I had mine pre-ordered and paid via PayPal. It should be shipping to me soon. I wonder if someone closer to Japan can hook us up sooner. :)

I'm especially interested in hearing what the guest arrangers come up with.

It says on vgmworld that it won't be shipped before november 4th, by the way.

Ah, I didn't notice that, actually. Thanks for pointing that out. It might be better for me that way. I ordered the Raiden III Insanity DVD+CD set (which comes out on the 2nd) from there also. Maybe she'll put both of them together.

Atomic Fire has ZX Tunes ready for download!

This just made my day!

AWESOME!

While some tracks are somewhat-minor direct upgrades (as I had expected some to be), some of these are really good arrangements. Overall, I'm impressed. This has lived up to my expectations, and this is easily one of the best Inti albums.

Too bad the soundtrack has been taken down temporarily over at Atomic Fire. Their bandwidth was getting raped. Lol.

Ahh, as for my critique on ZX Tunes, I was slightly disappointed. It was better than the Remastered Tracks for Rockman Zero and RMZ 2 but it doesn't beat the Remastered Tracks for Rockman Zero 4. There were alot of hit and misses with this one. There were a some really great remastered tracks like Green Grass Gradation and Snake Eyes and Innocence was a really nice song but there were a few tracks that were disappointing like Cannon Ball Hard Revenge. There were some songs that had unnecessary vocals. I don't remember which songs it was though. The special remixes were really great. Too bad all of the songs didn't get that treatment.

Overall, I'd give this a 3.5/5 (That was a pretty hard decision actually).

Rockman Zero 4 was indeed the greatest of them all, but I won't say I'm disappointed in this one, though. Maybe I'm easily influenced, but I really want this one to be a great album to entirely put on my iPod, which I'm gonna do anyway when I'll get my own copy.

I have to disagree. I think that Idea is the best one. So if ZX Tunes is as good, or better than that, I'll be quite satisfied. I'm not gonna listen to it until I receive mine though. I'm not a big fan of vocals on these type of albums but I'm gonna be optimistic. I hope to get it sometime this week.

I also have to say that Idea is my favorite, but Inti always comes through with enjoyable music. The only time they really disappointed me was with their first album (well, that and the deluge of drama tracks on Telos).

The overall instrumentation quality and fidelity of ZX TUNES seems a bit lower than previous albums, but it's largely dependent on the song. On the bright side, it has dozens of great melodies, and very little of what I consider to be filler tracks.

Even the harshest critic of this album can agree that if you compare this, the first Rockman ZX album (there has to be more to come), to the first Rockman Zero album, there is nothing bad to be said.

And now, for your entertainment, I present an info sheet (in Excel format) giving a track-by-track breakdown of Track #, ZX TUNES Title, Game Rip Title, and Artist(s). Original info courtesy of Atomic Fire, of course.

The overall quiality of the album definitely lived up to my expectations.
Most of my favorite tracks were handed perfectly, like Green Grass Gradation and Black Burn.

I was really underwhelmed by Snake Eyes, though. I feel they could have done so much with it, but ended up doing nothing.
And on the other hand, I was extremely blown away with what they do with Sky High. Definitely one of my favorites of the album.

I agree that Snake Eyes could have been longer, but it got both synth and electric guitar treatment. I think it turned out great.

Anyway, I don't know why Kahori listed Nov. 4th as the shipping date, because I just got my copy in the mail today! =D

so did I :) maybe she was unsure if she'll get it sooner or later ? wow mutiple alternate artwork covers !! :D

I got mine on Wednesday so I guess it was just Kahori being cautious. I've only listened to the first disc so far but I'm really liking it. It's not near as good as Idea but I'm enjoying it more than Telos or Physis. I still have another disc to go though.

For those that are interested, I scanned the booklet and everything. If you want to check them out > CLICK ME! <

I'm really a fan of the original ZX soundtrack/rip, so I'm highly enjoying the thing overall. It really has a bright overall feel to it, unlike the previous entries, so that's more of a stylistic difference. I think Idea had better "highs" overall, but ZX is far more consistant and it has enough quality rock on there to keep pace with Physis, which cleaned up in that area. I think I enjoy all three equally. (I enjoyed Telos, but I always considered it a solid #4 in the series, with the original being my decisive #5/long reliever).

Best track has to "Brilliant Show Window". Loved the original, the arranged version is close to perfect. And the "Shooter Trance" version is cool as well. Probably has to do with the fact I got stuck in the town area in the game and it happened to have my favorite track from the game playing there...
!^_^

I hope we see ZX develop into more of a series if it means albums like this one...Of course, best thing would be for the Inticreates guys to focus on the original MM series. That would seriously rock.

As far as the Zero Remastered tracks are concerned, I can't make up my mind as to whether I like Idea, Telos or Physis better. They each have their own highs and lows, but all three rank very high for me, as far as vgm goes.

In my case, I actually really liked Telos having drama tracks (mostly the ones that take place during Zero 1 and 2's timeline) since they add onto the story of the series, explaining things or expanding upon themes that weren't explained in much detail in the game (like Alouette's where she tries to come up with a name for the baby elves, which I thought was quite funny).
Sooo, when I saw that the ZX tunes wouldn't have any on the track listing... it felt as something would be missing. Then again, the game itself already has a lot of voiced cutscenes all over the game anyways.

Now that I received my copy, I must say that it's awesome. Quite possibly better than the Zero tracks, in that there's more variety now with the inclusion of many brighter tracks (like GoldfishX pointed out) that go alongside wicked rock tracks like Ogre Claw. Plus I think I've grown more attached to these tracks as well, in-game.
About the only complaint I have is that the vocal in "Wonder Panorama" sounds as though the lady is being attacked or something near the end, and it's a little scary. Otherwise, it was a very pretty arrangement >__>;

Love the cover artwork(s) as well.

I personally really like the Black Burn Electipical Dance Version (the normal version is almost just as good). It's a perfect mix of interesting instruments that comes together to be intriguing.

A few of my other favorites:
High-press Energy - Although it's pretty much the stable of any megaman game soundtrack, it still sounds really interesting. The electric guitar solos make the song quite nice.

Dream Weaver - it's very light but melodic, which is really different from the rockman zero games. The melody is definitely to my liking

Sky High - Grand Nuage - this sounds like a good jpop song without the shitty voice =). Done quite well with a nice melody in the background.

Green Grass Gradation - sounds like a good initial D track with the trance.

Brilliant Show Window - refer to GoldfishX above.

Now that I've listened through the entire album (several times, in-fact), I have to say that this is one of III's strongest efforts yet. They've done a real nice job of incorporating the greatness we've heard from the Rockman Zero albums and also throwing in some fresh new styles to boot. The special guest arrangers did a fine job on their contributions too. Of those, I have to say that Satoru Kousaki's ""Black Burn - Electpital Dance -" and Manabu Namiki's ""Brilliant Show Window - Shooter Trance -" stood out the most for me. "Brilliant Show Window" is probably my favorite track on the album as well. Some of the others that I really liked include:

<> Wonder Panorama
<> Industrialism
<> Ogre Claw
<> Rockin' On
<> Trap Factory
<> Doomsday Device

Top to bottom, this is a VERY solid album, with no audible weak points. I'd be extremely delighted if this the start of a series of albums.

Yeah, I agree. The artwork for the cover, as well as throughout the booklet, is very nice.