http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/121727 … ml?ref=rss

Read 'em and weep! Or, uh, translate it and be excited.

Totally have to grab this since I have 1~8. Be nice if they toss out Mega Man & Bass while they're at it...

Also, I have to say I'm glad that since the game is going back to 8-bit the music is to, I hated how the remixed music in the MM Anniversary Collection and X3 in the X Collection refused to gel with the game play.

Apparently its an arranged album and not OST.

Didn't see this first; my bad.

If it's an arranged album I'm treading carefully... the Rock and Techno mixes when in one ear and out the other.

The original soundtrack will be released first, followed by an arrange album.
Rockman 9 Original Soundtrack (INTIR-13) September 12th, 2008
Rockman 9 Arrange Album (INTIR-14) October 10th, 2008

The Rock album is a total staple in my collection. It's one of the best CDs I bought last year, and I still listen to it very frequently. It's in my car's CD player as I type this, waiting for the ride home.

I don't normally use profanity on STC but I feel this announcement calls for it..

Two words:  f---.  yeah.

-Mike

Glad to see they're not just taking the iTunes route.  Definitely going to pick this one up.

I'll take an armcannon full of both, please!

Damn skippy, son.

At least the copies I pre-ordered on a impulse did find a good home...

If it's an Inticreates arrange album I feel completely secure; the only bad one they made was the first Zero Remaster, and that's due in large part to the unquality of the source material.

Exactly. This is Inti Creates who have made acclaimed arranged albums in the past and are also responsible for the composition. Those rock and techno albums were both done by Team Entertainment rather than Inti Creates or Suleputer so aren't really part of the series' canon as far as album releases go.

Dammit, Capcom has been kicking ass so much recently I can't even sit down anymore (>_<)

Absolutely.  I was worried this one would get a digital release only, but I'm very happy to see two CD releases instead.

As long as the arranged does not include any OST music, I'm fine.  Having OST music on the Rock and Techno albums convinced me not to buy them.

Guess what's now available for pre-order at VGM World?

You guessed it!

-Mike

Got it today!  First prints come with two Rock badges, which apparently vary depending on where you bought your soundtrack.  Mine (and the two other copies I got, for friends) all had one Rockman button and one Wily button.  The entire disc clocks in at 47 minutes and 41 seconds.  The music is exactly what you're expecting, classic NES chiptunes at their finest.  I'm still listening to it but so far it's ROCKing me.  More companies need to do this sort of thing.  Like.. NEW chiptune music!  Something that hasn't been "new" since the early 90's!  Good job, Capcom!  There are some tracks that were ripped straight from Rockman 2: MENU, GAME START, STAGE CLEAR, GET A WEAPON, DR. WILY UFO, DR. WILY CASTLE, GAME OVER, and OLD SE.  Also, the bass line from RUSH JET is ripped from GET A WEAPON.  All of the new music is phenomenal though, as I had imagined it would be.  I'm not listening to anything after track 23, waiting to play the game for the full effect of the Wily stages and ending tracks.

But yeah.  A+++, 11/10, one of the finest releases of 2008.  Chiptunes ftmfw!

-Mike

I haven't your willpower, so I went ahead and spoiled myself on the final tracks.  All the Wily Castle themes are excellent, with "We're The Robots" being particularly awesome.  I'm gonna rank it fourth after MM2's Wily Stage 1, MM6's, and MM4's Wily Stage 1.

The rest of the soundtrack is equally good, but I definitely want to get the whole game experience under my belt before rendering final judgment.  Of the eight robot masters, though, I'd say Concrete Man, Magma Man, Tornado Man, and Jewel Man are my favorites.  I still say Magma Man sounds uncannily similar to Sorcerian's Ice Cavern themes -- and now that I hear it, Plug Man reminds me of something vaguely Falcom, too.

Jewel Man's "Jewel Temptation" is sexy-hip. :D

Preach it. I've restrained myself to the Robot Masters' stage themes for now, and Jewelman is definitely my favorite. In fact, most of them are great, though Galaxyman's maybe a hair too spazzy and Concreteman's is just sort of unremarkable...it sounds like a piece from say, MM4 that I'd regularly skip over. Anyway, let's talk preference rankings:

Jewelman
Tornadoman
Plugman
Hornetman
Splashwoman
Magmaman
Galaxyman
Concreteman

P.S. Check out this bit off sexiness: http://www.capcom-unity.com/johndmoney/ … il_package

...he adds: "Don't worry, we're thinking about offering a very limited quantity (200) on the Capcom Store, probably with a PSN or XBLA game voucher.  Comment below if you're interested." Are we, or ARE WE?

No doubt in my mind, the best VGM release out this year so far, by far.

I love Concreteman's theme to death and I can't wait for the arranged version of this one. Very impressive 8-bit guitar solo and it pays a slight homage to Woodman's theme. It was really the one that jumped out at me the most. The only stage theme I'm not enamoured with is Magmaman and it's not bad...just average. New boss theme is...well, pretty boss as well.

