Real instruments are indeed a plus!

Perhaps there should've been more live treatment. There are some on here as mentioned in the credits. There's an alto sax on "Strike Man (Fireball Strike)," a violin and a good number of guitars throughout. I thought Rockman 9 had some good band treatments, looks like this one was more at the mercy of individual, veteran composers instead of the "III" band.

Haha... I don't know why I was expecting those links to lead to anything positive.

The continued lack of a strong presence for real instrumentation is unfortunate, but I'm liking what I'm hearing all the same.  Know how I view this as?  Like one of those Midi Power Pro collections of the late 90s.

Digging the Middle Eastern style they've taken with Desert Commando, and the smooth, mellow yumminess of Polluted Pump is brought over well.  Boss turned out to be pretty awesome too.

Yeah, I should have been more specific (damn Twitter and its 140 character nonsense).  Even though there are real instruments here, they just sound washed out and lose all their power because of all the weak-sounding MIDI stuff.  I dunno, I wanted something that sounded more along the lines of those 20th Anniversary Rock and Techno CDs.  Those sounded POWERFUL and the arrangements were at least interesting.  This CD is just two (bad) vocal tracks, one (bad) drama track, and the rest are weak MIDI arrangements with the occasional "real" instrument thrown in.

Capcom: Stop making these "Image" things and start releasing good Rockman arranged albums.  You did it before and it came out great.  Now do it again!

That's kind of what I thought when I heard the samples. That or the Rockman Arrange Collections (the two released as two singles). Definitely sounds like something beamed from the 80's into the future. Seems like each track either rocks nicely or tends to bore. I haven't sampled a whole lot of it yet, but "Against the Pressure" is actually kicking my ass something fierce right now, in that sweet, 80's melodic synth rock kinda way (which I feel VGM needs way more of). Strikeman's theme, on the other hand, sounded pitifully weak compared to the original (my favorite original MM10 track by far) and the duller tracks from before are no better off than the 8-bit dullards. A mixed bag, to be sure so far (much like the OST), but I'm MUCH MUCH MUCH happier with the style of the better pieces than the RM9 Arrange (I remain bitter over the complete half-ass job on Concreteman on that one).

If they were to give say, Megaman 2's score, the treatment they did on "Against the Pressure", I would be a VERY happy goldfish.

Yeahhh, we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one. Get Through the Dark is pretty much the only one I like from that album.

As far as this new album, there's some definite highs and lows. I was disappointed by the arrangements for Sheepman and Strikeman because they didn't seem to fit (I was hoping for something light and delicate for the former - like Splash Blue from the RM9 Arrange, maybe - and rock organ instead of sax for the latter - it bugs me when they try to force sax and jazz where it doesn't belong; see also, or even especially the Wily Machine arrangement), but I think Pumpman and Chillman both turned out much better than the originals. I'm also amused by how much the Commandoman mix reminds me of Metal Slug X.

I'd say the five best tracks are:
5. Nemesisphere - Two good pieces, both arranged well (Close to the End would've got this slot if the Wily Machine part didn't suck).
4. Abandoned Memory - The trippy Silent Rain part is a great start, and the main piece is rock-solid MM tunage (though the way it fades as it continues to add to the arrangement reminds me of the frustation I had when the Zero Remasters would do so ALL THE TIME....I'm guessing Masaki Suzuki did this one, based on that)
3. Boss - Wow, this one got a serious lift. It's completely awesome now.
2. For You - Holy crap, I wasn't expecting much out of this going in, but it's outstanding.
1. Against the Pressure - As of right now, the best piece of VGM so far this year. It's perfect.

You'd think Capcom would understand by now that to make a good Mega Man image album, all they need to do is just make faithful rock arrangements with live guitars...

I found both of those albums disappointingly terrible.

It may not be necessary, but it probably wouldn't hurt to have good source material to start with.

Personally, I really enjoyed the couple of Rockman tracks distributed across the Capcom G.S.M. albums. I wouldn't mind a full album of that, but alas Alfh Lyla is no more.

Sorry bro, gotta disagree. Image Soundtrack is good stuff.