MUSIC COMMENTARY

I was going to stop the Mega Man Genesis cover album at the previous track, but then I came across a cover of this song by Paul Mann IV. It was spectacular! I felt such a strong connection with this song. The Mega Man Megamix and Gigamix manga have shown me that given the right artistry you can make a game as simple as Mega Man a lot of emotional weight. This cover of Proto Man's Fortress made the idea of your own brother turning evil (which is what Mega Man 5 is all about) more impactful. Giving the song a lot more driving low- and mid-end instrumentation gave the song a lot more gravitas that the original was lacking. I was inspired to make my own cover similar to this one.

I quickly started running out of channels in DefleMask as I progressed. I started with the horns at the beginning doing the melody and added a harmony. That was two channels gone. Then I wanted an echo on both those channels. Four of the six total channels on the YM2612 were used up. I didn't want to sacrifice the fullness of those horns! Then I remembered a little-used feature of DefleMask: the ability to sync up two simultaneous projects! Despite it not being technically possible on one Genesis, that didn't matter because the feel of the song was more important than being hardware accurate. (Besides, this is hardware accurate if you play it on two Genesises.)

All FM patches are custom made, and the only usage of the PSG is for the hihat.

After I was happy with the song, I exported both project files to ROMs and recorded them from my Analogue Mega Sg to simulate the characteristic DAC distortion found on actual SEGA Genesis consoles. I was unsure if the results would sound pleasant because my attempt with the Stage Select theme from Mega Man 8 didn't sound good at all. But it turns out that it made everything sound nice and thick! Fantastic!

After starting this whole Mega Man Genesis cover project, someone on the ZorroTracker Discord server showed me this amazing new fangame called Mega Man: The Sequel Wars, a homebrew (not hack) sequel to The Wily Wars! This fangame runs on an actual SEGA Genesis! It has Mega Man 4 through 6, two player co-op, and remixed stages! I was hoping that I'd be able to help do music as it's still in development, but I feel that would be arrogant of me. Besides, the developer is intentionally trying to stick to the Wily Wars music style, albeit improved in my opinion from what I have heard so far.

I've also been working on transcribing the song to sheet music. I have been cheating though, referencing other people's arrangements when doing it myself becomes too frustrating. The main melody transcription was done by me, I swear! Click the picture to download the PDF.

COMPOSER

Mari Yamaguchi

ARRANGER

Alexander Emenheiser (@ade-syndicate)

DRUM SAMPLES

Roland TR-626

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