneau here for this thread, hope he's doing good out there. "Boss Music" kinda peaks with the curtain-raising section, but it's really functional as high-stakes stress music when you're fighting those guys and every hit you avoid is a major win.

so tempted to vote "Metalman" which i know the best, cause once you've played this game for a bit you figure out that this is really "stage 1" and all future playthroughs logically begin there unless you're attempting some wacky challenge run for yourself. the music also goes so well with the gear-turning and conveyor-belt animations and so on. but man "Flashman" is so well constructed and "Heatman" so intense! ummm. "Heatman."

I now regret I didn't vote for "Airman" and its crazy solo right before the last section

I know they've been doing it forever, but that Minibosses has intense Twitch streamer background music energy. Also lol @ 4:12 where the synthesizer comes in, ie "we're not playing that run".

so tempted to vote "Metalman" which i know the best, cause once you've played this game for a bit you figure out that this is really "stage 1" and all future playthroughs logically begin there unless you're attempting some wacky challenge run for yourself.

This is the reason I never got that into other Mega Man games, I considered the metal blade the default weapon, not the p-shooter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsZByu3uHJs

lmao i forgot how perfect the advantage's version of "metal man" is

i also thought i was the only person who played the metal man stage first as a kid!!!! now i either go for air man or bubble man first. gotta replay mega man 2 lol

iirc the two stages that are typically recommended first are air man and metal man

i don't actually rate mm2 that highly as a game. obviously it has some strong points, including the soundtrack, but it has some glaring weaknesses too - a lot of weapons are overly situational or pretty much useless, the turret boss in the wily castle is truly terrible, there are a bunch of overly frustrating instant death sections (a mega man staple of course but they hadn't really gotten it right yet here)

i think 9 is actually the best classic mega man game, manages to do everything that was good about the classic series but consistently better at everything and with more overall polish & balance. all the weapons are useful and interesting, the levels all have interesting gimmicks, the soundtrack is even better than 2's...

I think those are really fair critiques of MM2! i think the series's format/genre is one that they got basically to "good/very good" reliably, but may not have ever gotten to "excellent/perfect" (I have not played 9!).

the NES ones after 2 were always fun, and introduced some important mechanical improvements, but tended to have at least a couple of lame/kiddy-feeling bosses, a couple of uninspired stages, several uninspired or rehashed weapons, etc. Mega Man X brought in some further improvements - especially the use of the shoulder buttons to cycle the subweapons - but too many of the "secrets" are actually essential while being hidden in INSANE ways, sometimes even becoming inaccessible if you do things "wrong." not an issue if you've the time/inclination to replay endlessly or lean on walkthroughs, but kind of damaging for a pick-up-and-play experience.

one thing MM2 gets right imo is the tone - cartoony and accessible but still kinda intense-feeling in a heightened "80s action movie" way. it's so goofy objectively but in grade school, it felt somehow more "teenage" if not "adult." the background tiles and the difficulty of stuff like the death lasers in Quickman's stage do a LOT of work in that department.

(and I mean, at some level, the format DEPENDS on nerdy replaying, to figure out what weapons to use where. it could also be this is something i found absorbing and rewarding at age 8-9 but was losing patience for by age 12-13.)

Ooh, I forgot about MM9. I know I played it and enjoy it, but remember nothing about it. Maybe I should play it again.

Every year I get the itch to replay MM2 at some point, which I will probably do very soon now.

Does everyone else use the time stop tool for that one laser screen in Quickman? I can't think of any other use for it in the game, but it's still cool.

