October is upon us and that means Christmas is on its way, meaning it's time to talk about one of my favorite Christmas stories: A Christmas Carol.  Now before you lay in on me, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about Halloween.  It’s one of my favorite holidays and there’s a reason I bring up A Christmas Carol this early in the season.  

​A Christmas Carol as a story is quite a dark one.  I would actually call it a brilliantly written ghost story and it’s the perfect transition film to bridge the gap between Halloween and Christmas.

Some of you may be wondering which film adaptation I’m talking about.  In reality, this story is so malleable that any one of the dozens of versions done over the years will do.  However I will reference a select few to illustrate my points. Here are a few reasons why A Christmas Carol is an unintended horror movie.

​The movie literally begins with (spoilers) the death of Jacob Marley, the protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner. In fact the opening line of the book first published in 1843 reads “Marley was dead.”  Could you imagine if the book Marley and Me began like that?  Even the Muppet version of the story takes a moment to mention how creepy the start of the movie is.  Gonzo the Great, who plays the narrator and quotes lines throughout the movie, opens with that line, with Rizzo the Rat immediately commenting that it's "really creepy and spooky.”  

​The story instantly grabs your attention with a punch in the mouth with the fist of our own mortality.

You’ll be hard pressed to find another Christmas movie that has the amount of ghosts in it as A Christmas Carol.  

Including the ghost of Jacob Marley plus the three that visit Scrooge throughout the evening, that’s a total of four ghosts and, I don’t know about you, but when I think of Christmas, hauntings and ghosts aren’t the first things that come to mind.  

Like always, however, Dickens pulls it off flawlessly.  

The first ghost, Jacob Marley, comes back from the dead to warn Scrooge about his impending eternal damnation.  Most of the film adaptations of this scene really do it justice.  Particularly the one from the 1984 version with George C. Scott as Scrooge.  Marley comes in screaming in agony and terror, rattling the chains he wears that he forged in life, illustrating to Scrooge and the audience that there is life after death and there are consequences for your actions on this earth.  

​Remember kids, this is a classic Christmas story.  However, if you showed this scene to someone who has never heard of this story before, they would never imagine that this movie had anything to do with Christmas.

One death in a Christmas movie is enough, wouldn’t you think?  Well Charlie didn’t think so.  To really hammer his point home that we need to cherish those who we hold dear, the Ghost of Christmas Past takes us back to Scrooge's childhood and we learn that his mother died in childbirth.  

While not all the film versions reference this dark detail but the 1951 version with Alastair Sim does, and it's incredibly effective.

When the spirit’s business is finished, Scrooge is passed on to the Ghost of Christmas Present and we’re introduced to Tiny Tim, who walks around with a cane and is very sick.  To add insult to injury, the Ghost says to Scrooge that if things don’t change the child will die.  

​Pretty dark stuff, isn’t it? But it gets worse: there's one more ghost to come, and this one has Halloween written all over it.

The final ghost to pay a visit to Scrooge is none other than the Angel of Death itself. Showing Scrooge that Tiny Tim died, and that he'll be next in line. The only difference being that Tiny Tim and Scrooge aren’t going to the same place: Death takes Scrooge to his grave and unleashes a portal to hell.  

Every film version of this sequence is creepy but shockingly the story still has a happy ending.

After that scene, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Most people forget how dark A Christmas Carol really is because it’s been around for over 150 years and has been engrained into the fabric of the Christmas season. 

The only other major Halloween/Christmas movie out there is The Nightmare Before Christmas and compared to this looks pretty tame.  A Christmas Carol exemplifies mortality on a surreal level that’s overlooked rather frequently, especially for a Christmas movie.  Ralphie may have almost shot his eye out with his Red Rider, but at least he didn’t actually kill anyone.  My recommendation is to seek out at least the versions of this movie I mentioned and check them out just in time for Halloween.  Better yet, get a copy of the book because every version ever made misses a little bit of the original story.  Think of them as deleted scenes.

Throughout the films, you’re reminded that this is a story about redemption.  Sure Scrooge was scared into becoming a good, honest, and charitable person, but it’s the choices he makes after his encounter with the spirits that really gives him his new lease on life.  

No matter how big of a jerk you are, Christmas is about bringing out the best in people and sometimes, miracles can happen. Even if, in our case, they happen a little bit before Halloween.

Recently, I lost my mind (as I tend to do) over the discovery of an excellent leitmotif in Mischief Makers ​for the N64 in a "Weekly" Soundcheck.

As I briefly mentioned in the article, ​Mischief Makers is one of the stranger (albeit excellent) games on the system, and has developed something of a cult following.

Visually, the game is covered with eerie, undulating faces. Sonically, the music is high-class but uses curious instruments. Gameplay-wise, you're tasked with things like riding trikes and shaking the hell out of everyone and everything. 

