A lot of people don't know that this game was a "labor of love". Capcom wasn't interested in a Mega Man sequel due to poor sales from the first game, but they let the team move forward with it on their spare time. The team poured their hearts into this game with complete confidence that Mega Man would shine. This is why Mega Man II is a masterpiece.
I'm impressed by how long this song runs before hitting a loop. Most Robot Master themes are only 50 seconds long, but Wily Fortress 1 is about 80 seconds. They really went all-out with this track.
Back in the day, aside from truly gifted sound programmers, it took every sound engineer working on these games an egregious amount of work to implement music, which is the reason for the iconic short loops of these times. So this sort of track showcases extreme effort.
@@ilikecurry2345 Not to take away the effort of the Mega Man 11 sound team but you can't compare a modern OST being released on Eighth Gen consoles to music produced with all the limitations of a NES cart... It is different worlds.
It's actually kinda funny because I think the story is that he did make more lighthearted tunes at first, but they were all scrapped because it was supposed to be more like rock-inspired music. The exception is Crash Man's theme which is why that one sounds a bit more different stylistically than the rest of the soundtrack.
This is the one that made me realise how much i like videogame music. I was like 10 years old but i will never forget sitting there just listening to this in awe.
Below the asteroids... , music should be music, not disgusting words on top of shitty music they call songs, but pure sound. perhaps thats why I've liked game musics too, its not drowned out by nonsense words. especially annoying searching for trance and so on and theres always a random word thrown in, thats not what music is about. nintendo 8bit made me appreciate sound instead of words, what a magical childhood it was.
It does. But there's also that sense of urgency to it. Like everything is banking on you defeating Wily, or the fate of the world rests with you kind of feeling.
Mega Man 2 was the first game I got for my NES. I wanted Castlevania but it was out of stock so I got Mega Man 2 as a completely blind buy. I think I chose well since at the time this was one of the best games available for the system.
My story is similar, I got Megaman X for my birthday from my grandmother who was instructed to "get him any Super Nintendo game" and boy did she hit the jackpot! That soundtrack was also incredible and I would eventually go back to find these gems too. Thanks Granny!
Man, my chilhood, when you get to this level, you grab your controller and this song preparers you for that final battle against the creepy old man. Megaman 2 was a wonderful experience, love this game so very much.
This has to be the best nes theme ever. I remember when I first played this stage and really the entire game I fell in love with every trach but especially this one. It's a masterpiece. I'm so thank I was born in the 80s. I got to experience the start of the video game world. Megaman is my favorite video game of all time !
GBelair if you're listening PLEASE DO NOT shut down your channel or delete any vids! Your channel is a veritable treasure trove of classics n each of the individual OSTs are perfect time length.
So much nostalgia in one song. It brings back memories. This was one of my favorite games on the NES, and I just got the legacy collection for Switch for my birthday, so I'm ecstatic to be able to play it again!
0:21 - 0:31 Sounds So good to the point were I can't even concentrate on what ever i'm currently doing, I could be playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles and then I hear that part and drop my hands and listen for the ten seconds of that segment
This game was my childhood, I was too young to know how the password system worked so I would just play it from the start everytime. I began to learn the bosses weakness's and learned a whole new layer. I remember the dogs in the caves from Woodman's stage taught me timing. subtle presses of jump in bubblemans stage. Navigating invisible blocks in heatmans stage then realizing I could just ride a missile past it all. Then being brought to wilys castle for all your hard work. Man the hype in that moment was more than anything. I was hooked. My poor elementary school brain couldn't figure out the crash man boss in wilys castle. It was a revisit later in life that would see that boss downed.
From around :34 seconds on from there is just beautiful. I havent gotten this hyped to an og video game song of any kind other than this and the song for level 2 of Metal Slug 3
Y'know, as a kid, this was the first game that I truly felt enthralled in. The combination of this sick music combined with my past efforts to get through all the robot masters in one sitting.
No, they don’t like it because the other songs get neglected while this one gets all the attention. Also, music is subjective, this song is not objectively great, people can have their own opinions.
