A Message to Mega Man Remixers

I could say Mega Man has more games than any other video game character out there and I probably wouldn't be exaggerating. The Classic series, X, Zero, ZX, Battle Network, Legends, this little blue robot has serious game. One of the things we all love about Mega Man games is the music. Capcom has been giving us great Mega Man music since the series was kicked off way back in 1987. Since Mega Man games have superb music, it's only natural that there have been a ton of Mega Man remixes. Unfortunately most Mega Man Remixers have been content to remix Mega Man 2 beats more than any other Mega Man game, Mega Man 3 being right behind it. Dr. Wily Stage 1 from Mega Man 2 is an amazing song. I love it, but it's remixed to death. Same with Mega Man 3's title screen, it isn't hurting for remix love. What am I getting at? What am I trying to say to Mega Man remixers? Remix something else.

Mega Man 4 has a stellar soundtrack, and yet it you can almost count the number of remixes the music for that game has gotten on one hand. Dr. Cossack's music (both themes) easily ranks as some oft he best fortress music in the history of Mega Man. And where the heck are those dope remixes of Bright Man's stage?! Where is the love for Dark Man stage music in Mega Man 5? Split Mushroom from X4? I always loved his jam and not a single solitary remix. As much as I hated X6, I did dig that game's music. Commander Yammark and Blaze Heatnix deserve to have their themes remixed. No one has touched Mega Man: Battle & Chase music, though this could be due to the fact that the game has remained in Japan for almost 10 years and didn't come to the states until the Mega Man X Collection got released. Even the Battle Network games, hobby-based as they may be have some good tunage (well except for Battle Network 4. That one had only about two good themes).

Mega Man music offers so much to work with and I think it's time remixers start thinking outside of Mega Man 2 and 3.

September Duels

This month's Dwelling of Duels was a Super Hero Month. Don't know who came up with the theme for this month, but I like it. The good news: no Batman Stage 1 covers for the NES game! Seriously, that track has been done to death. The bad news: a minimal selection. There are only ten tracks this month. A shame too because given this month's theme, there was more to work with than most people realize. Even so, what we got was pretty good. It's pretty much a metal month so turn up the volume, get out your air guitar, and enjoy.

September Duels

Mega Man Makes Wall Street Journal

I'm serious. In the state America is in, seeing an article on Mega Man 9 and in the WSJ of all papers is great news.

Radical!

Ever hear of a game called Radical Dreamers? It's cool if you haven't. Developed by Square, it was a game on the Super Famicom's Satelliteview platform, which means it never saw the light of day outside of Japan, not officially, anyway. Radical Dreamers was a text based, visual novel style game. You play as a guy named Serge and his friend Kid tags along for the ride. Do those names sound familiar? They should. Radical Dreamers can be viewed as a side story to Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. A few of the musical themes from Radical Dreamers can be heard in Chrono Cross such as the Frozen Flame and my personaly favorite, Viper Manor.

Radical Dreamers: Thieves of Fate is the end result of combined efforts of various remixers from OverClockedremix.org. The website I just mentioned should be more than enough to get you to download this album. I've heard the music in the original Radical Dreamers game and it sounds fantastic. If Yasunori Mitsuda, the composer of the Radical Dreamers music were to hear this remixed album, I'm sure he'd be quite impressed. Go ahead and give a listen.

Radical Dreamers: Thieves of Fate

Jack's In Trouble

Forgive me for posting a picture of Jack Thompson's ugly kisser. I needed to have something to go along with this great news. You see, old Jack has been disbarred permanently beginning 30 days from now. He still has a chance at a retrial but if I were Jack, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Jack is known for his silly shenanigans against violent video games and overall annoying the gaming community. I bet if he'd sit down, shut up and played some video games, he'd have a lot of fun. Oh who am I kidding? There's a better chance of world peace breaking out before that will ever happen.

Along with his disbarment, Jack owes reimbursement Florida Bar fees of $43, 675.35. Snap.

Source

Well it took a while but it finally happened. Jack Thompson is OUTTA HEREEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
I'm so happy.

His Power Level Is Incredible!

Once again, I'm late to the party but this time, I'm intentionally late. I came very close to buying Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (what a long title) earlier this year when it was still priced at $40. However, I knew if I showed some patience and waited, the price would drop. Sure enough, a few months later, it hit the $30 mark. A little more waiting and it was priced at $20. Score!