Now, I loved this game as a kid and I love it now, but all that weirdness must have gotten to me at some point, because certain aspects of it started to creep me out.

While most of those feelings were irrational and quickly forgotten, there was one sequence so bizarre and so genuinely eerie, that it has stuck with me ever since.

That sequence is, of course, the "Toadly Raw" boss battle.

Starting out normally enough (or as normal as Mischief Makers gets), you're thrust into battle with a giant frog (or toad, whatever). You grab his lashing tongue, throw it back at him or use it to slam him into the ground, and you'll have the upper hand in no time.

And then things get weird. 

The frog just sits in the middle of the screen, breathing rapidly, and the already dark cavern darkens even further. Lightening strikes and the frog laughs.

The frog fucking laughs. 

And this is no normal laugh. It's some super-high-pitched insanity-fueled cackle.

Then a little man riding on a little cloud appears, and starts dancing. Dancing, I say! 

​Suddenly it's storming. The frog is laughing. The lightning is striking.

Your senses are overwhelmed by just how God damned weird everything has become, and you get scared. Your biological instincts kick in. Your brain has not evolved to the point where it can handle whatever the hell is happening on the screen.

I... I'm sorry. I have to go now. 

Give Mischief Makers a shot, but be forewarned of the nightmare doom that awaits with laughing toads, dancing men and miniature rain clouds.

"When the moon is dyed in blood, a bat departs from a forbidden castle into the night, having changed from its human form to seek its next victim."

"His name is whispered in fear... NOSFERATU, creature of night."​

Thus begins one of the SNES' most unknown and epic of intros.

When you combine Prince of Persia, Castlevania and 1920s horror villains, you get the surprisingly awesome Nosferatu on the SNES. The graphics are gorgeous throughout the entire experience (especially the cutscenes), the music is moody and the gameplay is surprisingly tight. Barring a few frustrating hiccups (and lack of gore, which the game seems to be practically begging to display), Nosferatu is a fun and little-known experience for those seeking a Halloween treat during the season.

​While the game itself is worth exploring, it's the intro that is the most impressive element of the entire production, and it's something that's absolutely worthy of the hallowed halls of "An Intro To Remember." 

Let's get the ritual started:  

The first thing of note is the awesomely atmospheric music (after the dainty fairy flies by, of course). The stark  eruption of the bat soaring into the blood moon is a great touch while the unnecessarily bad-ass writing sets the tone.

Then there's that awesome swooping down into the victim's house, the outline of Nosferatu with his prey, and the utterly epic, incredibly well-animated swirling of his cape into pitch black darkness. 

What's apparent throughout this entire intro is just how incredible the presentation is. The art direction and cinematography are stunning, even now, and when coupled with such perfectly evocative writing, creates a stirring sense of dread and a palpably morbid atmosphere that only something like Super Castlevania IV really matches.

By the time we get to the excellent shot of the hero riding his horse, we're already fully immersed into the realm of Nosferatu, and the rather impressive title screen (which is almost good enough to be featured in "Title Screens") fully seals the deal... particularly with that strange, billowing, flame-like aura from within the castle.

Truly a fantastic introduction to a game that seems to have fallen far from the limelight, making it a perfect gem of horror and evil for the month of October. 

Glover on the N64 is in a strange place. It's somehow well-remembered and looked upon fondly, but simultaneously remains relatively obscure.

A unique 3D platformers, players control a wizard's living glove and are tasked with protecting the kingdom's all-important crystals from the glove's evil twin, Cross-Stitch, by turning them into various balls (bouncy, bowling, etc.) in a combination of puzzle-solving and platforming challenges.

For the most part, it holds up really well and is a truly unique take on a genre that was bursting at the seams.

For me personally, though, Glover holds an even more special place in my heart: it was one of the first games to truly scare me. Like actually scare the hell out of me. 

First was the atmosphere of the hub world. At the start of the game, the loss of the castle's crystals transforms the landscape from idyllic to a pure nightmare.

​

A thick blanket of blood red fog covers the land, painting a picture of a post-apocalyptic massacre. Incredibly menacing music subtly drills into your ears (seriously, listen to that). The scariest evil laugh of all time echoes throughout the barren realm. And, for real, this laugh is actually evil. Like, the person laughing has a deep-seated hatred of all life and they are making fun of their dying victims. 

Then there's the chicken. My God, the chicken. 

This... thing. This hideous, deformed, mentally-deficient chicken just absent-mindedly swings at his own pace. He must have witnessed the slaughter of thousands and that's what destroyed his mind.

He doesn't speak, either. He merely burps, farts and clucks. 

Of course, you might later find out that he is simply giving cheat codes, but as a kid? No way in hell.

I wish I could describe why this was so eerie, but you'll have to play it for yourself. 

But despite this hellscape, there was one moment that was even scarier...