Also I remember being very proud of myself as a kid for figuring out that the bubble, which is almost completely useless for the entire game (except for maybe finding those floor traps that you fall through over spikes), must be the weapon to use on the final boss.

i've heard of ppl arguing for mega man 3 over 2 but never 9. amazing lol

Mega Man X brought in some further improvements - especially the use of the shoulder buttons to cycle the subweapons - but too many of the "secrets" are actually essential while being hidden in INSANE ways, sometimes even becoming inaccessible if you do things "wrong."

lol this is so true but i still love x with my whole heart

tbf i probably would too if i'd had my mitts on it at the time - but we were a Genesis household and thru a complicated set of circumstances i was barred from hanging out with the SNES kids not too long after they got theirs. so i didn't really dig into it until the 10th/11th grade emu era, on a qwerty keyboard. i think the games i played that way, i could still get hooked on, but they didn't seep into my brain at the magic level.

oh wait the other kids down the street also had an SNES duh. but they didn't have Mega Man X. i mostly remember a lot of King of the Monsters, and a birthday sleepover tearing through Secret of Mana til the wee hours.

i inherited a snes in high school from my dad's client's kid, it was my third system after the nes and n64, so i was sort of belatedly getting into a lot of almost ten-year-old games, but i got really attached to castlevania iv and super metroid and mega man x anyway, even though i never beat any of them i don't think. super metroid is so fuckin hard

i wanted to play earthbound so bad but by the time i got that snes earthbound cartridges were worth hundreds of dollars

i got my SNES from a thrift store in probably 2003 or so. there was this beautiful window where the ebay type pricing of this stuff had long since gone insane, but news had not reached suburban houses holding garage sales and clearing out "kid stuff" formerly cherished by a sharpie-wielding kid named Hunter or Gabe. at various points i got FFIII, Yoshi's Island, LTTP and Super Metroid for a buck apiece!

i think of SM as essentially beatable if you're patient enough and meticulous enough about searching for optional incremental upgrades (health and missile capacity mainly). for me Super Castlevania 4 is the one where i just hit a "fuck you" difficulty wall and tap out.

Funny thing is Super Castlevania 4 is probably the easiest of the series up to that point. I kept my NES on for a week on the last level of the OG Castlevania and would probably spend an hour a day trying to beat Dracula before I finally pulled it off.

i recommend doing as i did: embrace reaching dracula as the real accomplishment

Also lol @ 4:12 where the synthesizer comes in, ie "we're not playing that run".

That part always gets me - it's my favorite music from the game, Quickman, and had they executed that guitar harmony seamlessly it would have been perfect, but alas, they "fixed" it in post.

either flashman or wily stages 1 & 2

i remember it taking *forever* for me to beat the dragon in wily stage 1. i loved the look of wily stage 2, those giant turbines

I couldn't get past the dragon as a kid, and I have a very vivid memory of my babysitter doing it, those crazy flashes as he dies strobing the whole room.

i was bracing myself for the dragon on this recent playthrough, and def died a bunch falling in the abyss. not gonna lie i was pretty pleased with myself that I got it done in idk ten attempts? god, what a showstopper that dragon was as a kid, maybe one of the most striking "big" bosses on the NES.

the one i'd remembered being a bigger pain than it was is where you have to ration the crash bombs to get through those walls... i guess if you know to just do that rationing it's fine.

Wow... I remember the dragon being pretty easy as a kid and adult. I recall maybe dying only a few times playing it. There was a rhythm to it that made it easy when I was high, which I frequently was when playing it.

Now the cyclops thing in Mega Man 1 at the end of Dr. Wily stage 1? Complete nightmare.

How To Write A Song From The Mega Man 2 Soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JknOdnEtwxs

wow!

like if you told me "Bubbleman" was a rejected draft theme song for Kimagure Orange Road i'd believe you.

get out of my dreams!

Ooh can't wait to watch that.
xp

the one i'd remembered being a bigger pain than it was is where you have to ration the crash bombs to get through those walls

And if you died, then you'd really have problems. I think you either had to grind power-ups to replenish your bombs, or lose all your lives + continue and go back a few stages?

I remember seeing a speed runner do it with some real strategic bomb locations, like taking out a few at once.

after watching that video this morning, i basically had all the tracks in my head. but after walking the dog and doing dishes, Metalman is dominating, so i feel justified in my vote.

"flashman" is stuck in my head today

This thread made me buy the MM legacy collections on PS4 (1-10), hope you're happy with yourselves.

