Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: WANTED!)

You’re probably not familiar with Metal Max, and that’s ok, it’s not exactly the most popular game/series around. But by no means does that mean it’s bad!

My first encounter with this song was when I covered it back in 2015 for the SNES Medley. This medley, if you didn’t was, was entirely assembled by choices made from the GaMetal Patreon community back in its infancy, when we only had a handful of supporters.

I’ve never heard of this song or game before, but it was one of my favorites to do from that medley. I knew I wanted (get it?) to do a full version of it some day, it was just a matter of squeezing it in when I could. So I did!

I haven’t played or listened to the soundtracks from all of the Metal Max games, but from what I can tell, WANTED! or Battle with the Wanted (from what I have seen, it has officially been titled both of these names with WANTED! being the most common) is in most if not all of the Metal Max titles, even dating back to the first one on the Famicom.

It’s short and sweet (originally about 25 seconds, IIRC), but it’s still really catchy and high energy. Later official arrangements added a few more things here and there, but the core melody remained in tact.

Then there’s the Metal Max Xeno version.

Xeno added an insanely long and great guitar solo that I couldn’t pass up on playing, so I’ve included it in this remix, making this about 66% guitar solo!

Xeno aside, this arrangement was also strongly influenced by the Metal Max 2 and Metal Saga versions of WANTED!. From 2, I used a lot of the background organ line that is present there, and Saga incorporated some synth leads that I’ve included as well.

I know this won’t be the most popular GaMetal song around, but this might end up being one of my personal favorites that I’ve done this year. It’s just such a great song!