In the haunted level, Fortress of Fear, the game provides one of those "scary" levels like DK64's Creepy Castle, where they aren't actually scary beyond choosing a spooky aesthetic. Still.... it was this very level that has given me my one and only jump scare from a video game.

I was rolling my ball, minding my own business and then POP! I ran into some well-hidden spikes. 

.... yeah, this was kind of an anti-climactic story, but it legitimately scared the hell out of me. 

Play Glover. It's worth your time. Say hi to the chicken for me. 

As the many avid readers of this blog know (all 13 of you) my best friend since essentially birth is named Michael. We often refer to ourselves as brothers, and we're no strangers to incredibly bizarre pranks.

We also share a love for the medium of video games, be they garbage, art or in-between, and for whatever reason, in the October of 1998, all of these factors came together.

For most of his life, Michael has been grappling with severe coulrophobia, likely due to a familial miscalculation where he was goaded into watching Tim Curry's It at far too young an age. In fact, the only clown that Michael ever approved of was one I had at a birthday party in perhaps '95 (hey Toto the Clown, you were awesome and still are!)

Aside from that singular moment of birthday levity, the made-up faces and wacky laughs of other clowns haunted him continually. 

As his "brother," I was aware of this fear and, in an inexplicable and stunning act of cunning and evil for a six or seven year old, I took advantage of it.

First, a little back story: it's 1997. Although I loved video games, I was absolutely not allowed to play anything that had blood, gore or was a first-person shooter. And yet, my Dad let me play the demo of 3DO's Killing Time.

Set in the 1930s, players assume command of an ex-Egyptology student investigating mysterious events on a foggy and haunted island. 

I'll never forget the moody atmosphere of the demo, starting in a boat tied to the dock, the eerie landscape or the incredibly chilling ghosts appearing and saying "shoot me" (which, if you did, allowed you to watch a pretty cool cutscene with live actors appearing in-game.)

There was also a lot of blood, gore and first-person shooting.

However, what stuck with me most of all was the end of the demo, where an old-timey song (which wasn't actually old-timey at all) would play, and a hideous Butcher Clown would appear as the text urged you to purchase the whole game. 

First of all, it wasn't even a butcher clown:

Chef, yes. Clown? No. Butcher, possibly. But that didn't matter. This ghoulish visage found a neat home in my brain, where it could slowly mutate into a clown. The seed for the future Legend was planted... 

Returning to the October of 1998. I had a Nintendo 64, and Michael had a PlayStation. It was only natural that he was envious of the messianic glory that Super Mario 64 embodied, so we would often play it together, truly experiencing the game the way it was meant to be played.

This brings us to the needlessly horrifying Big Boo's Haunt or, as we called it, "the Haunted House."

Locked away inside a cage that's within the belly of a Boo, the Haunted House is surrounded by pitch black woods under the mournful glow of the full moon.

We both found the level to be uncomfortably eerie, but not exactly scary. 

​Well, except for that utterly terrifying piano, which caused many a jump scare.

​However, as we explored the house more thoroughly, the gears in my mind started turning.

Maybe it was the continually-looping ghastly music, which is needlessly nightmarish and ominous. Maybe it was the subtle fear in the air that we both felt. Or maybe... yes, this must be it... maybe it was the Merry-Go-Round music that played in the basement of the house's... shed? Or something. 

The music clearly had an adverse affect on Michael, and it was that reaction which made me recall his fear of clowns. I fired the first shot:

"You know, there's a crazy secret in this level. I only saw it once. I think it was upstairs."

The sweat started to form on his brow. He questioned me about the meaning of such a clandestine mystery, but I dared not reveal too much of my farcical intention... telling him I didn't think he could "handle it" when he pressed for more details. 

His eyes darted around. He did not wish to believe me regarding the presence of a most hidden area, but his soul did.

Keep in mind that this was during the era when Pokemon was firing on all cylinders, where mysterious glitches and secrets, true or not, were being passed among playgrounds in schools across the country. Truly, it felt as if anything was possible.

This was the key.

For those that don't know, in the attic of the Haunted House is a room with an enormous, scared/shy Boo plastered across it. Inside, is a gigantic version of Mr. I, a belligerent eyeball.

Now, Michael wasn't fully aware that this wall could be passed through with the power of the Vanish Cap, and I made sure to continue to withhold this information.

Phase II was ready to begin.

"That's it! It's behind that wall!"

"H-how do we get in...?"

"Hmm... I don't know..."

"Joe, please. What's in there."

"... a butcher clown."

"............... what?"

"A butcher clown. He's got this bloodstained shirt on, with cleavers (editor's note: I was obsessed with the word "cleaver" and had a prop one from an old Halloween store) in his body and he's holding one in his hand and tries to chop you with it."

Michael still didn't believe me.

.... just kidding: of course he did.

