The shipping alone is nuts... I think it cost me $3.50 S&H from Play-Asia. Of course, that's standard shipping though.

Recently I was listening to this and remembered there were individual composing credits for this soundtrack. Is it just me or did Ryo Kawakami just rock this soundtrack five ways to Saturday? I can't get enough of "Title," "Plug Electric (Plug Man Stage)," "Magma Burning (Magma Man Stage)," "Flash in the Dark," and "Overdrive Scramble (Special Stage)."

It's interesting that you feel this way. I grew up on the 8-bit titles as much as anyone here did, but by the time Megaman 6 rolled around, I felt it was time for the series to grow up a little.

Megaman X presented to us a more sombre storyline. X is plagued by self-doubt, and this is evidenced not even 15 minutes into the first X title. This struck a chord with me because I had never really seen a protagonist like that, and I felt it was interesting. The grittier character and and enemy designs were just the thing I needed, too. I truly enjoyed the X series for these reasons.

I have yet to play X6-X8 in their entirety, but I want to go on the record as saying that X2 and X4 were my favorite titles from all the ones I've played. X1 had the most consistent soundtrack in terms of composition, but I felt that X2 was a lot more varied in what it offered, and this kept it interesting for me on an aural level. Everything about the first two X titles really, truly and absolutely appealed to me. X3 was a good effort, too, but I didn't enjoy the soundtrack as much, with Crush Crawfish and Neon Tiger being the only music from the game I actually really enjoyed (not that the rest of the music was bad, I just felt it was wholesomely average compared to what I had heard in the first two). I also felt like it added too much shit in there. We had, like, four different ride armors  to collect, two extra bosses to fight along with one optional boss, and four extra armor-enhancing capsules (on top of the normal ones). I understand that more is better, but I didn't feel like it was true in this case. Interestingly, I felt the same way towards X5 with all the different armors you could get. It's my understanding that X6 continues that trend.

I found X4 to be an amazing experience. Seeing those fresh 2-D sprites animated in such fine detail made my eyes bulge, and those anime cut scenes seemed like such a new thing to me that I felt (at the time) that every Japanese game should employ them. The action was really good, the bosses were imaginative (I loved the ones that took up, like, half the goddamn screen), and the music felt wholly unique and sounded more electronic than what I was used to. It fascinated me.

I remember playing through X5 and not being very impressed by the gameplay. Every aspect of it is technically competent, being a bolstered version of the gameplay that was in X4, but I don't know why I didn't like it. Storyline was good, though. Very impressed by that.

We'll see for X6 - X8. I am expecting good things at least from X8, based on what I've heard around the internet.

Unfortunately, while I agree X's hesitation towards conflict makes his character more interesting, it's the main reason why X7 starts off on a super, lame-ass note. After playing it, your opinion of this may change a bit, though I wouldn't let one misguided game put a damper on this part of the character.

Still, as you play through these, definately fill us in on what you think of them; I'm definately interested in hearing what you have to say, specially considering you haven't had eons to dwell on them like some of us have.

This. This. THIS!
Couldn't agree more!

You'll be happy to hear that X7 and 8 bring things back to the simple origins.
You'll be less happy to hear 7 is pretty much terrible (mostly because of the 3D stages) though.
But 8 rocks, you should definitely check it out. It's the closest thing to the first 4 games you're gonna get.

So this is something of a random thread bump, but if no one's caught it, Larrson's made his medley available as a high-quality mp3 download.  Been listening to it again, and digging the ever-loving shit out of it.  The guitar licks at 4:18 on Jewel Temptation.... so freaken good.