Heroic classic tune that is motivating and one of the best side scrollers for Nintendo.. I was about 5 or 6 when it came out so grew up with this and never forgot the melodic mega man music in this game
Ngl I really wanted to cry while listening to this song bc of how much nostalgia I have for it. I'm not even old enough to have grown up around the time that the original Mega Man games released but I did grow up with the songs from these games. This one in particular feels like a retrospective, as if you're looking back on all of your achievements you have made thus far and preparing for the challenges you'll face at the end of your journey. It isn't somber or sinister to emphasize that you're going to soon fight the main antagonist, it's like it's meant to make you feel confident in yourself rather than fear Dr. Willy. The part I feel like this is emphasised the most is at 0:42
You know what, I'm just going to say it. This theme is, in my humble opinion, not only the best Mega Man theme ever composed, but one of the best pieces of music composed for an NES game ever, up there with the Mario and Zelda theme.
Contrarians can say what they will about this game but they’ll never take anything away from it. Its influence to game design and music can’t be overstated. If this game weren’t good Mega Man would be a forgotten pair of NES games that were alright at best. This was the turning point. In 3 months they made this game happen. The only Mega Man game to compete with its success is the original Mega Man X. This game has its shortcomings but they did something right. We wouldn’t have a franchise with over 100 games if they didn’t.
Agreed. MM2 and X1 are in class by themselves. MM3 is close but these two are just so amazing. The ideas in these games for their specific eras is insane.
Incredible composition, and it rightly sits cosy in its place as one of the greatest pieces of music in gaming. I miss the days before people jumped on the bandwagon, and only hated on it because it was seen as the cool thing to do because it was overplayed by RU-vid channels.
This song is overrated. I don't actually think that, but a lot of people are complaining about people calling it overrated when no one actually has. So I will be that person for them to not look silly.
1:03 All the days you gave to me are priceless _(Together as one, together as one)_ It’s time for us to open new doors step out There's nothing to fear
Imagine if this exact song had been done by a rock or pop artist in the 80s. NES composers were writing absolute bangers and selflessly sacrificing them to the 8 bit chip.
This song makes me bawl like a blubbering baby. I’m a 36 year old man and this takes me back to being 6 years old watching my grandpa and brother play this game to completion over a weekend filled with pizza and root bear floats and popcorn……thank you!
This is just a hot take, but if someone were to decide to do a remix of this song, I believe that the beginning part should start of as a deep and solemn note escalating up to full blast to perfectly capture the stress of the start of the stage.
First time i heard this music was in smash Bros wii u, and now that i think about it, being a mega Man main is probably why i play megaman games in the first place
Even as someone that doesn't enjoy this game that much or the rest of the classic series besides a few exceptions for that matter, I can say that this game has one of the best ost's in the series, and this track is a masterpiece, it's so complex for an NES track and has such a catchy epic melody, fucking love it, kind of reminds me of Donkey Kong 94's stage 9-8 theme, in the Sense that this track is isn't letting the hardware limit it from having a melody with instruments that aren't usually used to create tracks for 8 bit systemsm I still think that the stage 9-8 theme is more impressive, but in terms of my enjoyment, they're equally good.
I dont know if I can agree fully in this. I understand that there just insufferable hipsters who will just hate the more well known stuff like Wily Stage 1. But as good as this theme is, I personally think that there is better stuff in the series to listen to. Especially some sleeper hits. My favorite Fortress theme has to be a tie between Mega Man Wily Stages 1-4 in 7, and Mega Man Wily Stage 11.
It is only because hating on Mega Man 2 is seen as the cool thing to do nowadays, and people take it one step further, and call a game-changing composition "overrated" as a result of their never-ending hate boner for the game that had the greatest impact on people growing up.
I put this into a tracker and set the base time to 2, sounds so cool at half speed. The thing about the tracker though is that it will keep the pitch and lengthen the notes to fill the gaps when you slow it down because it individually reads the notes.
Street Fighter 6 Battle Hub, thanks for introducing me to this badass song (much of my Classic Mega Man knowledge is limited to Mega Man 8 and Marvel vs. Capcom I'm sorry 😭)
