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Thursday, October 30, 2008

If Louie Armstrong Sung About Super Mario World

YouTube user Brentafloss has done it again. I loved his renditions of the Mega Man 3 Title theme with lyrics. He cracked me up when he gave the standard Final Fantasy Victory theme music lyrics. This time he's truly outdone himself. Doing a Louie Armstrong imperssionation, he's created a parodic take on "What a Wonderful World."

Watch it. NOW!!!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Yep, More Game Music

If I wasn't a frequent member of message boards, I'd probably never find all these cool things to talk about. I'm digressing again. And Digressing sucks. Unless it's good digressing. Where was I? Oh yeah. Game music.

First up, MegaCollection Vol 1. This is a collection of outstanding Medleys from the Mega Man games. There's six tracks total and while the Medleys don't go into the next song continuously, that does not keep this album from being a winner. Even more props for doing Medleys with songs from some of the under appreciated themes like Pharaoh Man, which has always been one of my favorite Mega Man tracks. I'm already hyped for Vol. 2 if there is indeed a Vol. 2

Download MegaCollection Vol. 1



I finally found a game rip to one of my favorite games for the Nintendo 64, Bettle Adventure Racing! Among other things, the N64 was heavily criticized for it's audio processor. Sega and Sony were living it up with CD systems and Nintendo was still stuck in the past using carts. When people knew what they were doing, the N64 produced some really sweet sounds. BAR's music was handled by Phil Western, Scott Blackwood, and Brenden Tennant. I think wiki sums up BAR's soundtrack pretty well. "The music in BAR is a groovy, breakbeat soundtrack with loud drums, organs, and guitars." It's realy flipping sweet.

Download Beetle Adventure Racing! soundtrack



You're probably look at the album art to the right and thinking "Downtwon What?" That's the Japanese name for River City Ransom, a cult favorite from the NES era. School kids just gotta kidnap girlfriends and rivals gotta team up to give said school kids a well-deserved butt-kicking. Only River City Ransom and a few Super Dodge Ball games made it to the states, but in Japan, the franchise is pretty famous. There have been titles on nearly every Nintendo platform overseases, a few of them have even been translated by fans.

Downtown Nekketsu Monogatri collects the music from each system that River City Ransom was on. NES, PC Engine X68000, and GBA That's over 70 tracks!

Downtow Nekketsu Monogatari: Complete Collection



I was originally post more beats, but then that would result in an insanely huge blog post. More late, kids.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Mother 3, In ENGLISH

It boggles the mind why Nintendo chose never to translate Mother 3 and bring it to the states. However, from what I've been hearing lately, keeping the game in Japan and ticking off the hardcore gaming crowd seems right up Nintendo's alley.


The Mother series began it's life on the Famicom and wouldn't come to America until 1995 under the name EarthBound and in reality, this was Mother 2. The game was widely regarded as one of the best RPGs on the SNES and gushed of excellents in sound, story, and humor.

I remember reading about Mother 3 in the late '90s, hoping the game would see a state side release. Since the Nintendo 64DD (the system Mother 3 was in development for at the time) tanked, so did any hope of seeing the game. But wait! Mother 3 was given new life on the Game Boy Advance in 2003, and then released in Japan in 2006. And wouldn't you know it, Nintendo didn't bring the game over to America.

A group of fans decided to take matters into their own hands. Sometimes if you want something done at all, you gotta do it yourself. Ladies and gentleman. Boys and girls. Mother 3 is now available in English. I haven't played it but from what I'm hearing, Mother 3 is enough to make grown men drop to their knees and weep. Apparently the game is that good. I just hope Nintendo doesn't send the fans who translated the game a cease and disist. After all, all they did was make a translation patch. At any rate, you can now enjoy Mother 3 and understand what the heck is going on. Hooray!
Mother 3 In English

Monday, October 20, 2008

Mega Man 9 Mini Manga!

Those that bought the Mega Man 9 Arrange Soundtrack got a nice little bonus: a 15 page manga by Rockman Megamix manga artist Hitoshi Ariga. The manga focuses on the events that lead up to the robots going beserk in Mega Man 9 and there's much more depth to the manga story than there is the game's. We all love Mega Man, but let's be realistic; the stories in the classic series have never been all that serious or on the same level as the X games. The Megamix manga does a admirable job of rectifying this.

