Uploaded May 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
This is one of several covers, arrangements and original pieces I've written for Mega Man: The Sequel Wars, a remake/remix of the last 3 NES Mega Man games for the Sega Genesis. You can follow the game's development on its Twitter account (twitter.com/MMSequelWars) or YouTube page (youtube.com/channel/UCh6puDO3hd_Tz_zCiDoD2lQ/featured), and be sure to check out our SAGE demo here: sonicfangameshq.com/forums/showcase/mega-man-the-sequel-wars.1370
Mega Man 4's credits theme never really gelled with me. After one of the best ending themes in the entire franchise, the last song the player hears before they turn off the NES (or, more likely today, close out the emulator) is a by-the-numbers transcription of Mega Man 2's main theme with few additions beyond some of Minae Saito's signature wobbly vibrato. It's far from her best work, but one of the greatest joys from joining a remake project is getting to set the mistakes of the past right again, and I made sure this cover would receive my full attention to bring it up to the bar set by rest of the soundtrack.
First on the track-fixing agenda was the song's repetitive nature: Takeshi Tateishi's original rendition eventually broke up the monotony with an extended solo section, but Mega Man 4 offers no such relief from the theme's anthemic insistence. While Woodfrog's take on the piece for the modern soundtrack opted to solve this problem vertically—bringing in the Complete Works version's intro and softening the instruments until it simply ceased to grate on the ears—I tried to improve it through a horizontal approach, smoothing out the loop points and adding humanizing fills in the accompaniment to create a sense of forward momentum (even sound chips get tired of playing the same lines over and over again!). The B section now comes in two alternating varieties, too: one traditional break and one 'retro' passage that technically violates the Minakuchi style guide's moratorium on preset noise pitches.
Module File: drive.google.com/file/d/1JX3msY2bnisZhotcGSSwL74jmim7-Dis/view?usp=drive_link
This is one of several covers, arrangements and original pieces I've written for Mega Man: The Sequel Wars, a remake/remix of the last 3 NES Mega Man games for the Sega Genesis. You can follow the game's development on its Twitter account (twitter.com/MMSequelWars) or YouTube page (youtube.com/channel/UCh6puDO3hd_Tz_zCiDoD2lQ/featured), and be sure to check out our SAGE demo here: sonicfangameshq.com/forums/showcase/mega-man-the-sequel-wars.1370
Mega Man 4's credits theme never really gelled with me. After one of the best ending themes in the entire franchise, the last song the player hears before they turn off the NES (or, more likely today, close out the emulator) is a by-the-numbers transcription of Mega Man 2's main theme with few additions beyond some of Minae Saito's signature wobbly vibrato. It's far from her best work, but one of the greatest joys from joining a remake project is getting to set the mistakes of the past right again, and I made sure this cover would receive my full attention to bring it up to the bar set by rest of the soundtrack.
First on the track-fixing agenda was the song's repetitive nature: Takeshi Tateishi's original rendition eventually broke up the monotony with an extended solo section, but Mega Man 4 offers no such relief from the theme's anthemic insistence. While Woodfrog's take on the piece for the modern soundtrack opted to solve this problem vertically—bringing in the Complete Works version's intro and softening the instruments until it simply ceased to grate on the ears—I tried to improve it through a horizontal approach, smoothing out the loop points and adding humanizing fills in the accompaniment to create a sense of forward momentum (even sound chips get tired of playing the same lines over and over again!). The B section now comes in two alternating varieties, too: one traditional break and one 'retro' passage that technically violates the Minakuchi style guide's moratorium on preset noise pitches.
Module File: drive.google.com/file/d/1JX3msY2bnisZhotcGSSwL74jmim7-Dis/view?usp=drive_link
