So I recently started playing the Rockman Zero series on GBA. I really, really love everything about the titles, from the character design and art direction, the level of difficulty, everything.

What I wanna know is about the music released so far. VGMdb has the discs listed as "remastered". What exactly does this mean, in layman's terms? Are the discs worth picking up?

it's a little odd.

Have you perhaps heard the GBA music of Riviera, then listened to the Full Arranged Soundtrack (which was later used for the PSP version)? Perhaps you're familiar with other OSTs that have "full sound" or "grade up" versions, like the Final Fantasy Tactics OST?

Basically, "remastered" is used in somewhat the same sense it is for movies - the music is done over with higher quality samples and synth, sometimes live instrumentation and even remixing. It's basically inbetween an OST and an arrange album - high quality, very faithful arrangements of all the music (with some things like vocal songs, canon-developing drama tracks and real remixes thrown in).

Each Remasterd Tracks album corresponds to a specific Zero game..

Remastered Tracks Rockman Zero - MMZ
Remastered Tracks Rockman Zero: Idea - MMZ 2
Remastered Tracks Rockman Zero: Telos - MMZ 3
Remastered Tracks Rockman Zero: Physis - MMZ 4

The original album, like the music of the original MMZ, is somewhat crude and rough - the series definitely evolves in style and quality after that. Not everybody likes every album, but most people agree that the Remastered Track albums were a good idea. Inti Creates certainly thought so, as they went on to do them for ZX and ZXA (and they did a very similar thing for the Mega Man 9 AST).

The Rockman Zero Game Music Collection -Rockman Zero 1~3- is, as you might imagine, the original music from the first three games, smushed together like the MMBN albums - which means, unfortunately, that nearly all the tracks only play through once.

There unfortunately hasn't been an OST relase for Z4, ZX or ZXA. (ZX and ZXA did get an odd sort of remix album, ZX Gigamix).

Because the albums are quite popular, you can find most of the original and Remastered music up on youtube by searching for track names. For example, here's the original of Scorching Desert from Z1, and here's the remastered version. Some of the tracks in later games get significantly fuller and more interesting remasterings, but I'm sure you can see how that comparison shows the difference.

edit: oh, and here's a track from ZX that shows what happens when they decide to add something new to a song. Here's the original version of "Onslaught", and here's the ZXA Tunes version (ignore the little musical flourish at the beginning). At first they sound pretty close, but at 1:40 the song goes in a new direction that makes it even better.

Excellent info, Dais. Thanks. I'm so going to be picking up these albums. I'll probably even get the Rockman Zero 1-3 album, too. That's some bitchin' cover art.

Nearly all the art for the Mega Man Zero series (and later ZX) is done by a single artist, Toru Nakayama. Pretty much every piece of concept and promotiona art (and lots of argument-worthy canon) was collected into an artbook called "Mega Man Zero: Official Complete Works", which Udon translated and released in the US (after many delays). I've only seen the Japanese version, but it's a pretty dense, complete work, full of plenty of full-page illustrations.

Yeah, I picked that up at the Comic convention that was in town about a month ago. It's pretty swank. Can't wait for the original Megaman one and the X one. Here's hoping we get a Legends one at some point, too.

I don't know what it is. I just been on a huge Megaman kick lately. I'm even considering playing through X6-X8 just to say I finally did it.

I really like some of the music from the Rockman Zero series as well, but the games are a completely different matter. I didn't really care for how Capcom touted the games high difficulty as a positive feature. I'd take the X series over it any day despite how horribly screwed up the story became. Personally, even though X6-X8 is canon, I pretty much block out what happens in those as the series was meant to end with X5. Capcom started work on X6 behind Infane's back thus screwing up its link to RMXZ. If that's not greed knocking, I don't know what is. They tried reestablishing the link in X6 only to once again break it with X7.

Gamewise, X6 is a rushed product, it was rushed out in time for the 01' holiday season and it's believed the game spent six months in development and a mere week in localization (compare this to the gap between X4 [97] and X5 [00]). The game is just damn ugly: cheap shots from enemies you can't hit, boss enemies with low amounts of animation frames and even more oversights than X5. Best thing about the game and the only reason I'm glad it exists? The music.

X7 is a case of taking a series with problems and thinking the switch to 3D will magically fix said problems. Obviously it doesn't. The jet bike level is simply an abomination and Flame Hynard will make you turn the volume down on your set. Probably the worst thing about the game is the lame "twist" involving X though I can't really go any further without ruining anything. Always found it odd how you can duck in the 2D segments by hitting down but in the 3D segments you can as down is back.

X8 is a great improvement over X8, scraping the full 3D moments. Still, if there's a problem with X8, it's the ending. I mean, wow, way to pull me back into the story after so much BS but you're really going to leave it at that? After sticking with this series so long I kind of feel cheated and sorry Capcom, I'm not going to play an entire other series for the fragments of what happens next.

Despite all this, I still own these games - even after selling them off once. Capcom may be stupid but well, I guess I'm even more so.

Still need to buy an X3 cart at some point.

Yeah, if you play any of those 3, definitely play X8. I don't care about endings or canon (which was already on a path towards destruction when Capcom realized they'd be fools to make a definite "Classic --> X" game). Although the true final boss was a nice treat for series fans).

X6 isn't bad as long as you know you're going to suffer a lot of cheap deaths. Really cheap deaths. Haven't played X7, but I suggest you just listen to the soundtrack.

when you're launching a new iteration of a classic series, and the genre itself seems to be going extinct, you grab onto the first selling point you can and hope it sticks.

It's not so much that the Zero games are hard, either - it's just that they have (sometimes unrealistically high) expectations of the player. Getting an S rank (or A, or B) really isn't worth the trouble unless you've already good at the game and intent on getting better. Of course, there are still sticking points in the series, but I feel that way about the original and X as well (the well-regarded parts, I mean. Obviously not games like X6).

I really have to wonder where the (meta)series will go from here. I'm pretty sure the ZX games undersold Capcom's expectations everywhere.

I own all of the RTRZ albums and I love them. I'd have to say that (starting with Idea) these are more arranged than your typical "remastered" fare. Often the tracks are longer, with more melody, and have definite endings. But they are pretty faithful arranges, so they're more like "enhanced" versions, but not only in the sense of sound/instrument quality.

Also check out ZX Tunes and ZXA Tunes, which are the ZX and ZX Advent "remastered" albums. I recommend them (ZX Tunes especially).