Rockman Dash Original Soundtrack

Honestly, I'm not even sure why I first bought this soundtrack. While I thought Mega Man Legends (Rockman Dash) to be one of the better Playstation titles of 1998, the music really never stood out in my head. Maybe it was just that I saw it at my local Electronics Boutique for $20 and decided to go for it. I'm glad I did, because after some listening, I can finally appreciate this great soundtrack.

Perhaps the reason why the music never stuck out was that most of the game took place in underground caverns called SubGates, most of which had fairly atmospheric music. These tunes are on the CD and are still very good to listen to outside the game; they're creepy and subdued, but still cool. The rest of the music is from the towns (upbeat yet a bit generic), the cutscenes (most of these are great, especially the theme of the Bonne Brothers which is goofy enough so you realize these villains really aren't *that* nasty) or the boss battles (usually very fast paced with lots of drums and trumpets).

Unfortunately, the whole soundtrack couldn't be fit onto one CD, so the music that I originally liked when playing the game isn't here. The main ones were the "rocket skate racing game" (it sounded *a lot* like classic Mega Man) and the ending theme (which was possibly different from the Japanese one, since it had several English voice clips from the game).

On the flip side, there are two vocal songs that weren't used in the American version. The first one, "Another Sun", I found when rooting around the sound files on the American MM Legends game CD, and it is fairly decent. The other one, "Your Wind is Blowing", is excellent and pretty much makes up for the lack of the ending tune. They're both sung by Reika Morishita and while I guess they're typical J-pop, I like both of them.

The music style sort of parallels the way I feel about Mega Man Legends as a whole: it's great, but it's not the typical Mega Man we're used to since the 8-bit days. Certain tracks (like "The Flutter vs The Geisel Shaft") have a bit of Mega Man influence with the piano sections, but that's about all. In spite of this, the music is very fun and there's a wide variety of tracks (though most are no more than a minute or two in length.) Certainly worth picking up, even if, like me, the music from the game never stuck in your head. It will after this CD.