Whether he admitted it or not, deep down he felt it was real. That's how powerful his fear of clowns was.

So we tried to get into the room to no avail until he figured out the way the Vanish Cap worked. We get in, he was scared of the eye, killed it, realized that his most dire fear was not present, and then expressed a mixture of relief and disappointment. Possibly anger.

I should have just given up the ruse. But I didn't.

"I swear I saw him in there. Past the eye. I don't remember how to get it. I'm sorry. But he's really in there and he's really scary."

That was pretty much the end of actively seeking out the fabled "Butcher Clown," but it was not the end of the fear. I would occasionally bring it up through the years, as did he, until we both finally became cognizant and he looked up the existence (or lack-thereof) himself.

The Legend of the Butcher Clown lives on, though. As I mentioned in my recent take on the scariest game I had ever played, both he and I were prone to shared hallucinations about things that struck a spooky chord within us. 

We believed in Lament of Innocence's "Garden of the Silenced Newborns," and we believed in the Butcher Clown.

​Maybe we still do. 

The horror genre in video games is long and storied. Some of the most famous examples include the zombie-centric Resident Evil, the sanity-warping Total Darkness, and the surreal terror of Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

But those games had little to no effect on me. No, when I think of the scariest video game I can imagine, one that terrified me to my core and still sends a shiver down my spine to this very day, I think of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.

Yes, that ​one...

Okay, so idiotic story, awkward mocap and surreal voice acting aside, maybe it's not really all that scary............. but maybe it is.

When this game came out, I was in sixth grade. By no means an adult, but by no means a child. I had fallen in love with the Castlevania series, despite having only limited access to it (mainly through the still-super-scary Legacy of Darkness and the original two NES classics), and with no PS2 in hand, I had to rely upon my best friend, Michael, to acquire it. And he did.

Before getting to the meat of this particular tale, it's necessary to talk a little bit about the game.

Aside from the N64 entries, this was the first real jump into 3D for the series, and, to its credit, it was fairly admirably done. Though simple, it managed to take the Metroidvania basics and translate them to a 3D space, even though they were severely watered down. Perhaps more impressive was the exciting combat, which deftly used combos (nearly all of which had a purpose), sub-weapons, magic, and combinations of all the above to create some great sequences. It's also a pretty dopey "origin" story for the Belmont's and Dracula, but I'd take Lords of Shadow's version any day of the week.

That said, the most impressive element of LOI was its atmosphere. It was absolutely drenched in atmosphere, and that is what makes it worth playing to this very day.

Despite every section of the Castle being repetitious with constantly reused rooms and assets, the detail and general design of each section is remarkable to behold. The lighting is just right, the music is just moody enough, and the architecture is both ghastly and stunning simultaneously. You really felt drawn into the many antechambers and corridors of Walter Bernhard's castle, and it was the sense of oppressive immersion and atmosphere that instilled the first sparks of fear into Michael and myself.

Then there were the names of the levels. Some were benign like "The Ghostly Theatre," while others were definitely not.

The House of Sacred Remains. The Prison of Eternal Torture. The Dark Palace of Waterfalls. Anti-Soul Mysteries Lab.

"Anti-Soul mysteries..." Anti-Soul mysteries?! What are they doing in there!? Trying to figure out the great mysteries of eliminating souls entirely!?!?!? (this is much scarier to consider if you went to Catholic school all your life, trust me.)

For kids with very active imaginations, these creepy names dug their claws into us and started to pollute our minds. 

Then came the most terrifying element of all, and it was a secret that we wouldn't understand for nearly a decade.

We never made it too far in the game, likely due to age-related inexperience, so we mostly just wandered around a few of the levels till we escaped or were killed. Occasionally, we'd explore the limited main hub of the castle proper, and it was there that we found an ominous door with skull-like decorations adorned on its sides.

Bravely, we entered. 

Immediately, strange sounds emanated through the stairwell we found ourselves in. Down we went. Further and further downwards, using a spiral staircase that seemed like it would never end, the sounds of growling, groaning and scraping becoming louder and more present. 

Finally, we reached the bottom... and our breaking point.
​

A square chamber, its floor soaked with blood, and rusted, stained iron bars with decayed corpses behind them awaited us. There was nowhere to go but back up, since the only other door, aside from a save room, was locked.

​And that's when we saw it.

There were gratings around the corrupted floor, and the game's fixed-camera angles were stingy, but at the right angle we could peek into the gratings, and we wish we never did.

Greatly obscured by the otherwise-solid floor, and the intentionally-poor camera angle, we saw what looked like a giant, wound-covered, flesh-colored worm writhing rhythmically.

We had no idea what this was. In fact, we thought it had no purpose. For all we knew, it was put down here for no other reason than to be extremely ominous and scare kids like us. 

We turned the game off and were eternally messed up.

