Naoki's best stuff comes out of his more recent collaborations: Kakumei, Red Zone, most TERRA songs, etc.
As long as he stays away from that damn synthesizer that makes the high-pitched BWEEDLE DEE BWEEEE noises that are in every single one of his other songs, his stuff is fine. (The only time I've liked that damn synth noise was in Red Zone. When he used it in Deep Roar, it just made the first half of the song sound dumb.)
As for licensed songs... Extreme had Speed over Beethoven and Cartoon Heroes, which more than made up for the horrors of the Dancemania Sport licenses. But I don't think anything will ever beat the killer licenses from MAX and MAX2. |