Mega Man X

0:00Welcome back to the Beeps Bops & Beeps Podcast, the video game music appreciate your podcast where a three jokers sit around and bring video games and topics of video games that we like to talk about and music relating to those things. Today I am bringing the game Mega Man X. That was the title screen that I brought us in with. This is Joshua and I'm here along with Chris and Laura. Released in 1993 on the Super Famicom in Japan and then the following year on the SNES in North America and Europe, developed and published by Capcom. It was the first 16-bit Mega Man game and the first in the X spin-off series.

1:03Mega Man X is a 2D action platformer taking place 100 years after the original Mega Man games. In the game you play as X, the last creation of Dr. Light before he passed away who was put into stasis until his experimental systems could fully be analyzed. Once he's awoken, he finds a world co-inhabited by humans and reploids, humanoid robots based on his technology that can feel and develop complex emotions. This leads to some being able to go in Maverick due to their finding some of the more darker emotions and because of they are based off of X's technology, he feels an obligation to join the force that quells gone Maverick reploids. The game begins with Sigma, the leader of those Maverick hunters himself, going Maverick and leading a Maverick uprising X joined by zero, a more powerful and unique Android similar to X to stop Sigma and his genocidal ambitions. The composers for the soundtrack for this game are Setsuo, Yamamoto, Makoto, Tomozawa,

2:04Yuki Iwa, Yuko, Takihara and Toshihiko Horyama. Originally, all I could find was Capcom Sound Team. But I didn't manage to dig up that those were Capcom Sound Team so I couldn't attribute any particular tracks to any one composer. They're just all the listed composers for this. The good old days. Yeah, the good old days when people weren't allowed to take credit for their creations. You are just corporate machine cog number two. Yes, a song our hero acts. But yeah, this game is a one that's real special to me. I love the Mega Man games on the NES, at least up till four, I didn't play them, I didn't play five or six at all, and I never beat three or four. I just played them. They did beat one in two of the original Mega Man games. When this first came out, I was a little confused. You thought it was 10, didn't you? I thought it was a Roman numeral 10. You've been Final Fantasy Pilled. Yeah, but at the same point, up till then, Mega Man had only gone up to six. So I was like, where did 709 go?

3:09Turned out, no, it's actually a separate game. But it's different too from the other Mega Man games, because other Mega Man games didn't really bother with plot really. They were just pick a boss, fight it, and then pick the next one. I mean, it was the robot. There was lore of these were leaders of their industry bots that were out in the wild. Cutman was literally a logging robot that was the robot master. That was the extent though. There was some lore, but it was mostly in the instruction manuals. Yes. It wasn't anything in the way of cutscene dialogue or anything like that in early Nintendo. Yeah. But this one brought a lot of that to it, because they did not like go either. I don't know how much you've dived into it, but like a couple years ago, all of them, including ZZX and all that. I've not played those ones, but those are Metroidvanias. I know. And I'm regretting that I haven't played though, when I learned that fact. At one point, when I started playing those, I didn't realize,

4:11yes, story like this day or like, oh, by the way, we're going to go with the most anime, bullshit stories we can find like lore on lore on lore. Yeah. And it gets dense by the time you get to the end of the series. But I played all the Super Nintendo ones, which I believe it goes through to four. And then I played all the PlayStation, which was I believe it was five and six. And then there was like one called Command Mission, which I didn't actually play on the PS2. And it says PlayStation something four, five and six are on PlayStation. Yes, PlayStation one. Yes. Yes. Yeah, one, two and three were the Super Nintendo ones. They were awesome. I didn't play anything beyond that. Okay. Now, I remember one time, wait a long time ago, I got the bug for these games, but I didn't have access to a way to play most of them. So I downloaded all of them on an emulator and played through the whole series, this core Mega Man X games. There's like, there's a Command Mission spin-off, which was more of like a JRPG style game, I believe, but um, and I, which I've never played and didn't revisit at that point. But

5:15yeah, these games were awesome. They're even going to my well semi Metroidvania-ish, because you can earn power-ups and find secrets if you go back through the levels. Yeah. That's, I mean, it's, no, it's, I cramped my arm with that stretch, but because all, all games are going to have power-ups. And if there's any level of exploration over a previous era, you're like, power-ups will always let you get to new areas. Right. But you lack the, I don't know, the level formatting, I guess, is my big complaint is that you can just go back to a level at any time. Yeah. It's, it's not like, yeah, no. I acquiesced that being quite a stretch, but, you know, me, I'm Metroidvania guy. And I love Mega Man. The franchise is a whole, what I've played of them, I've never not enjoyed myself with them. I mean, there's, there's plenty of them I haven't played, so there could be some, uh, goes in there somewhere, but I have never played a Mega Man game ever.

