What are some of your favorite character select tunes? This is a cool place where soundtracks can define the tone of the game to come and set a mood of anticipation or contemplation.

I will kick things off with Tobal no. 1 character select by Ryuji Sasai featuring an endless guitar riff. You can definitely get hyped up to that one.

Anyone have any favorites?

I can listen to the original Marvel vs Capcom character select theme for eons.

And I hate rap, but the SF3: 3rd Strike character select theme fits the game so well.

The original Marvel Vs. Capcom character select theme has always stuck with me as well. If we can extend this beyond fighting games, Megaman 3's stage select has always been my favorite of the series.

If I made my own fighting game, its character select theme would be this.

Is this thread meant to be limited to fighting games?  If not, then I would mention Attack Team from Final Fantasy Tactics as my favorite, even though I was only able to play that game for a few hours before I developed a strong distaste for isometric turn-based strategy games.

the only missing these from Secret of Mana,, maybe they'd have had room for it if everything wasnt crammed into one disc...

Any genre is open: I think prologue from Final Fantasy fits. Also many Cave albums kick off with pretty rockin character select tunes.

Soul Calibur 2 - History Unfolds: Overall (music, visuals, etc) my favourite Soul Calibur out of the series. The track title "history unfolds" sounds heroic and the music can similarly be described using the same adjective along with bombastic. High praise considering I generally find orchestral music relatively boring and same-y. Select your character and make history.

Guilty Gear XX: The Midnight Carnival - D. O. A.: Similar to "Awe of She", this track doesn't waste time with a prelude (which Awe of She used to have). You want to get straight into it. Straight into ass-kicking, that is.

BlazBlue -Calamity Trigger- - Blue beating: Guilty Gear can be musically described as straightforward heavy rock (not a critique) - what I mean is that Ishiwatari said "Okay, I'm gonna go out there and make a game with good tunes - good heavy rock tunes" and that's what he did. A game with excellent heavy rock tunes. Anyway, my point is that this particular tune (and the soundtrack for that matter) is different in tone to the above song. The guitars don't enter until the 30 second point, and even when it does, it sounds subdued somehow. When I listen to this song, it seems to communicate an aural expression of high-class blue-blood nobles kicking each others' asses in a sophisticated fashion. In a château. And I think that's totally cool.

Rockman 3 - Stage Select: The first good Rockman Stage Select theme. I can't really find a good adjective for it except "catchy".

Rockman 4 - Stage Select: I like this one too.

Rockman 6 - Stage Select: And this one. And still no adjectives besides "catchy". I don't really feel any emotion or mood when listening to the Famicom stage select themes so I can't describe it in more detail. Maybe that's all they're meant to be: catchy?

Rockman 8 - Stage Select: This music is best listened to while on the Stage Select screen. Basically, the world/globe is the Mirror Ball, and the flashing squares on the bottom of the screen is the dance floor. Then you get up and dance.

Rockman 10 - Stage Select: Again, I can find no other word except "catchy". Also, better than Rockman 9's.

Rockman X - Stage Select 1: This song is a part of my childhood. Imagine playing through the Famicom/Nintendo Rockman games before buying a SNES/SFC along with Rockman X (or renting the game as I did). After you finish the introduction stage, the Stage Select screen appears. No joke, I stayed on that screen for 5 minutes or so, admiring the extra detail contained in it. At that point, the music is also the closest the Rockman games have gotten to heavy rock. As for the music itself, it is badass. I like the 0:25 part when the drums and synth-bass-guitar (?) halts and the main melody continues unhindered and unabated. Again, badass.

Rockman X3 - Stage Select 1: I like this one too.

Rockman X4 - Stage Select 1: Childhood memories too and like Rockman X, a technological leap (from SFC/SNES to PS1). This tune seems to have a very very light touch of sadness somehow, contrary to the overall badassed-ness of past Stage Select themes.

Rockman X8 - Hunter Base ~ Going to the front: Pretty much every Rockman game has moderate to high levels of rockitude. Out of all them however, X8 is the rockiest of them all. Instead of going for the "let's go kick some robot asses" theme/sentiment, it has a very subdued tone with a repetitive (not a critique) riff. And an excellent riff at that. Come to think of it, it's an appropriate tune for the situation. And the situation is that X, Zero and Axl are at the "Hunter Base", examining the geography/environment, identifying the strengths/weaknesses of the stage boss, and making general preparations. They're not kicking ass, they're preparing to kick ass. Thus, this not-kicking-ass-yet-but-will-soon-be song is born.