Like a severely traumatic experience, the game became inexplicably bound to us. We'd often discuss that moment, and I would play music from the game outside my house on Halloween, perhaps subconsciously hoping to inflict the same fear I had long harbored on innocent trick-or-treaters.

The weird obsession, overall misunderstanding of the game, and foggy memories of our fearful exploits even lead to incredibly strange shared hallucinations, where we both swore we had discovered some deeply secret level called "The Garden of Silenced Newborns," where the flowers on the bushes were crying baby faces.

Yet this place never existed.

Years and years later, we would discover that what we saw was no worm, but the horned head of an extremely difficult hidden boss called The Forgotten One.

We have never faced off against it... until now.

With the game and a PS2 in my collection, I intend to face my fears by October 31st, eliminating the dreaded Forgotten One and having this long-held fear come full circle.

I just pray that, during this fateful quest, I don't discover that the Garden of Silenced Newborns was a real place all along.

Author's Note: by the time this article was published, the Forgotten One, and its endless nightmares, was finally slain by my own hands. A great saga has ended.

Mischief Makers happens to be one of the strangest games to ever hit the Nintendo 64 (right up there with Mystical Ninja and its musical numbers.)

It's also one of the best, despite its underrated sleeper-status.

Players work with Marina, the Ultra-Intergalactic Cybot-G. What this means is that they will soar through a surreal, 2D-pre-rendered world with a lot of grabbing, shaking, frog-fighting, tricycle-riding and Megazord battling.

I've enjoyed the game ever since renting it from Blockbuster ages ago, and I'm happy to have it in my collection. That said, it was only recently that I fully delved into the soundtrack and truly appreciated it. 

Like many other Treasure games, such as Gunstar Heroes or ​Dynamite Headdy, Mischief Makers has a somewhat odd and unique musical sensibility, but one that remains catchy and even iconic.

During this deep dive, I was thrilled to discover a clever use of a leitmotif in a few of the tracks, and it inspired me to show it off to the world! (the really small world that reads this blog/cares about Mischief Makers.)

First, here is the motif, which is heard most prominently after defeating a world Boss.

It's a brilliantly triumphant fanfare, and it shows off Treasure's cool, musical sensibilities, and this game's unique soundfont, with the awesome timpani, strong synth hits, and the other-worldly faux-choir in the background. 

But things get much more interesting when they apply that motif into the action-packed level music below:

I must have heard this song hundreds of times throughout my life, but only during this most recent play through did my ears hear the sacred truths within, and did everything finally -click!-. My eyes widened, my heart pounded, and I was practically trembling. Yes, this is how excited I get when I discover a new piece of connective tissue within a musical realm. 

Right at the start of this piece we hear a awesome rendition of the world boss victory theme, though this time with a more adventurous edge. At :12, a deep horn synth teases us before the theme makes a modified appearance once again at :19. Starting at :21 the theme is easily identifiable despite its modified rhythm, as it becomes the back bone of the song. Also keep your ears open for the godly harmonies that are added as the motif continues to be developed.

After numerous renditions and variations, we get an incredible climax with the most straightforward  performance of the motif at 1:14 before the song takes an unnervingly dark turn, and then loops back to the exciting start.

I find it remarkable that they were able to adapt that short motif into something that could be the entire core of a full piece, and I absolutely love it.

It's able to stir so much excitement and nostalgia from me and I can't really put my finger on the reason why, but it doesn't matter since it's such a catchy and triumphant theme that I'm happy to have stuck in my head. 

The Mega Man franchise is legendary series that has been a staple since its debut on the Nintendo Entertainment System in the 80s. For many, it's the definitive run-and-gun action platformer, and rightfully so. The controls are tight, the aesthetic is iconic, and its innovation of the rock-paper-scissors style of stealing a boss' weapon, then using it against another boss who is weak against it was a combination for excellent success. 

For years, the franchise flourished, and when it made its way to the SNES (and eventually the PlaysStation and PS2) it was given an upgrade in the form of Mega Man X, a darker take with a sharper spike in difficulty, following the exploits of an upgraded blue bomber in his futuristic battle against renegade machines known as "Mavericks."

X had three games on the PlayStation 1, which were the fourth, fifth and sixth entries in his franchise. While X4 was met with extreme praise and hailed as the highpoint of the series, X5 and X6 didn't fare as well.

Personally, I have incredible nostalgia for X5 which often causes me to overlook its most horrific design choices. I remember eating up the strategy guide and review for the game in my "Xpert Gamer" magazine, hungrily chomping down on Scooter Pies with my best friend while we both craved owning the disc. Eventually he got it and we were not disappointed. It satisfied our budding love of nostalgia with its crisp 2D gameplay and, most importantly, its incredible soundtrack left an outstanding impression on us. 