6:20Not a single one, huh? Not a single one. This is a huge blind spot. Do you just hate robots? I mean, because you killed robots, so you should play it then. I just, yeah, never played Mega Man. It's right up there with like, never, well, I shouldn't say I've never played a Sonic game. I never played a traditional like classic Sonic game. Sonic Adventure 2 is where I start and, and most of all of my Sonic, um, yeah, like this is just a huge, huge blind spot. I got a coworker that absolutely loves Mega Man. Um, he was real excited when they came out with a collection recently, because yeah, I just, it's just a game that has never like caught my attention. It's just, yeah, I don't know, I, I was the Mario kid. I feel like Nintendo stuff. He just never, This is just a Mario game, except you're a robot with a gun. Yeah, it was just not one that, like, my parents never or my dad never bought one. It just, yeah, just didn't happen. It sounds like you have bad parents. You hush your mouth. That is incorrect. Wow. That's rude. Listen, my dad

7:29is why I love video games so much. I wanted to play King's Quest games when I was a wee little, wee little Laura, and I could not use the computer, you know, because I was a wee little child, but I was enamored with the King's Quest games that I, eh, too many bullshit words had no idea. Not a game. Not a game for kids. No. That's where it comes from. Yeah, no, it's, I, I know the loose premise of Mega Man. I've just, it's not a game that I've ever played, but I know they're good games. So, no, I'm excited to hear what you're playing. Go, go leave now. I'll see you later. But yeah, that was the title screen music I brought us in with short but sweet little rock and track, which is going to be pretty indicative for most of what we hear today. There's a lot of very like, I mean, as far as the SNES could do it, you know, guitar, heavy guitar riffing stuff, which we have to attribute to, as he's known in Japan,

8:33as rock man, because it's music. Like that is rock man. That's why you have bass and treble and all of that is it's all based on just rock and roll. Yeah, except that is all going our way with in here. Zero sigma. He's still rock man technically in Japan, but yeah, like all the, like all the musical entendre that the original Mega Man games have in Japan aren't really present in here. They were less with the X series. They were with the original Mega Man. Right, but that's what I'm saying. So, like, he is still rock man. Right. Can't get away from that. Which is funny. Like, because everyone knows that now, I wish they would just do like a Final Fantasy VII thing. Okay, we're done giving up the regional differences. Colin, who he is now. Can't and won't. But yeah, there's there's a lot you can find a lot of like really wicked, like covers of some of the tracks specifically from this game. I mean, the other games have pretty good soundtracks. This is the one that always stuck with me probably because this is the only one I actually owned. So, I replayed this one a lot. I have a couple SNES soundtracks that I listen to as like

9:38focus time work tracks. The Castlevania 4 being another big one. And this one is also up there because they're just there's something that like is very not intrusive about the kind of sound that the Super Nintendo could make for music like this. And I just I'd really love it. So, I hope you guys enjoy what I bring today for this. I'm excited to just open my ears to watch a ring. I'm very excited for this because like I said, no idea of anything about Mega Man except he is a blue guy most of the time. Most of the time. Yeah, I've never actually played through X. I played X in two and three. Not the first one though. No. Oh, interesting. Because I was I don't know. I was late as far as Super Nintendo goes of playing games. It used to be cute right around on the bike and you know do things outside. And by the time I got around to playing Super Nintendo games like the new hotness was off. Of course, I want to play two. Why would I play one?

10:39For the backstory. Do you want me to shoot things? Yes, no. It's all I care about. But I did play there was like up two and three and four I think on Nintendo. So, it was familiar with Mega Man and I think like you I saw X. I was like, why am I going to play 10? I didn't play the rest. Yeah, that was that was the thing that was weird because it took me a bit to before I realized that it wasn't Mega Man 10 that it was X and it was actually a different series. It was just funny because I think that ruin makes I call it Final Fantasy X. I don't say Final Fantasy X. Yeah, I'm just weird because it actually is a 10. I know. It's fantastic. I'm just all sorts of wrong. It's great. Because then I call this Chris is all sorts of wrong the podcast because then I also say 10 to I don't say X to so that it gets even weirder. I call way. Look, I'm wrong. I'm sorry. It happens. So the next couple of tracks I'm going to have us go into here for is one that's called opening stage highway. When you start the game, you immediately get like shoved into a level. It's the only level you can't go back and replay.

