Review: Rockman Dystopia

by Chris Hoffman. Originally posted at http://christhehoff.tumblr.com/

Living up to its unspoken promise, Rockman Dystopia delivers an aggressive, hard-edged take on vintage Mega Man tunes. Whereas its previously released counterpart, Rockman Utopia, was nothing but upbeat, pop-focused interpretations of songs from the original Mega Man series, Rockman Dystopia is full of electronic dance music remixes of the tunes from the Mega Man X titles.

Everything from Mega Man X to Mega Man X8 is represented in the CD’s 10 tracks, and some Mega Man Zero is even thrown in for good measure.

There’s plenty of good stuff to rock out to here — I especially like the Armored Armadillo and Boomer Kuwanger tracks — but two things prevent it from being as recommended as Utopia: the narrower scope of musical genres and, in my opinion, the slightly lesser quality of the Mega Man X series’ music compared to classic Mega Man.

Though they’re solid, I’ve never found some of the tunes featured here, such as the themes of Cyber Peacock (Mega Man X4), Blast Hornet (X3), or Flame Stag (X2), to be as catchy as the music from Mega Man X1 or from original Mega Man. (Obviously, your mileage may vary.)

In some cases the EDM focus doesn’t do the songs any favors; track #3 (a medley of Chill Penguin, Crystal Snail, and Blizzard Wolfang) is so cluttered with extra effects that you can barely make out the tunes beneath.

Despite my complaints, I still consider Rockman Dystopia a good album for Mega Man fans, but those with a strong love of EDM and and an appreciation of the later games in the Mega Man X series will likely enjoy it more than others.

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Friend and fellow former Nintendo Power writer Chris Hoffman is a member of The Mega Man Network’s User Content Submission System, and the views expressed here reflect the views of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mega Man Network.

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