With the announcement of Mega Man 11, the first Mega Man game in nearly 7 years, and the release of the redundant X Legacy Collections,  I wanted to discuss some of this fantastic music from this often overlooked sequel, and hopefully try to nail what made it so special to me, both musically and beyond (although it's so hard to do so, that I'm likely going to babble and fail, but what else is new?)

When this intro fired up for the first time, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say my best friend and I had tears in our eyes, mouths agape at the visuals and musical splendor. A theme that will run throughout our look at these hand-selected pieces is how the music manages to capture the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia, almost effortlessly, much like StarTropics and StarTropics II. 

There was so much mystery in the opening seconds of this sequence, with clues scattered about regarding the mysterious anti-hero Zero, the adversaries of the game, and even X himself. For two kids who knew a bit about the original Mega Man, but nothing regarding X, our theorizing and speculating went through the roof. 

All of this was enhanced by the brilliant piece of music that accompanied the sequence. Replacing the God-awful vocal theme that was in the Japanese version of the game, we had this incredibly nostalgic and blood-pumping anthem that musically relayed each and every sensation we'd feel during the game. 

In an act of genius, the chill-inducing opening notes are a take on Zero's theme from Mega Man X on the Super Nintendo. Fitting, because Zero, and the questions surrounding him, would play a major role in this game's plot. 

Following this sequence, we have some typical Mega Man X styled techno-rock hybrid fare, which isn't a bad thing in the slightest. The end of the piece transitions to a triumphant synth as the title is revealed, and two excited kids, stars in their eyes, mashed the start button.

We had decided that X was lame very early on after repeatedly reading the X5 article in Xpert Gamer, so it was an easy choice for us to determine that Zero would be our character upon being asked to pick. Who wanted to shoot people when you cut them up with a beam sword?

Not only was Zero's play style different than X's, but the music for the opening stage was different as well. While X's Opening Stage theme is nothing to overlook, Zero's just expertly set the scene in terms of gameplay and emotion.

Following the precedent set by the opening theme, Zero's Opening Stage has an air of nostalgia and finality to it, with sprinklings of darkness amongst the more heroic elements.

The opening moments have a metal backing but a depressingly downtrodden synthetic core, which is quickly followed by a more upbeat (if not edgy) power-metal thrash. At :57 there's an awesome guitar shred, which builds to an incredible synth climax. At 1:01, the height of the crescendo, there's a hit of two gentle notes, which conjure the deep nostalgic heart-strings that the opening theme managed to do with its initial moments. The shred continues for yet another take on the climax, including another hit of the two nostalgic notes. And it's godly.

Overral, this piece is a great, action-packed anthem for Zero, but it sets the tone magnificently for the atmosphere that will continue throughout the journey, all the way through to the conclusion, for both Zero as a character and for the series (if they had actually let it end here and not limp on for years, begging for sweet death.) 

As I said earlier, Michael (my friend) and I were familiar with the classic Mega Man, mostly due to the Game Boy games and the old cartoon. A major player in the games and cartoon was Dr. Light, Mega Man's creator and good-natured counterpart to series' villain, Dr. Wily. X's franchise takes place centuries after the original series and Dr. Light has long-since passed away. Thankfully, he was able to leave capsules containing an AI or pre-recorded messages bearing his likeness behind, in order to help his ultimate creation, X, despite not physically being alive to aid him.

When we discovered one of these capsules, and this theme started, it hit us like a ton of bricks. Here was Dr. Light going beyond death to help X in incredibly dire times. Seeing him was like a beacon of hope. Stranger yet, although he offered encouragement, there was an air of sadness around him, and the music playing nailed all of these emotions perfectly.

There's a mysterious quality, a technological one, and even a spiritual element. It's a perfectly nostalgic piece that truly captures the feeling of what it would be like to be visited by a deceased love one, offering the best help they can despite the circumstances. And the sadness! This piece, despite its kinder qualities has this underlying sadness that just drives the feelings home. 

For classic Mega Man X fans, who have been loyal since the beginning, this song has even more meaning, along with an extra dollop of nostalgia: it's a remake of Dr. Light's theme from the first game in the series. 

Easily the worst level in the entire game, by far, Duff McWhalen at least has enough decency to play this godly piece of music throughout the slog of this drawn out test of patience.

A remake of Mega Man X2's Bubble Crab stage theme, the power of the PS1 does well to amplify everything that made the original version so incredible, and it does so brilliantly. 

The bubbly, aquatic connotations of the steel drums, the low-key synthetic choir and the prominent electronic hits mixed with the slightly-distorted, wailing guitar create such a memorable atmosphere that perfectly nails the "feel" of the late 90s/early 20s PS1 soundscape.

The piece manages to conjure up an exciting but relaxing atmosphere and, for whatever reason, knows how to tug at my nostalgia strings.

