Part 23: Rockman Zero remastered

>>BONUS POST INCOMING<<

Part 1!

Ok, so, I made reference to a *SUPER SPECIAL THING* in the last post. Well, what I was referring to was…



This. What is this, you ask?

Well, in Japan, the Mega man Zero games got special, remastered soundtrack releases for each of the games. The first was simply called “Remastered tracks: Rockman Zero” (with Rockman being the series name over yonder), whereas the later entries got a subtitle appended to their names. In the case of Rockman Zero 2, it’s “Idea”.
Now, normally, if you wanted to give these a listen, you’d have to fork over $50+ bux apiece to get an import copy from Japan. Thankfully, some incredibly awesome dudes over on YouTube took the financial hit for us, and uploaded some clearly labeled, complete playlists of these awesome remixes right here on your home-grown internet. My eternal gratitude goes out to you, kind internet denizens; I’ve spent many an hour listening to these.

While some of them aren’t as good as others, they’re still well worth a listen for those interested in music, especially seeing as the GBA had a sadly limited range of sounds it could make. These give a feel for how the games might've sounded had they been released on more advanced hardware.
I’ll toss the ones for Zeroes one and two up here, but be aware that going past track 14 in the MMZ2 playlist will result in musical spoilers at the current time. You’ve been warned. Links following, Zero one first, then two:



There's also a couple of albums named Mythos and Résonnant Vie, which contain stuff like the final boss themes of the next few games, which amounts to pretty massive spoiler material.

For those who've already played them, though, these two Soundtracks were basically "best of" things released in the wake of the MMZcollection being released. Some of the tracks are from the first two games, others are from the latter two, but they're all worth a listen.

Résonnant Vie especially comes with the official OP seal of approval(TM) because it's filled with amazing Piano and other acoustic arrangements. You cannot go wrong, and I dearly hope to one day get my mitts on it.

Here's playlist links, through the cover art because it's purdy. Mythos first, then Résonnant Vie.


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Part 2!

I didn’t link those just because music is great, though. No, I linked them because of a little something called DRAMA TRACKS

In addition to music remixes, the CDs also had the occasional fully voice acted, Japanese Character dialogue snippets. You can hear a few of them in the Zero one playlist above. Sadly, most of us aren't fully versed in the language of glorious Nippon, so they're wasted on us.

That's where an equally awesome dude by the name of Eclipse5632 comes in. He's taken a good chunk of them and translated into Japanese characters, Romanized Japanese, and, of course, English.

Two main things are of interest to us at this point. The first is a collection of tracks in the first remastered collection, collectively referred to as "Ciel's Memory." These take actual dialogue from the first game and supplement it with the internal thoughts of Ciel, which makes them good both for bringing people up to speed on certain events, and for showing Ciel in a very different light, accentuating her Humanity and motivations in a way only touched on in the games. They're each only a minute or so long, too, so it's not hard to give 'em a listen. Links following:

-Ciel's Memory ~ Prologue: Covers the prologue of the first game, up to arriving at the ruined laboratory.
-Ciel's Memory ~ Rebirth from Zero: Covers Zero's revival, and his first encounter with Ciel.
-Ciel's Memory ~ The Big Four: Covers Ciel's thoughts on the guardians of Neo Arcadia, and includes some dialogue between them. They'll be covered later in this LP.
-Ciel's Memory ~ Truth of Hero: Covers Ciel's confession as to her role in Copy X's revival, as well as Zero and Copy X's pre-battle banter.
-Ciel's Memory ~ Epilogue: Covers Copy X's and Zero's dialogue post-defeat, as well as Ciel's thoughts on their relocation and Zero's eventual return, segueing into the intro of Zero 2.
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The second thing of interest is what I referred to as super . It's a drama track that was actually included in the album for Zero 3, but it's set RIGHT NOW, AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

...What this means, it that this is the

Recommended listening section

You might remember this face:



Well, Alouette actually gets an entire drama track all to herself! And boy, is it LONG.

Here's the link to "Alouette's good day", for starters.

If you don't want to listen to it (though really, you should) the gist of it is Alouette's quest to find suitable names for the two baby elves currently held in Ciel's lab. She tells you in-game she named one of them "Crea", but the other one's name is only revealed within this drama track. She also talks about how Menart broke her doll, which explains her dialogue in the last part.

Basically, she goes around asking for ideas from various members of the resistance, including Ciel (too absorbed in research), Rogue and Juane (come up with a bunch of ok opposite names, and also reference two travesties of GBA RPGs before driving Alouette away with their bickering), Andrew (prattles on and on), and Zero himself (Talks about how cool his fight with Hyleg was) before meeting up with Ciel again and expressing her hopes for what the Baby elves will bring to the Resistance, which leads her to come up with their final names.

I unironically love this track, because it brings so much CHARACTER to the resistance base. It shows that, above and beyond what's happening in the game, there's a real, functioning society filled with all sorts of interesting people going on behind the scenes, and it's one of the many reasons I adore the Zero games.

As for the baby elves, have a character bio.


Baby elves


Two Cyber-elves captured from Neo Arcadian facilities by Elpizo and Zero, they're unique in that they emit large quantities of energy from their bodies, despite their relatively tiny sizes. Ciel believes she can further her research into an alternative energy source by studying them, making them a source of great hope for the resistance members.

Alouette, especially, has high hopes for the era of peace they could usher in, and went to great lengths to find suitable names for them.
After much deliberation and advice, she settled on two ideas based on their potential: The Reploid's prayers that the babies will allow them to live freely again, and their role in the creation of a new energy source. To that end, they became Crea and Prea.
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That's it for the extra part! Next time will be actual video I swear. This game IS primarily about chopping robots into itty bitty pieces, after all.