11:42It's just a quick little opening level that you got to do and then yeah and then you get through like it kind of introduces characters and stuff that's going on there. The next track after that is called enter zero which is zero is I mentioned a character who I wrote about that's similar to Mega Man more power or X excuse me. Similar to X but more powerful and also has kind of mysterious origins spoiling a 30-year-old franchise. But Mega Man X is the last creation of Dr. Light and you find out later eventually that zero was actually a creation of Dr. Wiley the antagonist from all the older Mega Man games who through mimicking the similar technology and being able to develop his own emotional intelligence became a good guy despite his creator's intentions. So opening stage highway and then enter zero which is when he shows up during that stage to save the day and introduce him as a character.

15:07All right we are back from opening stage highway and enter zero. Those are his both. He said like the rock it's just rock and tracks like it's very much as much rock music as you can put on and as any you know like it's it doesn't sound exactly like guitars you know what they're inferring and like it's just fun high-energy music to shoot other robots in the facelift. Except for zero uses a sword. He uses the arm blaster too but he does also have a sword. The sword was the fun part. Just a big laser beam shot. It's from wireless robots killing other robots. That sounds awful. I can't back this. I enjoy the enter zero. Part of that has to carry over because I'm not as familiar with the X game and I definitely know that from it has to be from X2 or X3 but that that sound is familiar but also at the same time still rocking. Yeah and when we get into the next track which we'll talk about in a minute but it has a very

16:13similar sound to the stage select screen which might be where you're possibly remembering it from. I don't know if that stage select music carries over from the end of the game but in this game at least when I was listening to it for this episode I was like oh hey these kind of plays off of that one so I have that in my next set but yeah there's the scene where that music plays the enters your music is really cool who's you're in a fight with a he's another repoid named Vile who is riding in like a mech type thing like think like Ripley's mech suit from end of aliens and through the fight it's like one of those you can't win fights like and at a certain point when you've done enough damage to him he just runs up to you like in a predetermined cutscene and grabs you in the hand with the mech giant mech suit and starts squeezing you and then all of a sudden you hear like the sound of your the sound of that your gun makes when it charges up the you start hearing that and then a blast comes from off screen and blasts the hand holding you off and then this music kicks in and then zero comes rushing in from the side okay you said Vile you mean legally distinct

17:17global fact correct he's purple legally green exactly legally distinct uh-huh I said say the first the color swap it's fine when I first saw I played the games actually before I saw Star Wars because I wade late to that party um we cow I didn't see Star Wars until the special editions came on theaters wow right yeah that was after the PlayStation 98 yeah it was it was uh it was uh well 97 quite a bit late though either way so when I saw Boba Fett I was like hey that's the Mega Man character in my bag you've just lost all our listeners that is embarrassing news I think I don't worry it's it just gets worse so it's right for the best you know he doesn't have very similar specially in the helmet looks like exactly like Boba Fett I remember thinking that myself at some point you can't not and right I mean that was that era when games would steal from like movies and it's like

18:22Metroid is just alien the game you know or at least you know the tonal sorry super Metroid like it opens up it might as well just be alien but right um and I know Earthbound basically steals a bunch of Beatles songs like it used to just be ad hoc like uh you know what I want to use it I'm going to do it so legal digesting Boba Fett fantastic fun character though yes absolutely uh so the next set of tracks I'm going to bring to is the aforementioned stage select music which again I listened to it and like when I listened to it back to back with the enter zeros like oh hey this sounds a lot like that one um so that's why I included it back to back with that one then the next track is going to be the first track I'm going to bring of one of the Mavericks app levels and that's going to be for Chill Penguin he's one of the uh different Mavericks you can choose to fight just like the other Mega Man's after you do the opening you actually just get a screen where you can choose which order which one you want to fight next and there is no for sure order you have to do it in though there's obviously like through trial and