To put it as concisely as possible, this song actually scared me and Michael. It was so... foreboding, yet remained almost passively gentle and sad.

First heard on the stage select screen once all of the bosses are defeated, you immediately know the end game has been reached. Following whatever turn the practically-randomized storyline takes, Zero's true purpose is more-or-less revealed, and this song screams that the final confrontation is fast approaching.

Ominous chimes and a sullen main motif do their job exceptionally, as do the segments of gentle piano playing and angelic choirs. 

This song nails an air of finality like almost nothing I've heard before or since.

I remember going through the sound test feature with Michael, trying to find this song. Ever since we let ourselves be spoiled by repeatedly reading through the magazine strategy guides, we had simply known that this climactic battle would be have incredible music... and we were right. 

When X and Zero finally face off after years of build-up, players are treated to this exceptional piece that is supremely fitted to the drama that unfolds.

​The opening guitar and "orchestra hits" call to mind a showdown of two, powerful opposing forces, creating an exciting build-up. Dire strings soon come in to bring this build up to a head and, in a moment of artistic glory, instead of the song exploding into a wild crescendo, it opts to subvert expectation and explore the underlying tragedy of these two best friends turned enemies.

An organ adds a sense of fate to the encounter, and then these dreamy synths enter the picture, almost as if to show that their could be a beacon of hope that might end this duel, but they are overcome by an absolutely gorgeous burst of beautiful and descending notes that, out of almost everything on this list, feels like pure, unfiltered nostalgia for me, calling to mind the same sensation that "Dr. Light" or "Zero's Opening Stage" summon, but to the ultimate degree. 

You can almost feel the past of our heroes, where they will be supreme partners, being sucked into oblivion and shattered into trillions of pieces, never to be repaired. 

It's perfect.

After defeating X (or Zero), the players go through a few more challenges before facing off against the main villain of the series, Sigma. After defeating his first form, he emerges like Apocalypse from X-Men Vs. Street Fighter and the true final battle begins.

This is another song that kind of scared me as a kid and, like so many others on this list and in the soundtrack as a whole, there is an overwhelmingly foreboding sense of finality and melancholy closure.

The only track in the game to shed all electronic sounds and go straight for an orchestral flavor, "Sigma 2" is a phenomenal final boss track.

From the eerie strings and ominous chorus that open the piece, to the quickly approaching orchestral bombast, it's easy to find yourself immediately sucked into the drama of the moment. Then the bridge of the song slams the listener with this incredible sequence of pure hope before crescendoing into an explosively defiant and ominous example of pure evil with a hint of funereal spirit.

This is a brilliant and underrated track in not just Mega Man X5, but the entire X series and perhaps even the video game industry as a whole. 

Its bold shedding of the game's musical identity, the perfect encapsulation of the story's concluding drama, and the purity of its epic interpretations of finality, malice and heroism create a an absolute musical masterpiece.

Before anime was a staple in the West, imported shows underwent major changes in order to "localize" or "Westernize" the product to supposedly make it more appealing to American audiences. 

Shows like Voltron and Robotech would go through major edits and storyline changes, for example.

Anime made its first major splash in the early 90s with hits like Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z, and those shows also went through some serious changes, but on a lesser scale than Robotech's stitching together multiple, separate series into one, giant epic.

DBZ and Sailor Moon faced edits for sexuality or violence, but perhaps their most memorable changes came in the form of the total replacement of their original musical scores. Why the producers felt that music, of all things, needed to be changed is certainly baffling, but change them they did.

Sailor Moon's brand new score actually turned out to be superior (at least in my opinion) to its original Japanese, and I hunger for a full soundtrack release.

DBZ's musical changes, on the other hand, were met with far more controversy and are still heated topics of debate between fans even today, so I wanted to put all the major players out there and discuss the strengths and weaknesses regarding each version of the score.

While I won't be declaring a "winner," per se, I'm hoping that, at the very least, each score will get some kind of appreciation by the time we're done. Anyway, let's get started by first clicking the "Read More" break and then discussing our main players!

*Note: All analyses are based on my viewing of the series with all versions of the soundtrack, and listening to the available albums.

Sailor Moon's 1990s dub was one of the reasons that anime became a gargantuan force in the United States. The likes of Voltron and Robotech were harbingers in the previous decades, but it was Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon that cemented anime's place in the West, leaving a massive a cultural footprint in the process.

Like all of these early anime juggernauts, Sailor Moon was edited for content, and its scripts were "Westernized" or "Americanized" at the behest of worried producers in order to appease to an audience that they thought wouldn't understand the concept of shows being made in other countries.

Prominently for DBZ and Sailor Moon, their original musical score were entirely stripped and replaced with a new one for American audience. This subject riles up diehard fans of both shows, but I'm going to take the controversial stance that Sailor Moon's new soundtrack, composed by Bob Summers, is actually better than the Japanese original.  Hell, I'm dying for a full release, and prepared to fight for it!

