Perkilator

Okay so I generally enjoy the music in Namco x Capcom and the Project X Zone games, but I did want to go on a bit of a tangent about certain missteps with the song variety and usage thereof.

To give context; Namco x Capcom and the Project X Zone games use a mix of themes from each characters' games and a load of original tracks. Nearly all of the original tracks are used exclusively for cutscenes, while the tracks remixed from games bounce around between being used for gameplay and cutscenes. In the former case,

Most of the time, Monolith Soft knocks it out of the park with these games' music selections. You've got no-brainers like Ryu and Ken's themes, Ride the Tiger for Akira Yuki, Fury Sparks for Yuri Lowell and Sword That Smites Evil for Sanger Zonvolt. But other times, the execution tends to be hit or miss, though that's not to do with certain characters who have relatively little to work with compared to the other franchises represented. Some of the music choices I really appreciate like Heartwarming Feelings from the Street Fighter II animated movie, or Love is Not Enough from the Virtua Fighter anime, just to name a few. PxZ 1 and 2 even dedicated entire levels to games without any playable characters like Gain Ground and Burning Rangers, complete with the appropriate songs that play (mostly) uninterrupted during the entire chapter.

But other times, Monolith Soft have made some...questionable decisions with the selection and usage of existing songs. Namely, sometimes there's not enough song variety which (to me anyways) makes some songs feel like they're playing at inappropriate time. To name a few examples off the top of my head from Project X Zone 2 alone:

• Right before Chapter 30 plays, the party land on Wreckage Beach and initially get excited...while Engage the Enemy is playing in the background, which last time I checked is not appropriate for a relaxing day at the beach
• Of all the times for music to play uninterrupted, Heartwarming Feelings only plays at the tail end of your last fight with M. Bison in Chapter 38 after he's already been defeated instead of playing for the entire fight. More of a missed opportunity than anything else, but for what it's worth, the song does play when Ryu frees Ken from Psycho Power.
• In Chapter 2, one of the game's original themes, The Gate of Resolved Fates, plays when Phoenix and Maya are in a zombie-infested Kamurocho despite not being enough of a predicament for the two to justify a theme that usually plays during a huge crisis. That's a bit nitpicky, I know, but it still annoys me considerably.

Some of the character theme selections also annoyed me a bit.

• In Namco x Capcom, Sakura's theme plays even when you're playing as Rose, and when Akuma shows up duirng one of the chapters, Ryu's theme plays instead and Akuma's theme is nowhere to be seen (or heard or felt)
• In Project X Zone 1, Chun-Li's theme plays when you're playing as her, but in PxZ2 it's also completely MIA. Ken's theme also suffered a similar issue, where it played perfectly fine in Namco x Capcom but is completely absent in either of the Project X Zone games. In both games, Ken's theme is Volcanic Rim, which is also Juri's theme in PxZ1 and becomes Chun-Li's theme in PxZ2. It's a great song on its own, but not one that needed to be included at the expense of Ken and Chun-Li's leitmotfis, IMO.
• The international version of PxZ1 also suffered the issue of some of the songs having to be licensed separately despite being the instrumental versions, and because of that, the international version lost the following songs:
  • All versions of Wing Wanderer, the game's main theme
  • Over the Clouds
  • ROCKS
  • Ring a Bell
  • If You Wish for It
  • WORLD'S LOVE
  • HIGH RISE TO HELL
  • Mexican Flyer
  • Thankfully, no songs were cut from the international version of Project X Zone 2.

And don't even get me started on how much they spam the Tekken Tag theme for just ANYTHING Tekken-related.

No joke, the only other Tekken songs besides the Tekken Tag theme is Tekken 3's opening theme in Namco x Capcom, Jin's theme in PxZ 1 and 2, and Burning from Tekken 6 in PxZ2. That's it; the rest of the time, the devs just spam this theme whenever any Tekken character appears onscreen and it gets very old very fast. This is especially egregious in Namco x Capcom and PxZ2, since Kazuya appears in both of those games. Seems like a perfect time to have Emotionless Passion play, right? Ha ha ha WRONG. At least PxZ2 has the excuse of using Burning as Kazuya's theme so I can it give credit where it's due but in Namco x Capcom? Yep, you guessed it; Tekken Tag theme once again. The sheer amount of times they just slap the Tekken Tag theme onto the Tekken characters and call it day made me hate the Tekken Tag theme for purely for the repetition. Yes, I know that's petty but no other soundtrack moments annoyed me this much, not even some of the more questionable aspects I mentioned earlier.