19:24error learning which losses weapons some more effective against others there's a quote-unquote perfect there's a right way in a wrong way to do it but you can feasibly fight them in any order that you want to what's cool about this is that when you do them in certain orders depending on which ones you've already beaten some of the levels will actually be different when you go to them so like if you beat Chill Penguin first when you go to a later character uh play mammoth's level where there's normally like fires all over the place um they're actually all frozen over that's neat so they do like some neat stuff like that that cannot affect like how the levels behave and everything like that which I thought was really cool especially because when I was a kid I discovered that on my own and when I first noticed that like hey what's different and when I put together like oh the first last time I did it I did this with this way and then I did this way and now it's different like I thought oh that's really cool I remember I don't remember this one or not but I remember using fire in a forest and then it burned on the forest like in the background

20:28like you use it right at the start of the level and just everything burns down it takes out like half the enemies for the entire level oh neat I might have been x3 then because you're looking to be like no well I mean it's been a hot minute since I play this one so that might be a thing like because there is a forest level in this game is there a fire fire character in this game so maybe that maybe that could be a thing I just never knew that you could do in this one back in the day kids there was no internet you just kind of learned at school talking to people yep everyone had an uncle that worked for Nintendo still do switch three is going to be dope you guys and then after that one I have a track that's just called Dr. Light so I haven't brought this up yet but what was cool about this one and different from the older Mega Man games is that x could find power-ups to his body hidden throughout the game and except for one of them they're all missable like you don't have to get them you can technically beat the game without them there's only one where it is forced into your path and that's in the chill penguin episode

21:32which is I'm including in this set it's the one that in upgrades his legs and let you do like a super dash which is basically essential to beating all the getting all the things which is why I assume it's forced on you compared to the other ones but when you find capsules these capsules you get a hologram of Dr. Light who gives you some more expedition which like I was really hoping you would just be able to live a life of normalcy with your upgraded emotional capabilities everything that but it looks like if you found this capsule you're forced to be you're out murdering yeah you're you're you're being forced to be a creature of battle and if that's the case then here's something that will help you get through those battles and hopefully to a time of peace hold on even if things were chill I would love super jumps I'm just come on if it's not necessary if you're not fighting things and jumping through parkour disagree all right fine I acquies yes super jumping should be default in his capabilities so again that's going to be the stage select music

22:37then the chill penguin level music and then Dr. Light

26:07all right we are back from stage select chill penguin and Dr. Light now I will say for the rest of the episode here when I bring up the level tracks I'm going to just name them after the boss of those levels there are names for the tracks also related to but it's all just the name of the level so I went with the boss rather than the level name so just don't at me that's not chill penguin that's ice stage for whatever I'm gonna add you so hard in the comments well what'd you guys think of those ones I really like the name of the song is already gone chill penguin chill penguin yes the the way do we like that's just the horn blares that they do for like that was I think my favorite track of the three just I like the musical instrumentations that they did has a fun level music and then I do the how you would said like they reuse that's like that level select music

27:12I definitely hear what you're talking about I think like they just change like what key or whatever like that song is into like oh we can reuse this make it sound a little bit brighter and a little bit different but and they gave it a dope baseline too yeah definitely some like 80s music resin going on with some of that the yes good times that chill penguin I really like that but from I this is the Capcom sound team so I don't know how intertwiner thing is really gives me street fight arrives though like right you and like some of that energy but like I love that soundtrack and it just the super Nintendo ship sounds awesome I will always like it's one of my go-to's for like music super Nintendo way below that will be uh NES and then way below that is Genesis like it just Genesis might not even register sorry if fans are Genesis but not my thing but no I love the super Nintendo sound trip and they do a hell of a job with this I don't know like I feel like super Nintendo didn't do guitars as well for other games and I just assumed that it couldn't handle

28:16but now Mega Man proved uh no we got this we can be rocking as hell and Dr. Light so I like that because have you heard of the proto man yes okay so the proto man for those who you're familiar to I think no it sounds familiar like it sounds like I should know this so I'm gonna say maybe this is a solid maybe so it's a rock man but they they're they're named after Mega Man characters proto man okay but they do stuff that is very much just like an homage to Mega Man and there's one particular song a light up the night that they do and like there's a full music video for like it's a full production and it's like Mega Man goes dark like the cities fall in under and it's just the energy in that is them channeling what this Dr. Light song is and so like I hear this and go oh this is so good like this is epic story time and you you mentioned that he's talking to you and like telling you the lore but like they just did a really good job of capturing that like tell me more Dr. Light what's going on so I dig that and insulin reminded me of the proto man I

