TripodRanger
Member
It's only been his "theme song" in recent years. Metal appeared in many, many games before Generations, never referring back to Stardust Speedway. Sonic 4 gave him an original and pretty good theme, which got reinforced in one or two spin-off games afterward, but that's the only other time he's been assigned a recurring theme. Generations reused the Stardust Speedway theme because his boss fight there takes place in Stardust Speedway. It was only appropriate. Seemingly, after that, Sega decided to keep referencing that one race in CD like it was the only thing he had done before his appearance in Generations. To me, it's never felt like a proper theme. It's always felt like nostalgia pandering to the same thing over and over again. There's more to Metal than Sonic CD, something Sega seems to have forgotten.Why would a song for a Metal Sonic race not reference the closest thing he has to a theme song?
Aside from all that, you might as well ask why the rest of SRB2 doesn't reference other recurring themes from the franchise. SRB2 should be able to stand on its own as an entirely original Sonic game, at least with the main story levels. It should do what Sega has been afraid of doing since the release of Generations, which is to not reference older games in the franchise as a crutch to cheaply appeal to long-time fans.
You call it a solo, but I would call it the leading melody of the tracks. It's the core driving element of those songs, not just a guitar solo. Removing it from them is like removing the beef patty of a hamburger. You're left with something fundamentally incomplete. It's no wonder you felt you didn't have anything useful to work with after throwing it out. And I'm not sure by what you mean when you say you wanted to make ERZ sound more like "Sonic music". Sonic has always had a wide variety of musical styles under its belt. You had hip-hop, pop, rock, all sorts of inspirations. To me, old ERZ would be right at home in the Adventure games or even Heroes.Part of the reason I went with such a dramatic departure on ERZ is because I felt the old tracks didn't give me anything useful to work with. The identical solo taking up the entirety of both acts felt like bad form, so I didn't want that.