Too early to see where this ends up in the Megaman OST rankings, but it should be high, I would. This really sounds like these guys have been playing NES's as instruments their whole lives. I'd say, since they're aiming for Megaman 2, the songs aren't as smooth as the ones from that OST, but they're much flashier...almost showboating in some spots. And that's pretty cool with me.

Tracklisting for the AST is up over at the official site for the CD.

Any idea what kind of arrangements we should expect?
Is it rock? Is it techno? Jazz? A bit of everything?
Or more like a remastering?

And hey look! Bun Bun is involved! Kick-ass.
AND Shusaku Uchiyama, a personal favorite.

Another great album to look forward to!

No idea, man. I'm looking forward to it regardless.

That said, I got my RM9 OST in the mail today thanks to some kick ass dude out in the Albany area. So far... so awesome! It makes me feel like I'm a kid living at his parents' house playing old Nintendo games even more than I usually do. Great album!

With that many tracks, that'd be my guess.

This really struck me as well. There is a limit to the extent you can re-create the sound of the past, since things like sound equipment and recording circumstances, as well as the general zeitgeist, are bound to be different. The Rockman 9 music sounds more sophisticated and complex than most classical NES music ("Maze of Death" and "Galaxy Fantasy" are good examples, but you hear it all over the album). The synth is lovely and goes a long way to win over my old-school gamer heart, but there's something in the overall sound that makes you feel that this stuff is not from the 80s.

The music itself? I have to admit that the OST hasn't grabbed me as much as I thought it would. Don't get me wrong, I love the NES synth, but about half of the stage themes just pass me by without much of an impression. So far, I feel its an unevenly balanced soundtrack, with some positively awesome tunes, but also a noticeable amount of bland tracks.

My absolute favourite is "Maze of Death". Holy shit is it good! Runners-up would be "Thunder Tornado" (no surprise they choose this one for the trailer) and "We're the Robots". I also have a weakness for "Splash Blue" - it's comparatively slow pace and beautiful melody paints a nice silhouette in contrast to the rest of the music, and it really reminds me of something from Capcom's NES Disney titles (Darkwing Duck or Duck Tales, can't quite remember). However, there's some boring stuff on here, there's no denying that. Some of the stage themes sound somewhat generic and don't register with me even after five times ("Concrete Jungle" comes to mind). I wouldn't exactly call them bad, they're just not too memorable. The only tracks I would call bad are the stage select and boss themes, they just sound like travesties of their NES counterparts. These sound like they didn't even try, like they just thought "lolz it sounds like NES, so they'll gobble it up anyway".

Its a cool soundtrack, but Rockman 2 or 3 it ain't. However, since there's some really awesome stuff on there, and since they had the sheer guts to produce this in the first place, I'm still giving it two thumbs up.

Oh man, I love the boss music. It sounds like Kunio meets Mega Man.

Well, I admit the main offender is the stage select music, the boss theme is just kinda disappointing, I thought. I love the stage select themes from the classic Mega Man games, but MM9's just sounds so lame and bland in comparison (*cue someone else replying about how much they love the MM9 stage select theme*).

By the way, what do you think about this soundtrack, Smeg? Any favourites?

Yo.

The new Stage Select is just too kitchy-hip for me NOT to love.  Totally digging that octave climb accompaniment. 

I'd actually place MM9 right after MM4's as my all-time favorite Stage Select.

EDIT: But about one million brownie points to you, Daniel, for your new Furio Tigre avatar.  "GWAAAAAAAAAAAARR!!!"

YOU'SE TALKIN' TO ME???

This may be a bit premature since I don't have the actual CD or game yet, but I've listened to most of the OST online, and I'm not really impressed.  Thunder Tornado and We're the Robots (or whatever it's called) are really great, and the shop theme is cool, but a lot of the other stuff is bland MM4/5/6 stuff (not counting the awesome Skull, Pharaoh, and Napalm Man themes, of course).  Musically, this is not on the same level as MM2/3.

I wasn't terribly impressed either. MMs 2,3 and 5 are my favorite of the NES games musically and none of the tunes here come even close to them. But the music may grow on me as I play the game.

I hate to admit this, but I'm not falling in love with this album... it just feels like they tried to do too much with it.

Highlights:

"Splash Blue (Splash Women Stage)" reminds me of darker numbers like Dust/Crystal Man just not as catchy.

"Plug Electric (Plug Man Stage)" reminds me of Mega Man 4/5 stuff which isn't exactly the greatest thing in my book put then its one of the more appealing ones because of it.

"Boss" isn't a stone cold winner but it's definately interesting. Gutsy direction.

The Wily themes have some cool little samples from the old games here and there (like that clapping sample) and Wily #4 reprises the very beginning of MM2's stage select.

I don't know about this one yet... if I don't warm up to I don't know if having it to have all the soundtracks will be enough to keep it.

Just started listening to it. Jewel Man's and Galaxy Man's themes are great stuff. I'll listen to the rest at a later time.

Jeepers, I must be the ONLY one here who adores Mega Man 4's score.  Hurray for the minority.