29:19get now where they got that energy from and the other thoughts Laura no I like him so you said it's I lied apparently no but yes sorry we're from Michigan we do that no you were saying that for you chill penguin sounds like street fur to me that Dr. Light sounds more like street fighter like it's that same like oh here's the exhibition like the we're giving you the backstory bits of here's the picture of you walking into the sunset right yeah that to me sounds more like that's what that is as opposed to chill penguin and like that's street fighter capcom sound team vibes from me is Dr. Light not the other way around for you see that you're wrong with that sort of vibe like again capcom sound teams so I'm sure that there's some crossover with the staff that had worked on these games but it's all good is the key thing so funny though that you mentioned that

30:20because sounding like capcom sounds this game has a capcom easter egg in it so I mentioned how you can find power ups to ex's armor that you know eventually you get a leg a body an arm and arm one increases your charge level for your cannon the chest one makes you take less damage the helmet one lets you break blocks besides those you can find little heart containers around that increase your overall health bar if you get all the upgrades all the heart containers there is a secret extra capsule that you can find this is one of those herded on the playground things that someone said oh hey did you know that in that Mega Man X game you can actually do uh Hadookin from street fighter like shut up you can't do that yeah I mean and at the time I mean again I was a teenager at this point but like those roles like things where I didn't recognize always recognize publishers and everything like that so like those are different games why would

31:22you be able to do a street fighter move in a game it's not street fighter not realizing that oh they're made by the same company but you can if you get all the stuff find the secret capsule you get a extra upgrade that actually lets you do like by the same motions you can start shooting out Hadookin around yeah so the Hadookin that you can do I thought I remember with that you actually they play an actual riff from like right you or something don't they when you get that okay yeah and some of the normal doctor light music that you get okay and you find the capsule it plays street fighter music yes awesome you throw it the same way as you do in Street Fighter 2 yeah you have to do the quarter turn motion and then hit the attack button that's fantastic I love when games have fun yeah this is like definitely the first instance of I can think of where there was like cross pollination into another game like that which I thought was really cool I mean yeah there probably was before maybe but this is the first time I ran into it and I thought it was really neat and Capcom's good with that because they even did it with a later on when they

32:24came out with Dead Rising you could get a Mega Man helmet that you'd wear in the mall as well as like a bus there for your hand oh really yeah it's a game where you run around killing zombies but it's like oh cool I can look like Mega Man all right so the next couple tracks I'm going to get into effect next few sections I'm going to do are all going to be more of that level music there is a lot of really good tracks in fact I basically included all of them because I only left I think one out and not for time I just kind of felt like I had a good sampling of it the the tracks are all pretty short and that's kind of the thing that I think is a good testament to these level tracks because it probably takes you 10-ish minutes maybe to get through one of these levels but most of the tracks are sub two minutes and so for that like to still be like not ever feel like they overstay they're welcome especially with like how kind of hard they all are like I think is a really good testament to how well composed that they are so I'm going to next two that I'm going to take

33:25us through are going to be for flame mammoth stage and launch octopus so let's go ahead and play those and we can talk on them on the other side

37:31all right and we are back from flame mammoth stage and launch octopus stage I like the deep base of the sea that you had going on there with the launch octopus yeah I need you like that one very yeah like I'm in a submersible right now yeah no that was a good time I enjoy the deep base groups on that guy I like the I like the deep base groups but I also really like that I don't even know what you'd equate that to instrumentalize the bomb bomb home that you get in the middle there like it's so clean it's yeah it's very like industrial yes it's called hitting a wall with a height that's what that is now I really like the group of flame mammoth was real nice I really enjoyed that and because like you have sort of rhythm and they throw in the little triplets at the end of the bomb bomb bomb it is it's good it's really good what I really like about the flame mammoth stages there's a very distinctive like rhythm guitar track and then lead guitar track going like very like rock and rollers like you have like a one thing playing like a very like steady like

38:33rhythm and then another one in the front like let me throw what I can in yeah yeah I know it's one of the things that took notes on it's just I did like the high notes that you hit with the lead guitar it's just the very cock-rocky 80s here in the middle like full on like that shred yeah yeah no that was that was a good time I I hate to sing this but like everything you're bringing is good so I just keep on going like like that rules like I don't know what else to say but a good time but that was the thing too like I when I do like you know my when I make my track lists for things I kind of like I like let's me take you through the game and then with this it's like this all just rules like there's no there's no there's and there's just not a whole lot to say like this is all just rocky awesome yes it's fun and it doesn't overstay it's welcome it's fun yeah no that's as you were saying like how you spend like a decent chunk of time especially for a snack game like you spend a decent amount of time in these levels it is crazy how short those