Rockman 2 The Power Fighters - Course Select: And finally, a special mention to this one, a competently arranged Rockman 6 Stage Select theme.

Chaos Legion - From result screen to intermission -First phase-: I guess this sort of counts as a Stage Select theme. The entry of the drums is pretty cool.

Choujikuu Yousai Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie - Character Select: A Super Famicom Macross Horizontal SHMUP game. I don't know why but this song sounds so Japanese and 1980s/1990s (yes, I know it's a 1990s Japanese video game). Max's groovy glasses don't help. I'm probably talking out of my ass here, but in my opinion, this is the kind of song with a melody that Westerners aren't able to create (whether they want to or not). Like I said, it sounds very Japanese. Does anybody know what I mean?

Dissidia -Final Fantasy- - "The Order That Must be Protected" from DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY: This piano song passed me by the first time (piano and orchestral music usually does) but I had a new-found admiration for it due to the faster-paced chiptuned version on the SQ Chips 2 album. Why did Takeharu Ishimoto use this song as a Stage Select song in a Final Fantasy fighting game? I have no idea but it's certainly an interesting choice. This song has some kind of emotion in it and probably has a deeper meaning to it but I wouldn't know since I haven't played the game.

Street Fighter IV - Character Select Screen -Game Arrange-: Good ol' instrumental arranged version of the vocal song.

Bare Knuckle III - Spinning Machine: Yuzo Koshiro's crazy Character Select theme. Like the other songs in my post, I'd just stay on the screen, entranced by it, when I probably shouldn't be.

The Ninja Warriors Again - Character Select: Ninjas and robots basically.

Wangan Midnight Maximum Tunes 1, 2, 3 - Car/Course Select: It's goddamn Yuzo Koshiro and short-but-goddamn-sweet trance. As you can see, I'm running out of things to say about short music that are designed to be catchy and nothing much more.

King of Fighters Series - Team Select: The KoF series have some good ones. Personal favourites include KoF95 (nice short riff), KoF97 (cool short riff), KoF99 (good short drumming + some short random noise), KoF2000 (hardcore short electronic).

(Oh shit, I accidentally pressed back and when I went forward, my post was still here thankfully. Every goddamn time I forget my rule: always write your forum post in notepad, not web browser).

My vote for best character select music goes to Soul Calibur 3 OST "History Beckons".  The epic orchestral you expect of Soul Calibur with a touch of triumph to get you pumped for the battle ahead (even never having played the game).

Though not a character select my other pick would be Dragon's Dogma OST "Character Edit".  Love the New Age touches and chilled out arrangement of the excellent main theme.

For non-fighters, I second the Megaman 6 character select screen, along with its Power Fighters counterpart (I think this was the only MM6 track to make it into PF).

I need to throw Megaman 7's into the mix too. Back in the day, I made a ten minute recording of this and listened to it a LOT!

Also, the select theme for Triggerheart Exelica. Really gets the blood pumping.

Super Donkey Kong 2  (DKC2) - Map Select: While both SDK and SDK3 had more laid-back, light and cheerful map selection themes, SDK2 opted for a more relatively darker (and pirate-y) feel. Whether the atmosphere of that particular song suits the game is debatable (I do not remember detecting any seriousness or "edginess" in the game filled with anthropomorphic monkeys and crocodiles), but judged as a stand-alone tune, it's nice indeed.

Tekken 5, Dark Resurrection, 6 - Character Select: I'm indifferent to Tekken music but these particular tunes (all three of which have the same basic melody) did catch my ear.

I was always partial to the Groove Select from CvS2. You barely heard it in the arcade because the selection would be done fairly quickly...but once you listen to all of it, it's REALLY good.

Senko No Ronde's 'C.C.'
Perfect futurism.

Contra: Hard Corps' 'Lock and Loaded'
lol how someone thinks this has a Sir Mix-a-lot bassline http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLCVBQWANOE

Speaking of futurism:

Gradius V - SELECT -WEAPON ARRAY-: The game looked futuristic and it sounded futuristic.

wow, never heard of Senko no Ronde, very cool stuff!

Another pick: F-zero