Now if this is your first time reading a Rockman Megamix manga, then you may be confused on a couple of things. *SPOILER ALERT* You may be asking "Why are the robot masters from Mega Man 1 good guys?" Simple. In the first Rockman Megamix comic series, they returned to being peace keepers after Mega Man stopped their rampage. These guys were originally made by Dr. Light, afterall. *END SPOILERS*


On top of Ariga-San's sweet artwork, the story ain't too shabby either. Anyone that's played the Mega Man games will be trilled to see the Dr. Cossack, Kalinka (Cossack's daughter), and Bright Man appear, even if they only show up in a panel or two. It makes me wish for a proper Mega Man anime and for the rest of the Mega Man mangas to be brought states side.

If you want to read the manga, go here.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Rockboard: Translated

For years I'd known of the existence of the Famicom game, Wily & Light's Rockboard: That's Paradise!! (such a long title) This was another one of those games that had not been localized and brought to the states. Perhaps the reasoning behind this lies in the fact that it isn't your traditional Mega Man game. Heck, Mega Man isn't even a playable character. Even so, this didn't stop a group of fans over at Mega Man PC Websites from translating the game into English. This is probably old news to many but to me, this is new and wonderful news.

So what is Rockboard? Well, it's a video game board game that has your favorite Mega Man characters buying up properties, gambling and... well, even after playing the game for a bit, I still don't know %100 how to explain this game. It is a bit like Monoply but not all the way. You can probably get a better understaning about the game by reading this here.

In any case, I'm glad someone finally translated this game so I actually know what's going on. You can download the patch here.

I'm Cranking Them Out!

The last few days I've been putting together compilation albums from my findings on the net. I'll try to keep this post short and I'll say a bit about each album. I've got more albums to do and a date with Dr. Wily in 8-bit Mega Man 7.

Mega Man Remastered

I found a Japanese website that specializes reproducing video game music, keeping it close to the original track, but enhancing it. Calling it remastered sounded good enough to me. There were a lot of Mega Man songs on the site (over 40) so I compiled 39 of them into one download. Listen to these with the volume cranked to the max or with headphones to get the most out of it.

Chrono Remastered

Eight tracks from one of my (and maybe your) all-time favorite games have been remastered and they've never sounded better! That's saying a lot when you consider the original score is pretty epic! This version of Battle 2 needs to be played at an Opera. Seriously.

SNES Remastered

Like Mega Man Remastered and Chrono Remastered. The SNES had one of the best audio chips for a video game system. Many gamers have a lot of soundtracks that came from this system.

SNES Remastered 2

Same deal with the first one. Koopa (the final battle music in Yoshi's Island) sounds like 500 levels of one bad mother...! Just download it.

Azell Arrange


Azell arranges video game music. She does a magnificent job of it, too! Some of the best arrangements I've ever heard. A few songs just cut off, but that's only flaw in an otherwise solid collection of tracks.

Azell Final Fantasy Arrange


Azell! Final Fantasy!! Arrange!!! Why are you still reading this stupid text?!

Full Moon


Nothing but Moon Themes from DuckTales, including one vocal track! I even tossed in a MIDI collection.

Chrono Fantasy


A collection of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy music from various Japanese fans.

The Red Wings


This UK-based band does a marvelous job pumping out rock versions of video game tunes. They've only done 12 songs and I've thrown them all into a single download. Check out their website here.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Mega Remixes: Finished for Now

I finished Mega Remixes 11-13 yesterday and that's going to be the last of them for a while. Finding remixes to make these albums was fun but very exhausting. The Mega Remixes 13 is heavy on the Doujin style music and it's pretty good to boot. I was able to find unique remixes for Tornado Man & Concrete Man's themes. On top of that, I found some remixes for the overlooked Mega Man Game Boy games, including a remix of the first Battle Theme from Mega Man IV, the Wily Boss Battle music, and Dr. Wily Stage 1 from Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge. Unless you're a frequent visitor of Doujin remix websites, I think these will be new to you.

I still plan to make more compilation albums. I've been wanting to do an all Magnet Man compilation album, an all Wood Man album, and an all Cut Man album along with some of my other favorite robot master's themes. I already found some nice art to tag the mp3s with.