39:35tracks really are but I can hear like oh no that is just a loop that you listen like you get in the groove with and you just live with it for a while and that's awesome and you slam your head up and down just rocking out here with it where maybe you this is the correct way to go buddy so like okay perfect example that I don't know how far you've gone through down to dawn season two if you've gone through all of it yet but there is an episode where they have to exercise the demons and the characters going to a full metal concert head rock moment yes and that is exactly what this makes me want to do just full on like even at first like they're a little uneasy but uneasy about like I don't know about this rock music and then like 30 seconds later just full head rock head banging you know throwing up the horns and everything I'm like that's what this this is inciting it's fantastic I'm glad you guys are enjoying it so far because I've got plenty more to go three hours to go the whole soundtrack was only like 45 minutes so perfect so I'm gonna go into again some more

40:39just regular level tracks here I'm gonna go three here the first one is for Boomer Kuhanger so up to this point Boomer up to this point I think you've noticed all of them have a animal in their name all the bosses are stylized like as anthropomorphic animal creatures a Kuhanger I never knew what the hell it was it has horns what the hell is a Kuhanger so while I was reaching this I finally went I am going to look up what the hell a Kuhanger is and it turns out it's nothing it's it's a slang term for a beetle okay so it's a beetle but it doesn't look like a beetle except for that it has like the those horns of a what's that type of beetle called a stag beetle thank you Boomer Kuhanger is gonna be the first one we're going into after that we're gonna have storm eagle and spark mandrel those are the two tracks I think if you did a search for mega man x rearrangements or remakes or remixes you're gonna find a whole lot of storm eagle and

41:44spark mandrel and it's because they're probably the two best tracks in this soundtrack they are both just rockin as hell and they like just do not let up I have seen so many like speed metal remixes of these two tracks and they're awesome so again we're going to go into Boomer Kuhanger storm eagle and spark mandrel

44:33you you

47:33All right, so we are back from Boomer Kuangar, Storm Eagle, and Spark Mantle Stages. So double pedal, full pedal all the time is what I heard. Yeah, Spark Mantle was just full on metal. Yeah, the Capcom sound team was just like, all right, we really like hair metal. How can we put this into a game? Well, we have a franchise called Rock Man, so they did. No, this is all just that great music. I thought I would have been hilarious instead of being Rock Man, he was metal man in this episode instead of being X, he was just metal. No, that was great, yeah, and Storm Eagle, I get, yeah, those two Storm Eagle and Spark

48:36Mantle are just straight up metal, it was great, a lot of just, let's fucking go energy. Boomer Kuangar was just groovy, I love that, that one was great. Yeah, you know, it's funny because I went into that set saying, oh, that, you know, Storm Eagle and Spark Mantle are some of my favorites, but when that started up again, I was like, God, this one's really good, though, too, like, this whole soundtrack is really good. So they did a good job with Boomer Kuangar with like, really using all the sound channels on the Super Nintendo, and I imagine, could Mega Man on Nintendo had great music, but when you're limited to like the three channels, you really can't get the depth, but that's, you know, when you mentioned groovy, it's like, yeah, like, oh, we have layers on, we'll add in a bass track, we've got a rhythm, like all the instruments, let's go, let's use them all. So it's cool to see them cut loose, I guess, you know, with this being their first Super Nintendo Mega Man that they're like, fully on board, like, all the channels? Yes, we will use them. No, I like the opening to that, like, that Boomer Kuangar with that, like, really high pitch,

49:36like, I don't even know what you'd, like, again, I would keep hearing these things. I'm like, what instrument are they trying to equate there? And I can't really, I can't put a finger on it sometimes. It's all just guitars. Yeah. Just fancy guitars. Chelos, all chelos. I, you know, we'll never leave it down. The day I die is when I will be free from this torment. We wouldn't be friends. This is till I die in the podcast ends in two years. No, I'm absolutely gonna call her off for chelos until I die. Sorry. Damn. So, like the other Mega Man games that came before it, at the point where you'd be all eight of the robot masters, or in this case, the Mavericks, you get a new stage-elect screen as you get to go to the final levels. So, in this case, it's where you finally get to go and confront Sigma.

