Rockman X

After the bitter disappointment of Rockman Kiki Ippatsu, this disc was a bit of a pick-me-up. While I had always dreamed of Rockman music (or Mega Man to us Americans) being arranged in full-fledged Falcom-like power rock, I can settle for the milder live jazz approach taken on this disc. In fact, after several play-throughs, it's really grown on me. Granted, it's not what I'll choose to listen to while I'm working out, cleaning up, or taking part in any activity that requires pulse-pounding "motivational" music; but it is, for the most part, a successful arrangement of the rockin' tunes from Mega Man X.

All the tracks include live instruments - well played. I'm fairly new to Capcom discs, but apparently they have an in-house band, called Alph Lyla, that performs the live arranged discs - this one included. The rhythms used are certainly those of rock music, but don't expect the fury of the electric guitar and the powerful synth sounds that you heard in the original game music. There *are* electric guitars of course, they're just not blasting your speakers out like they were in the game. Other instruments listed in the musician credits: keyboard, acoustic piano, electric bass, drums, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, violin, viola, and even a flugel horn. My favorite songs are the funky "Welcome To Mechanical Forest", "Get Through The Dark" with the cool trumpet section, and the slow, throbbing "Again". Every time I listen to that last one, I expect to hear the sexy voice of Sade - "Again" is just her style.

After purchasing this disc, I played through the game again to see if I would recognize any of the tunes. I'd probably say I had a 50 percent success rate. While several of the songs were easily recognizable, others were arranged (or *rearranged* if you will) so well that I had difficulty isolating the original melody. In any case, the music is all good and a quality addition to a game music collection. And not like this is a selling point or anything - but the disc also comes with a nicely made 30-page glossy sleeve booklet chock full of color pictures, preliminary character sketches, and liner notes.