Planning to eventually play 2 (of course), 9, and maybe 10. Anyone want to rep for any of the others?

pretty sure 3 is at least solidly enjoyable if not consistently a delight. 4-6 really blur together in my mind. fewer rentals apiece i guess. just looking at the bosses, i certainly remember some of them, but not their stages.

i owned 8 on PS1, it was fine and very colorful, and at least brings in some original-feeling gimmicks and mechanics for the bosses. but IIRC it has that very slightly sluggish feel common to platformers where your sprite is just a little too big for the screen, and moves just a little too smoothly. Rockman & Forte is also good for that era, i sunk a lot of time into collecting all the dumb CD-ROMs. which isn't worth your time but the fact that i put up with it suggests the gameplay and levels must be at least OK.

Mega Man Legacy Collection 1, which has the first five games, is a great way to play these. I like the remix mode where you play little sections of different levels.

3 is great and the music not far off of 2, which I'll run a poll for after this. 4-6 are super hard and feel less memorable than the the first 3. Don't recall playing 9 or 10 though. Definitely need to seek those out as everything about them seems to be an attempt to recreate the vibes of 2 and 3.

Similarly to Star Wars prequels/sequels, I choose to believe Mega Man never made it to the Super Nintendo.

I couldn't get very far into 9 or 10. They're significantly harder imo

I know I finished 9, don't think I ever played 10, but who can say

Agree with ufo upthread that MM9 is probably the best designed game of the series. The designers pretty much took everything that worked about the originals and spent a great deal of time on some of the things lacking in the original games (weapon balance, polish, etc). The soundtrack is very much in the right style too, though I disagree that it's better than any of the NES games

You're definitely sleeping on some great games if you ignore the X series, at least the first couple. Like the NES series, the games start to run together when it gets past the first few

are there that many people who are so great at Mega Man games? I don't get why 9 and 10 are so hard. It's kinda odd to aim a game at diehards only.

Probably could do an emulator with savestates at this point though...hmm

That Wily stage with the Crash bombs, I thought you had to blow out the walls, then intentionally die, go back to where you could replenish your weapon energy, then go back and finish off the enemies with more crash bombs (the enemies would regenerate, but the walls wouldn't)? I grew up assuming strategic death was the way to go.

Xpost to the metal poll, Strategic Death is the name of my new techdeath EP, hands off

i haven't played this or any of the mega man games but i have heard a number of the series's tunes here 'n' there. there was one that i remembered quite fondly but could never remember what it was or even which game in the series it came from. thankfully via this poll i now know after all these years that my lost tune was "metalman" and that will be my vote

the title tune and "boss name" also pretty iconic

i don't really think 9 was like significantly harder than its predecessors or anything. most of them are pretty hard games and if anything 9 felt a little fairer in its design to me

I started replaying MM9, and it's not *hard* but is much more frustrating than I remember. The difficulty is purely artificial - the stages are longer than MM2 (with mini-bosses in the middle) and very few checkpoints, so when you die you have a lot to re-do. And you only have 3 lives, so even when you do get to a mid-stage checkpoint or a boss, you're often down to the last life and continuing means starting over from the beginning.

There is the shop system, and you can farm screws in certain stages by starting over and then buy extra lives/energy tanks, but that's kinda lame.

Maybe I'll try 10, I don't think I ever played that and it's supposed to be more forgiving.

Tbf, having only 3 lives and having to do the level over when you die at the boss is a big part of the Mega Man formula. But I can easily imagine that with stages being longer, it would get unbalanced fast. Some of the X games had surprisingly tough minibosses and I think that contributed to me giving up on one of them.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

just remembered this week that when i was a kid, i heard/imagined these lyrics as:

Don't, stop
Thinkin' about tomorrow
Don't, stop
It'll soon be here
Metal Man, stop thinkin' about your brother
Dance to this song,
DANCE to this song

also i only just now realized you did a poll for the first game too, octobeard! oops. it didn't seem odd to me that someone would go straight for 2.

feel like original Castlevania would also fit this format well, tho the later level songs would be hamstrung by the difficulty of actually reaching them.

aaa wooooosh airman don't stop

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Intro / Title 1

damn glad i voted

Poor Airman and Crashman. Especially Crashman.

wow, quite the spread

xp Interesting detail from the YouTube above that Crashman was a surviving bit from early work for the game deemed too cutesy.