Anyway, here's the last of the Mega Remixes albums:

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Falcon PUNCH!

I had no idea Capton Falcon's signature move, the Falcon Punch would spawn the ridiculous amount of videos that it has. Take this one for example. One of many that's up on YouTube. I need to learn how to do that.

Mega Man 5 Gets the Endless Treatment


If you haven't purchased Mega Man 9, you may not be aware of one of the extras the game has called Endless Challenge. The game thrusts you into random portions of the levels throughout the game and to clear each area, you have to get to the teleport capsule.

I haven't played MM9 yet, but I've read up on what sounds like a really cool concept. Thanks to Rock5easily, I've gotten a taste of what MM9's Endless Challenge is like. Rock 5 Endless does just what MM9's Endless Challenge mode does. Where you begin and will end up is completely random. You have all your weapons and special items to help you kill bosses and advance through the levels. However, there are no E-Tanks so the only way you can recover your energy is by killing bosses and picking up refills along the way.


Like MM9's Endless Challenge, Rock 5 Endless keeps track of how many levels you've cleared with a counter at the top right of the screen. The first time, I played, I cleared 40 stages before I was met with defeat from Crystal Man. The second time, I was able to clear 107 stages before I died. Word at the Rockman Perfect Memories forums is that it's easier than MM9's Endless Challenge. Some players there have cleared over 500 stages. Even with it being on the easy side, its pretty fun. I've provided a link with the ISP patch. Be sure to patch a Rockman 5 rom, not a Mega Man 5 rom. Click on the image in the link to download it. Enjoy.

Rock 5 Endless

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Delzhand Does Mega Man


Delzhand, a forumite on the Penny Arcade message boards has been working on a HD Mega Man game in XNA and made these sprites. He wanted to keep the feel and look of the 8-bit Mega Man sprite. I think he did pretty well. If the sprites look that good, I cannot wait to play the actual game.

Delzhand has a site you can check out here: Delzhand.com.

Get Equipped with Tae K

I thought I'd seen everything with Mega Man music. This album I came across takes the cake. Released earlier this year, Tae K is a mix tape album that adds lyrics to some of our favorite Mega Man songs, fourteen to be exact. I've never really been one for rap, but Tae K is a huge exception. The author is obviously a huge fan of Mega Man so that scores him major bonus points right there. The mixtape take on Mega Man music works extremely well. My favorite track? "Money in the Bank" which adds lyrics to Dr. Wily Stage 2 from Mega Man 3.

Everyone loves free stuff and Tae K is available as a Free download. Even if you aren't into rap, I highly recommend checking this one out. I was pleasantly surprised.


Download Taek

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

An Overlooked Mega Man Soundtrack

Mega Man Battle & Chase was released in Japan in 1997 on the original PlayStation. Capcom had ran ads for the game in video game magazines in America, but Sony for whatever lame reason, didn't think the game was fit to cross over on American soil. The game didn't make it onto our scene until almost 10 years later when it was included in the Mega Man X Collection as an unlockable.

Battle & Chase may be one of the more obscure Mega Man titles, but it's still a fun game. For a Mario Kart knock of it was a pretty ambitious one. Winning races allowed you to get parts from the competition's carts and you could outfit your ride with multiple parts. This not only altered your cart on a performance level, it altered it cosmetically as well.

On top of the nice gameplay, Battle & Chase had a sweet soundtrack, comprised of nearly completely original tunes. My favorite songs are the various versions of Over the Top, Escape, Wind Carry My Words, Through the Air, Are You Gloomy, Chasers, but really, the whole score is quality stuff. Not a single remix has been made of from this soundtrack and that breaks my video-game-music-loving heart. Maybe someday someone will get hip to this awesome score and come out with some nice beats.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Mama Said Knock You Out

Great news, kiddies! Forget a Big Mac. It's allllll about Little Mac. Took Nintendo forever, but they've finally brought back Punch-Out!! and I cannot think of a more fitting system for a boxing game than the Wii. Look's like we're in for more 30 second KO bouts against Glass Joe, stuffing the Bull Charge, and more racial material than we can shake a boxing glove at. I'm off to do some road work while listening to the pass word music to Punch-Out!!