As its true fans know, the Mega Man series wasn’t just about beating master robots and accepting fake apologies from Dr. Wily; it was also about some of the best rock and techno tunes ever squeezed out of an 8-bit sound chip, which arguably provided a lot of the inspiration for the modern chiptune movement. In any case, it also had its share of memorable jingles. And while later Mega Man fanfares would keep it simple, the very first game made beating every boss sound like a monumental achievement:
Mega Man 2 took away some of the first game’s grandiosity, replacing it with a punchier, simpler tune. With more robots to defeat, there’s less time to celebrate, right?
Mega Man III simplified things even more, hurrying through its bass hits and trills so players could get back to the action:
Finally, Mega Man IV brought the sound of victory back around to the way it had been in Mega Man 2, minus the bass lead-in. That’s pretty much where every mainline Mega Man game has stayed since, with small variations in MIDI instruments:
Of course, that’s not to say the spinoff games don’t have cool fanfares. The one players heard in the first Mega Man X was suitably grandiose for a slick reboot/sequel franchise:
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