For this week's Soundcheck, I'm discussing some of my favorite cues from the localized score of Sailor Moon. Now, the selection of these is partly based on how much I love them (a lot) but also because they are a handful of the very few officially released portions of the score. 

Tuxedo Mask's extended theme, for example, was never released, nor were any of the love themes or other dreamy compositions, and it's a bummer. So, once again, fingers crossed for a full release, but, in the meantime, let's enjoy what we do ​have.

Click on the song titles to give them a listen!

For Sailor Moon's transformation theme, we're treated to 45 seconds of absolute bliss. This entire piece screams "90s" and  "girl power," but also "incredibly magical and epic." 

The noble brass and dancing strings at the start gracefully explode into what can best be described as magical fairy dust, excellently setting the stage for Sailor Moon's graceful metamorphosis. 

The oboe synth lays out the ground work for the transformation motif, creating a sensation that what we are about to see is both mysterious and gorgeous, if not slightly somber. It is quickly joined by the full synthetic orchestra, as the brass and strings swirl around it to the beat of a 90s drum machine. 

The swell at :21 coupled with the magical, echoing sound effect is such an iconic moment, and it's the second rendition is wonderfully backed by a smash of timpani at :29.

The final climax of layered brass and the stand-offish conclusion that settles the entire orchestration into a wall of power are a great way to close off the piece and give the necessary impact to Sailor Moon's transformed state. 

It's hard to adequately describe what works so well with this track; it just perfectly captures the build-up and excitement of the transformation, while simultaneously nails everything you need to understand about the series in musical form. It's dreamy, romantic, cool and, honestly, epic.

Played when Sailor Moon uses her Moon Tiara Magic to literally turn her foes into moon dust.

The funky bass line, the brass flourishes and strong, noble theme build-up Sailor Moon's finishing move gloriously, and then it all perfectly concludes with the dissonant scattering to accompany the destruction of the monster-of-the-day. 

Created as the main theme for the villains of Sailor Moon's first season (though it would be used again for others), "Queen Beryl" creates an incredible atmosphere of dread, but in a way that just sounds so God damn cool.

Starting with a rather cheesy synthetic string version of Bach's Toccata, it's followed by an eerie by an eerie series of pained, drawn out notes, which are the basis of the main theme.

The song then transitions into full-power, with this brooding, bubbling version of the previous drawn out notes. Heavy synths, deep bass, and a sprinkling of high-pitched, spooky notes, conjures an atmosphere that sounds exactly the way Queen Beryl's lair looks.

An incredibly well done piece.

Battle music that usually played when the Sailor Scouts would turn the tables or get the upper hand against their strongest foes.... or for Sailor Jupiter, according to the title of the track, is an exciting but short action piece.

The opening, dreamy harps, the first, noble hit of brass, and then the driving drums, bass and bad-ass horns do the job, and the piece ends on a rather ominous note, giving the whole thing a great sense of story-telling. 

Right, so... there were also songs with lyrics in the series, and this is one of them. 

It's cheesy as all Hell but... like... why is it so good? 

It plays during Sailor Moon's climactic final battle with Queen Beryl and, honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Cheesy lyrics about the power of friendship and teamwork are backed by a sick guitar playing and a catchy theme, perfectly coming to a dreamy head with a solo and then, at 1:11 a magical series of notes that explodes into a powerful, guitar driven climax before returning to the refrain. 

Do yourself a favor and watch this final battle on YouTube. Seeing the imagery and this song intertwined may just bring a tear to your eye, as it has mine. 

The producers of Sailor Moon ​must have really enjoyed having songs with lyrics during a season's final battle, and, admittedly, I do, too. It gave these moments a special quality, since songs with lyrics were generally exceedingly rare throughout the typical episodes.

"Power of Love" accompanies Sailor Moon, the Sailor Scouts, Tuxedo Mask and even the 900 year-old toddler, Rini, in their fateful and ultimate encounter with the Doom Phantom during the show's second season.

Once again, incredibly cheesy lyrics accompany a very, very 90s pop song and yet... again... like, why is is this so epic? Is it nostalgia? Or is it because it's just honestly this awesome? 

You've... you've just gotta believe in the power of love. That's all there is to it.

Really, watch this final battle, too. The song fits perfectly, and, really, it gives me chills.

Shockingly not a theme for a final battle, "Carry On" was used in an episode where Sailor Moon had a rather dramatic showdown with one of the main villains of the second season, Rubeus. 

The lyrics are far too on-the-nose, talking about "Prism Power might," and what not, but God, if it doesn't work in context.

Perhaps most intriguing is that this song was performed by Stan Bush. Yes, Stan Bush, the one that gave the Transformers "The Touch." And somehow, someway, that makes it even better.