My Gaming Audio History: Mega Man III (1990)

I had a student in Video Game Music class last fall who said to me: "please, can we look at anything Mega Man?"  Thinking of you today!  Today's post is on the last Mega Man game that I played, Mega Man III.  I loved the Mega Man series, but it was extremely difficult and I left it behind when I moved past the NES.  Somehow, this progression seems fitting, especially considering that the credits to this game list the original bosses.  Loved this series as a kid.  Tried to learn the best way to play through the stages, etc.  In searching around for all this Mega Man info, I found some episodes of a Mega Man cartoon series.  Want to waste a bit of time?  Check out this retro 90s goodness.  

One disappointment I have with this game is that there's no introductory movie.  Mega Man II does such a great job of giving a brief story and panning up the building with a musical build starting with the end game music from the first Mega Man and then launching into the new Mega Man II theme that equates for an awesome intro.  Nothing here, just a title screen.  A bit disappointing to say the least.    

  

Who composed the audio experience?  Again, a change from either of the earlier Mega Man games.  Composer: Yasuaki Fujita credited as "Bun Bun" in the game credits, and his wife Harumi, who is listed in the "special thanks" section of credits.  VGMPF lists Harumi as having written two tracks before she gave birth and turned the project to her husband.  However, VGMPF's list of game tracks only credits her as working on the staff roll track.  My searches for more information led me to learn about a new blog, similar to my own, Classical Gaming: An academic study of video games, sound, and music.  Here, Steve lists Needle Man and Gemini Man's themes as composed by Harumi.  It's unclear to me where he gets this information, and it's at odds with VGMPF, so I'll simply leave this as unsettled.  I'd love to know more specifics.  

Want a bit of a time waster?  BrentalFloss has created lyrics and sung to the end game music.  His video has over a million views!  This is interesting to me because I often made up lyrics to game music when I played.  Not this particular track, but it's also something I did with other games.

Thinking across the NES Mega Man games...

I took a bit to read through my other entries on Mega Man I and Mega Man II to see how this game compares.  Many of the sound effects are the same across all these games.  Also, the function of the music is very much the same: music for various levels to create different atmospheres, boss selection music, boss music, victory music, Wiley stage music, end game music, etc.  The purpose of music is virtually the same.  However, there is quite a bit more music here than there is in earlier Mega Man games.  Compare: 

Mega Man: ~ 6 minutes of music.  Average stage music length: 29.5 sec.  

Mega Man II: ~ 13 minutes of music.   Average stage music length: 44.5 sec.  

Mega Man III ~ 15 minutes of music.  Average stage music length:  50.25 sec.  

In Mega Man III, tracks are generally longer, especially stage music.  Needle Man's music is a 73 sec loop, quite a bit longer than any of the other tracks.  Crash Man's music in Mega Man II is also quite a bit longer than any other music, but that seems to be because it's a series of variations.  In Needle Man's case, the music continues into various sections.  Really cool and interesting.  

Boss battle is significantly longer here as is the music when you get a new weapon.  I don't actually think I ever heard all of that track through until doing this project.  End game music is also significantly longer in this game, over 3 minutes compared with about 2 minutes for Mega Man II and 1.5 minutes for the original Mega Man.  

My detailed notes are below.  They were made using this soundtrack.  

-Title screen: 53 sec.  F# minor.  A A' B (12) C D.  Only C and D loop.  Intro sounds like blues.

-Select screen: 9.5 sec.  G# minor.  i-bVI-bVII motion.  

-Proto Man whistle:  13 sec.  G minor.  Melody only.  Blue notes.  Fascinating to read his original name was "Blues"  

-Gemini Man: 55 sec.  C minor.  A (10) B C.  B section uses minor scale which sounds exotic, appropriate for the setting.  

-Hard Man: 46. 5 sec.  A minor--> D minor.  A B C (4) D.  

-Magnet Man: 40 sec.  F# major.  Intro (5) A B C (3).  Intro doesn't repeat in the loop.  

-Needle Man: 73 sec.  Bb minor.  Intro (10, Eb) A B C D Fascinating how much longer this loop is than other stages! 

-Shadow Man:  58 sec.  F# minor--> E major.  Intro (2+4) A B B' (10) C.  C section is in E major and uses bVI-bVII-I.

-Snake Man: 41 sec.  F minor.  Intro (2) A B C.  Intro doesn't repeat as part of the loop.  

-Spark Man: 38 sec.  G minor.  Intro A B.  Intro doesn't repeat as part of the loop.  

-Top Man: 50.5 sec.  D minor.  Intro (2) A (4) B C (4).  Intro doesn't repeat in loop.  Intro has irregular measure at the very top.  