First off, let me say that I love fighting games but when I pick up a DBZ fighter, I'm not looking for the next Soul Calibur or Virtua Figther. I'm just looking for a good DBZ experience that's respectful of the source material. Now that I've gotten that outta the way, I can continue.

I played the first Budokai Tenkaichi a few years ago. I admired the approach it took to emulate the DBZ style of fighting but more often than not, it's flaws and glitches cropped their ugly heads. Having only a single life bar really sucked when you were up against dudes that could blow up a planet. Some of the super buffed out fighters (Super Trunks, Broly, Bojack) wouldn't even flintch when you hit them and they could inturupt your combo string anytime because of it. A number of battles in the story mode were ridiculously har. The fight where you have to defeat Vegeta in his Great Ape form comes to mind. If you wanted to win, you had to spam Kamehameha attcks because melee attacks would just wind up getting you killed. It was for these reasons that I skipped the sequel. Besides, I had a lot of fun with Super Dragon Ball Z even if the character roster in that game didn't even come close to BT2's.

When I started practice mode to get a feel for the controls, I could tell that I'd be in for a more polished game than the first BT. The controls feel a lot more tighter and fluid. Even flying around feels a lot better, faster.

To avoid dragging this out into a string of lengthy paragraphs, I've decided to list the pros and cons out this game. I'll try to keep it brief but I'll elaborate on a few things.

Pros

• Tons of characters. Over 150 to be exact. This includes everone from DB, DBZ, and DBGT. Every single transformation is here, too. Even all the movie villains are here. I just wish we were able to get the DBZ version of Pan. GT pan is annoying to no end. Arale, from Dr. Slump, Akira Toriyama's first manga series is even playable and she's pretty tough.
• Customizing your figther. This has always been one of my favorite things about the console DBZ games. Dimps came up with the idea in the DBZ Budokai games, and Spike decided to keep running with it in the BT games. Smart move on their part. You can make your fighters that are already insanely powerful even stronger still.
• Improved graphics. They just keep finding a way to make these games look even better.
• Info on every character. There's a mode specifically made that give you the 411 on every fighter in the game. It was in the first BT but it's nice to see it back. With this mode, the game manages to do the impossible: Make Chi-Chi a likable person. She gives amusing commentary on everyone.
• No recycled music from the Budokai games! Thankfully they've decided to go with the music in BT. And what is sure to shut many fans of the original Japanese DBZ version up, the option for Japanese voices is there.

Cons

• A few stupidly hard fights in Dragon History mode. Don't bother trying to use Melee attacks against Perfect Cell after he's "died" and then powered up. Spam him with beam attacks and pray that you win.
• Still not crazy about the behind-the-fighter view.
• Rush attacks can get annoying since they home in on you.
• Some tournaments are only open at certains times in the game.

The good outweighs the bad. For $20 I got a sweet DBZ experience and I honestly believe this is one the best DBZ games out there.

Rockman Kenk

Everyone and their grandmother has hacked Mega Man 2. As much as I love Mega Man 2 hacks, it sure would be nice to see some hacks of the other Mega Man games. There aren't too many hacks of the original Mega Man but of the few I've played, I find Rockman Kenk to be the best of the bunch.Rockman Kenk was released in honor of Mega Man 9. The game is a modified version of Rockman Kai and is a lot more polished to boot. Having spent the last few hours playing the game (I'm at Dr. Wily's fortress as I type this), I can assure you that Rockman Kenk is a quality hack. Aside from the overdone falling segments in Bomb Man's stage, the levels pack excellent design. One of the primary annoyances of Mega Man hacks is the cheap hits from enemies to serve as a challenge, when in reality, all it really does is frustrate the player. Rockman No Constancy and Rockman Deus Ex Machina are fine hacks, but even those are guilty of doing just that. Rockman Kenk wisely avoids this. For this reason, Rockman Kenk may even be better than the original game that it's based off of. The game is still pretty challenging but not to the point of being unfair.All of the bosses have different weakness and due to some floor rearrangement, boss fights also play out in a different maner. If you can't play Mega Man 9 (like me. I don't have a Wii or any next gen system) or you're just looking for another Mega Man game to play, Rockman Kenk is highly recommended. Just make sure you patch a Rockman rom, not a Mega Man rom.

Rockman Kenk