Music Monday: Taking You For A Ride

Welcome to Music Monday, the best way to start off your week! Each week Jon or Jenny will profile a popular videogame-related musician/band to add to your music library.

Much of the world has become enthralled with the latest big fighting game release, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, for obvious reasons. It’s the long-anticipated sequel to one of the best fighting games ever created, it incorporates fan- and cult-favorite characters from all over both the game and comic worlds, and looks gorgeous. I myself was excited to hear about the new music from the game.

MvC2 is probably best known for its amazingly repetitive select screen score, but the rest of the game’s music is pretty awesome as well. Marvel vs. Capcom 3has upped the stakes, making some wonderful music for each of the 36 competitors. So for this week’s Music Monday, we’ll look at a few of the new character themes. I’ve decided to highlight my three favorite of the bunch, the themes of Ryu, Chris Redfield, and Amaterasu. This also happens to be my go-to team online, but their pieces really seem to excite me.

Ryu’s Theme

With every character, I was expecting to hear music similar to that character’s game of origin. Ryu surprised me with this, a bass-heavy techno track. It starts strong, damn strong, before moving onto a Mega Man X-esque synth. The entire time it’s also maintaining a rather heavy bass line that supports the track.

Amaterasu’s Theme

Here’s where the games’ identities start to show. This Asian-inspired track sounds like a fancier Dance Dance Revolution tune. Tracing Okami‘s ancient Japanese tradition, the flutes act as the focus point in the song. Both the traditional flute and the cut-up track throughout remind me of the stylings from the original cult classic game.

Chris Redfield’s Theme

This was yet another surprise. Chris’ theme comes right out of a James Bond chase sequence. Fast, furious violin compliments the percussion, a section filled with frenetic bongo and drum ‘n’ bass. This may not be my favorite of the bunch, but it definitely stands out amongst the others (considering it’s amazingly epic).

Be sure to look out for our review of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 going up tomorrow afternoon.