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 of an original compisition called “Le Carnaval des Animaux” which is French for “The Parade of Animals”. While this music is cool, it has nothing to do with RPGs so I won’t go into much detail, all I can say is that it’s good and I’ve given one sample from one of my favorite tracks on there (it sounds like Vagrant Story music).
The Dragon Quest tracks are great. Anyone who knows anything about Dragon Quest knows that the early music is where Sugiyama really shines as a composer. The dark, medieval type compositions on here are great, as well as the stunning fanfares and whatnot. Listen to the samples for yourself if you want to get the idea. 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 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 10 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 eBay consumer if you really want this fine soundtrack!