50:37Then the center, which has normally just been a logo, now turns into a big, scottling face of Sigma, and that's what you select to go into his stages, and stage-elect music changes at that point. So, I'm including the stage-elect music from Sigma, and then the Sigma stage one. There are a couple stages of Sigma. I'm only including stage one, because actually, when I was really listening, I went, I don't really like the other ones. I just liked the first one, and so I'm only gonna do the stage-elect from Sigma, and then Sigma stage one, and that's what we're gonna go into next. So, that's what we're gonna do next, and that's what we're gonna do next, and that's what we're gonna do next.

52:03So, that's what we're gonna do next, and that's what we're gonna do next. So, that's what we're gonna do next.

53:03So, that's what we're gonna do next. Alright, so, we are back from stage-elect Sigma, and Sigma stage one. I like the baseline of Sigma stage-elect, like that is just a groovy, because it's very

54:09understated a little bit, because then you've got so much like higher pitch music that's happening, but then you've got this just groovy baseline, and then for the stage one, those, I call them Phil Collins, like drum fills, those are my favorite. I love those. It's great. Now, that song was fun, because it was all about the drum of the bass, like the entire time. Like, the guitar was there, but it was definitely sitting in the background, letting the drummer base do what it wants, and I mean, Laura, you mentioned during the lesson, but like a big hero energy for me, I was thinking, this is just full on virtue right now. I'm going to march and do what I need to, like, time to take care of business and put this to bed, and I dug that a lot for, again, everything you brought so far is awesome, mostly. Mostly, the Sigma select, I only don't like it, because I feel like it's a step down from the earlier stage-elect song, like I'd like that one more. I get why they're going to do it, though, because it's the end of the game, and you need to

55:11create a different energy, because, oh, shit, locking. Yeah, exactly. So it's not that it's bad, it's that what was there earlier was better. So it's like, oh, bring back the fucking rad stuff, but like I said, not a bad track at all, it's just one of those things. I really liked the earlier stage-elect track. Oh, and I don't disagree with you on that point at all. I included it specifically because I thought it was good to hear the change that they chose for that, but I think the original way better than that one. Yeah, so I get the need for it though, but that Sigma one was pretty dope. Yeah, I like that one too. You caught on to it, like, the way that I felt, which is like, yeah, there's this like feeling of like sort of desperation. Like, here we are, we're going into the kind of final confrontation, kind of like feeling like, almost like if you'd score a movie, the heroes are marching to the final battle type of thing. Like, I felt like the way, especially with the way that it started there. Yeah, it's a deep size. The hero just like closes his eye, leans back, takes his deep breath, and then let's go, and then like charges into

56:11the scene. That's probably going to lose, but we've all seen eighties flex and we know how to end. So here we'll come out on top, but now eight, it is definitely a very cinematic sound to that one. So the next three tracks I'm going to take us into are when you finally get into your confrontation with Sigma, the end of the game. He has two phases, so I'm including the tracks through both of those phases there. When you first fight him, he's just his normal robot self, and he kind of like does a lot of bouncing off of the walls, and you've got to kind of watch his pattern to not get hit by him. And it's a, for the most part, a pretty straightforward fight. When he goes into his phase two, after you beat him in his phase one, he ends up merging with this giant wolf mech in the background behind him, and he becomes just all you see is his head, like I'm a crown of the wolf's head, and there's this big wolf mech that's got the arms that come slamming down, but also act as platforms. You have to like ride on them to like hit his, the Sigma head that's part of the top of this wolf mech, and well, all sorts of other shit are flying all over the screen and trying to hurt you. So this is like a great world sift situation from Dark Souls.

57:16I felt bad about killing great wolf's head. Okay. There's no bad feeling. Size-wise though. Oh, much bigger. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's literally the whole screen. Gotcha, okay. So, and then after that, I'm including the track that plays when you get the ending of the game after you won the day. So that's gonna be Sigma phase one, Sigma phase two, and then ending.

