Overview

I must admit that I was a bit skeptical when I first discovered that the core of composers from Rockman X7 were also going to be composing the music for Rockman X Command Mission. Not that X7's soundtrack was in anyway horrible, but I felt that, aside from a few inspired tracks, most of the compositions couldn't hold up to some of those found in the series' better installments. As for Rockman X Command Mission, the music itself really takes a step away from the standard type of music that one expects to fill the speakers when playing a Rockman X game. This game's score mostly takes on a techno/electronic feel that may seem out of place at first, but in the end it does suit the game quite nicely.

Body

The disc starts out with character themes for the game's seven playable characters. I found all these to be pretty solid overall and very fitting of the characters they represent. In particular, Marino's theme, "The Cheerful Thief Marino," has a very upbeat and happy-go-lucky sound to it, much like the character herself. The other winner from the character themes has to be Massimo's theme, "Steel Massimo". The track itself, while having many techno elements throughout, also retains a respectable amount of heaviness to it, much like Massimo himself, in being the brute physical attacker he was in the game. These two themes double as boss themes at key points in the game as well, which is a blessing, as the character themes don't show up during the game as much as one would hope....

Most Rockman music fans (well, those especially familiar with X7's score) will instantly recognize the track "Land of Oblivion," as it actually comes from the X7 soundtrack. I believe the track title was "Revealing"; it was used for some of that game's story scenes. The track itself has undergone a little tweaking though, as it sounds a little better than it did on the X7 soundtrack. The other dungeon themes are hit or miss, however; tracks such as "A Glacier Moves in Secret," "The Decrepit Fort," and "A Cloud of Dust Rains Confusion" really fit the dungeon environments in which they appear, but tracks such as "Abyssal World" come off drab, almost to the point you could fall asleep to it. Still, considering it's played when you're at the POW camp in the game, I guess it fits the area and low morale you would expect from a prison.

Most RPG players (well, me at least) will tell you that a soundtrack's selection of battle themes can really make or break any soundtrack. Command Mission doesn't really have any battle themes that jump out of the speakers and immediately grab you, but there is some gold to be found, or heard rather. "Irregular Hunt II" is probably the game's catchiest, yet at the same time most annoying battle theme. "Final Battle" (which, by the way, isn't the music for the game's final battle, as the title would make one believe) is pretty catchy in its own right. Still, you would be hard pressed to pass up the various Epsilon and Redips Movement tracks. These battle / character themes are probably the soundtrack's most interesting tracks, as they build upon each other. To put it another way, they are basically the same song, each with a few arrangement differences. Some may question how well this would actually work, but I found it to be quite effective.

Command Mission also has its share of downright goofy off-the-wall tracks you'd expect to hear in a Rockman X game. "I'm Barock!?" is the best example of this, used as the theme for one of the game's less-than-threatening villains, Botos, when he is up to his wacky antics. Even goofier than the piece is the fact Botos talks with a wild western accent in the game and used his voice as a weapon to boot. My, what Capcom can and can't do with voice acting!

Summary

A massive improvement over the X7 soundtrack, I pretty much recommend the Rockman X Command Mission Original Soundtrack to anyone who holds an interest in the blue bomber and the music connected to the series. Still, you (well, I) really shouldn't compare these two soundtracks to each other in the first place, due to the major difference in musical direction. In the end, if you like what you heard in the game, this is definitely a good buy.