As you can see by the release date on this CD, Dragon Quest music goes way back. If I am not mistaken, the first Dragon Quest CDs were printed in late ’85 or early ’86. This soundtrack brings you live, concert hall music for Dragon Quest I and II, as well as an added extra, part of the “Family Classic Concert” concept.
Confused? It’s OK if you are. The concept of “Family Classic Concert” is to have music from two different things performed in one single concert. Dragon Quest, original classic music. This CD is only half Dragon Quest. The other half is the original classical composition by Camille Saint-Saëns called “Le Carnaval des Animaux” which is French for “The Carnival of the Animals.” While this music is cool, it has nothing to do with RPGs so I won’t go into much detail.
The Dragon Quest tracks are great. Anyone who knows anything about Dragon Quest knows that the early music is where Koichi Sugiyama really shines as a composer. The dark, medieval type compositions on here are great, as well as the stunning fanfares and whatnot. I really have to recommend the music from Dragon Quest II: Sugiyama shines with this great composition.
Dragon Quest soundtracks are fairly hard to come by these days, but you’ll always see a couple soundtracks of the MANY DQ soundtracks out there on eBay…But watch out for SonMay and Ever Anime bootleg copies! They’re also around quite a bit. Just to give you an idea as to the rarity of this soundtrack, I believe I’ve seen it up twice on eBay (authentic) from early 2000 to when this review was written…And one of those times was the time I bought it on eBay. I’ve probably seen about a dozen SonMay/Ever Anime bootlegs of this soundtrack on eBay as well, and people get confused sometimes (unfortunately) and pay more for the bootleg than what most pay for the original. So, again, be a smart consumer if you really want this fine soundtrack!