1:02:10All right. So we are back from Sigma phase one, Sigma phase two, and the ending. Or you seem to really like the phase one. It's chaos. All of it, like that was Chris said it during listen. Like those are such drastic changes of music tonation between all three of those. That is insane to me, but they're all great. Like that's that first track is like frenetic the music. Which makes sense because you said he's a quick little dude bouncing around, right? Yeah. First is the other one is a just big thing. So I guess musically it makes sense, but like going from full on chaos to full, full, full, full. Like for me, it was like a march of war that was kind of like the energy that I was feeling with that. But yeah, that was just such a wild swing, like between

1:03:12those two tracks specifically. Absolutely. Because like it's such high energy, and I said it during listen, like that second one, it's just the musical styling. And just to me, it sounds more like something that belongs in Final Fantasy or in like Chrono Trick. It just it sounds like fantasy music, which you could argue. It's Mega Man. It's a sci-fi fantasy, but like it's it's different. Especially because you're going from the whole soundtrack has been rock music. It has been pick of metal genre and it has been in this game. And then you've got just fantasy march essentially. It's a wild swing. And then it just yeah, they're all great. Yeah, I really like the ending because that really is the the journey is at its end. Our hero awaits the call of tomorrow's need. Like it very send him off, but I'll be here when you need me like it. Rock love ballad. That's all that was. He loves the people and to serve.

1:04:12Hey, sure. That is definitely the slow walk into the distances. Like, you know, the the Sakura blossoms come off the trees. He just fades away. We will see you again next time. It literally ends with him. Like he wonders why he chose to fight and could he ever live a life without fighting or something like that. The answer alludes him. It's like something of that effect. That is so awesome. I meant I was built to murder. I murder is all I know. I will reluctantly push forward as the Mega Man. That's fantastic. No, I really for an ending that's great. And I do know that that used to be kind of like a thing with Mega Man's like you finished the game and then like that end track because you had to put in all that time to get to that. And then you get that short bit. And then you had to play the game all over to get again. So it was a nice treat at the end of it all. Because like you can go back through like launch octopus is loved one if you want to hear it again. You just go there, sit in an area and just let the music play, right?

1:05:15Right. Yeah, but in credits like you can't pause it. You can't do anything. You just go through it and when it's done, oops. I guess I got to play through it again for another hour and a half, two hours. Right. I always enjoy when games do that. When they give you music as a treat or a reward. Especially when it's good music. Well, yes. It sounds like trombone here or something. Which was awesome. What are you talking about? That would be amazing if they closed out this game with that. But that would drastically change the whole tone. Jesus Christ. Sorry. Anyways. The podcast for your crimes against our listeners ears. I happened. My bad. Well, I got one more track for us to take us out of the episode. This has been my Mega Man X episode of the Beeps Bops and Beeth podcast. We just love coming here and talking about video game music and sharing it with you guys.

1:06:16So please check out our discord. We have a link for that in the show notes. Besides video games, video game music, we all bring other things there like pictures of our dogs or cats, some board games. I've had a little bit of a haters from it, but then painting miniatures and sharing my work that I do out there. Laura was doing some crocheting for a little bit there. It's different. It's different. Sorry. One needle verse two and a right. Three needles are their four needles. Oh my God. How does it handle? It has a hook. Closet. You know what? Fine. Fine. I can't teach you guys. For those of us who don't knit needle crochet, whatever is going on in that house. Which craft? Yeah. Which craft. Also the sharing of additional music outside of what we cover on the show. New arrangements of tracks. I know Joshua mentioned that Mega Man series. Mega Man X transfers really well into fan covers and arrangements and stuff like that. I know personally I have a big fan of bit brigade and I've seen them perform Mega Man

1:07:19live while playing through it. It was Mega Man two or three. I forget which one. And like there's so many good tracks that are arrangements of different things out there. And Laura does fantastic job of throwing some new stuff at us every Friday. So we have new tunes to listen to in the discord. Just love my rearrangements and fun stuff. But other than that, we also have a TikTok where we're trying to post clips too as well as a blue sky count where we post updates and things like that. So yeah, just check us out. Share us with your friends if you know anybody that likes video games or video game music. So it throws their way and spread the love. Any final thoughts on the Mega Man X soundtrack? Before I take us out? No, it was a good time. I was was rightfully excited to listen to what you were going to bring today and it was all just phenomenal stuff. I'm ready to start a band. So yeah, I'm going to take us out with the what's just cast called cast role. It plays while credits are rolling. So again, this has been Beep Spops and Beats. This has been Joshua today along

1:08:21with Chris. Laura. And we will see you all on the next one. Bye. Bye.