-Boss select: 6 sec.  A minor--> E minor.  Cool to consider how this music fits together in the game.  First screen select, then this, then individual stage music...    

-Boss battle: 32 sec.  Eb minor--> Ab minor.  Intro (4 + 2) A A'.  Lots of tritones, at the beginning and in the melody.  Last two bars of the intro repeats in the loop, but not the initial 4.  

-Stage clear: 3.5 sec.  F# major.  bVI-bVII-I

-Get new weapon: 25.5 sec.  F# minor.  A B.  Also uses bVI-bVII-I

-Password/ Game over: 12.5 sec.  F# major.  Short 8 bar loop.  

-Wiley fortress intro: 18 sec.  C minor.  Intro (6) A.  Compound meter.  Starts with diminished arpeggios.  

-Wiley fortress 1: 48 sec.  Ab minor.  Intro (1) A (6) A (6) B C.  Very end of C section turns to E major.  Intro doesn't repeat.  

-Wiley fortress 2: 40 sec.  B minor.  Intro (1) A B B.  Intro doesn't repeat.  

-Wiley fortress 3: 44.5 sec.  C minor.  Intro (4) A A' B.  Intro doesn't repeat in loop.  

-Wiley battle: 22 sec.  Ab minor.  Intro (4) A (12).  

-Wiley defeated: 5 sec.  C major.  bVI-bVII-I.  Extended version of the stage clear music.  

-Proto man theme: 1:52.5 plus 14 sec of Proto whistle at the beginning.  G minor.  A B C B' (4) C.  Begins the Proto man whistle and then extends into a pop like song form.  Doesn't loop whistle or A section, only B and beyond.  

-Credits:  70 sec.  D major--> G major?  Very different feeling and sound from the rest of the game music.  Somewhat tonally ambiguous.  Intro (6) A A' B C.  

My Gaming Audio History: Mega Man II (1989)

Mega Man II is another game I was obsessed with in the third grade.  I used to talk with my friends about the best order to beat the bosses.  I also used to be able to beat Quickman's stage FIRST without the flash power!  Not possible now!  What happened?  Love this game!  It's so hard, but somehow I stuck with it and finally beat it one day.  I actually didn't own the first Mega Man but after I got MM 2, I rented the original from the video rental store and played it.  This one was a big improvement from the original.

Even though this game series changes composers for new games (Castlevania does the same), a couple tracks of the original music are reused.  The opening music is actually the ending music from the first game, the same key, even.  It's almost as if you're picking right back up where you left off!  The boss name screen music is also a remake of the original music.  Numerous sound effects are reused from the first game too.

Silence is rarely used in a game, but in the cave on the way down to the final battle with the Wily projection, there's silence except for the acid dripping.  It really creates an eerie atmosphere since the rest of the game has been wall to wall sound.  Builds expectation.  I love the sound effect of the hologram projector winding down and breaking!

Composer: Takashi Tateishi.  Also reuses some music (Opening music and Boss Name music) from the original Mega Man, and those tracks, though slightly reworked were written by Manami Matsumae.

This game has a lot of music!  Even though sections repeat quite a bit (saving memory), in terms of musical form, there's about 13 minutes of music here!  That's a ton for a NES game!  Wow!  Several of these tracks make use of the theme and variations form.  The Wily Stage 1 and 2 track is a good example of that.  When the main theme repeats (A) it has variations to it and a different voice plays the melody.  A-A-B-A'-A''-B-C.  Several other themes use that form as well.  Maybe that helped to save space to allow for so much music as well.  The Wily Stage 3 and 4 track is a good example of modulating music to save space.  It's a 6 second loop that moves up chromatically.

Here's my normal breakdown by track with notes:

-Opening: 40 secs.  Begins in Gb major-- changes key, speeds up; when panning up the building (@ 25 sec), modulation begins with deceptive cadence- D-E-F-G (V) of C.  This is the same music (even in the same key) as the ending of the first Mega Man game.  It's as if we're picking up where we left off.
-Title screen: C major.  43 sec.  Superb piece of music.  Don't know if I ever heard it all the way through as a kid... too excited to press start!  A-A'-B-A''
-Password screen: Db major.  6 sec.  Short loop that I heard incessantly!
-Boss select: Bb minor.  6 sec.  1 sec percussion intro and then a 5 second repeating loop.
-Boss name: C minor to G major.  7 sec.  i- V aural feel so that the start of a level feels like an arrival.  This music is a remake of the original game music, different key.
-Airman: Bb minor. 45 sec A (10)-B-B-C.  Does the percussion seem to not line up with the melody at times to you?  I hear it that way...
-Crashman: G major.  1:16. Variations over bass.  Intro-A-B-A-C-C'  Intro doesn't repeat.  Only B section moves to IV, otherwise, the bass repeats and the melody in C and C' changes over the bass.
-Metalman: Bb minor.  38 sec.  A-A'-B.  Really like the interaction between the melody and countermelody.
-Heatman: D minor.  25 sec.  A-A'  Never leaves tonic (D drone in bass).  Driving rhythm.
-Bubbleman: C minor.  43 sec.  Intro- A-A'-B.  Sounds very electronica.  Love the countermelody!
-Woodman: F# minor.  40 sec.  Intro(6) A-A-B.  8 sec intro doesn't repeat.  Pretty straight forward.
-Flashman: E minor.  51 sec.  Intro A-B.  Intro (25 sec) doesn't repeat in loop but happens twice right away.
-Quickman: C minor.  38 sec.  A-A'-B
-Boss: C minor.  19 sec.  6 sec intro doesn't loop.  Music almost syncs up with the start of the boss battle, it takes just a little less time to fill the meter than the music does to play.
-Boss victory: E major.  5 sec.  A 2.5 sec percussion beat loops when you get power-ups after battles.
-Game over: Db major.  3 sec.
-Wily's Castle: Ab minor.  7 sec.  Very chromatic.
-Wily Level 1 and 2: C# minor.  1:15.  Love the countermelodies in other voices while a less prominent voice plays the main theme.  I disliked how hard this level was, but this music is genius!   A in the form is a repeating bass and variations in melody happen above it.  A-A-B-A'-A''-B- C.
-Wily Level 2 and 3: Eb minor.  1:16 sec.  This is the same 6 seconds of music looping and rising in pitch.  Makes for a crazy buildup of anxiety in the player!
-Beat Wily: C major.  8 sec.
-Ending: 66 sec.  Between F# minor and A major.  Ends in A, though.
-Credits:  65 sec.  Plays the Title Screen music and then goes into new material that uses motivic material from other tracks in the game.  Uses Power up screen drum beat.

Game Music Online: Audio mentioned in G4's Top 100 Video Games Part 2

Continuing the journey through G4's Top 100 Video Games of All Time whose audio was worthy of highlighting as one of the most awesome things.  Part 2:

# 78 Spy Hunter: The music changes when you go on the weapons truck, into Henry Mancini's theme from Peter Gunn.

#77 Excitebike:  Blair Herter: "What made this game so much fun was the sound design.  If you play the motorcycle sound in Excitebike to anybody my age, they can immediately tell you what video game that came from."  I remember playing this at a friend's house growing up, and designing courses.  Interesting that the music is such a small part of a game like this... I forget how much audio has progressed since the first NES games of my childhood.

#74 Star Fox 64:  "If you had an N64, you had this game.  You know why?  Because the characters talked!"  - Morgan Webb.  The transition from printed text to spoken audio to a game is a huge difference to the gameplay experiences.  As a kid, I used to support the amount of times I spent playing games by the fact that I was reading when I was playing RPGs.  In '97, spoken audio was not the norm, especially the amount that Star Fox 64 has!  And what a huge improvement over the speech in the SNES Star Fox where I was always disappointed after the opening audio samples.  One major thing I notice: once the gameplay starts in earnest at 1:56, there's a lot of background noise from the ship flying and frequent dialogue, which push the game's music out of the forefront of the audio experience.  

 

#73 Mega Man 2:  "Mega Man 2 is one of my all time favorite games as well.  I still have my ringtone as the Mega Man 2 theme song."  -Jonah Ray.  I did love the audio to this game.  When reading an interview with the sound team, they credit the popularity of the music with the popularity of the game and  the enjoyability of the gameplay experience.  I loved the different feel that each world had, largely imparted by the different tunes for each level.

#72 Mortal Kombat.  "Finish Him!"  What an iconic sound clip!  Although it doesn't have great music, my friends and I would yell this line as we pretended to be zap each other with our super powers.  Give this gameplay a watch: despite being continuous, the audio is actually pretty bland, other than the terrific fighting/ speech sounds.  This is from the arcade version, although I was usually playing the less graphic SNES version.

#64: NBA Jam.  "You're on fire!"  "Boom Shaka Laka!" NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, and other arcade games aren't so notable for their music, which in the noisy arcade environment was more less critical than it is in home console games.  As I'm considering these examples that the show highlighted, I'm noticing that arcade games are more memorable for having spoken audio and better effects than home console games did in the mid 90s.