I love the Mega Man 6 album, though your criticisms are all totally right.  I think it's mainly because I love the music in MM6 so much to begin with.  He is not exactly the most creative lyricist.

I think Duane is a creative lyricist in short bouts, and especially so when he has a sparring partner like BrandO. What I disliked most about the MM6 EP is that the dynamic interplay that was present in their Mega Man 2 song (as well as much of the other material on the LP of D) was not there. When you take just one half of that formula and stretch it out over 20+ minutes, it just becomes Duane using variations of the same curses over and over. The MM2 song had those brilliant rap-battle exchanges between Mega Man and the robot masters keeping it fresh and clever, they managed to pack an explosive amount of punch into a 6-minute song that I just never grew tired of it, but the MM6 stuff is just a drawn-out, watered-down shadow of that, in my opinion.

Right on the mark.  There are repercussions felt on both sides of the fence, which really does add to the sting from the split all the more.

Mega Man 6 clearly wasn't as strongly executed as Mega Man 2.  Let's hope the upcoming "MegaProtoMan 9" follows the same awesome template as the latter's.  I'm gonna miss Duane as Mega Man (the 'Mega' in the title secretly makes me hope he'll have a cameo somewhere), so here's hoping BrandO can carry through as the new titular hero.

On a side note, I used the word 'hope' three times in this post.  I really do have a lot of it for these guys.

Haha, well, it seems I have to eat those words now. Duane's new band, Action Adventure World, just released their third EP (after Ghosts 'n Goblins and Mega Man 6). Its called World 1 - 3 and is a compilation of some of Duane's different songs that have been up on YouTube for a while, but they've all been re-worked from the ground up. Musically, he's moving away from the rock/metal-style that he did with The Plasmas on the two previous EPs, this one is much more electronic-sounding. The music is definitely crisper and more well-sounding in 320 kb/s original mp3s than the muddy demo versions on YouTube. The vocals have been re-done as well, and just like the case was with the LP of D, I'm in the initial state of doubt over whether they're better than the demo versions or not, but this is most likely because I've gotten so used to the earlier versions. The best tracks are still Castlevania 2, Bad Dudes, and Super Mario Land, but all of it is good really, and I find myself even liking the few non-VGM songs this time around (especially "Vigilante")! There's also a bitchin' remix of Bad Dudes. Check it out if interested:

http://gamemusic4all.com/wordpress/gm4a … world-1-3/

Is hope such a bad thing? To quote the raven...

Playing catch-up with BrandO's latest project, Zelda 3.  The three episodes currently up are, as usual, excellent watches.  The banter between Zelda and Link in Episode 2 is particularly amusing. ;)

Episode 1: The Secret Passage
Episode 2: Hyrule Castle
Episode 3: The Chosen One