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The newest, biggest, and most complete version of the Dragon Quest IV Symphonic Suite is the 2005 Tokyo Metropolitan recording. This album includes two new tracks, and comes to a total of 73 minutes (6 minutes longer than the previous “longest DQIV album” champion). However, being the Tokyo Metropolitan, you may or may not appreciate… Read More »

If you’re a Dragon Quest fan, you’re most likely currently playing through (or already have beaten) the latest release Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen on your DS. I have one question: Did you like the soundtrack for that game? If your answer is yes, then this live recording should be a treat no… Read More »

Welcome to Dragon Quest in Brass II! The “in Brass” series features a traditional, high school band setup. It’s a full symphony orchestra minus one section: strings. So you have the brass, but you also have woodwind and percussion. Those are the nature of these albums. These arrangements essentially force the brass and winds to… Read More »

Performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Brass Quintet (a subsection of the larger Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra that has recorded the most recent batch of DQ albums), Brass Quintet Dragon Quest contains a variety of songs from Dragon Quest I through VIII. The key to this album’s greatness? Extremely difficult arrangements performed with stellar execution by the… Read More »

Well, the Tokyo Metropolitan Brass Quintet, who put out one of the best Dragon Quest arranged albums of all time, decided to do a follow-up. This time, they included a guest percussionist for certain songs, and even re-recorded some tracks that they wanted to improve upon from last time (such as “Comrades” from DQIV). If… Read More »

There have been other “Best” DQ Symphonic albums in the past, such as the Roto and Tenku albums. This two-part collection contains music for Dragon Quest I through VII, and is from the London Philharmonic recordings. Other than the Overture (which they pulled from DQVII), we find the track ordering by title number. We literally… Read More »

It’s hard to take the incredible music from the Dragon Quest series and make a “best of” collection that fits in one disc (about 70 minutes) of music. So when they made a follow-up album a year later, they went for a two disc set. Not a bad decision. These two discs are from the… Read More »

Recorded and published in 1994, this live concert covered a selection of songs from Dragon Quests I through V (with the most emphasis being put on V). The arrangements are usually the same as those applied to the “Symphonic Suite” albums, though I did notice a few differences, particularly with solos (and solo instruments) chosen… Read More »

The sequel to Dragon Quest in Concert is a live performance from the NHK Orchestra with music from Dragon Quest I, II, and III. Released in 1988, it was the first orchestra recording to contain a collection of music from the entire Roto trilogy on one disc. Tracks 1 through 9 cover Dragon Quest I… Read More »

This is a special collection of Dragon Quest music arranged for brass and performed by “Cincinnati Brass and Percussion.” The music was arranged by Sam Pilafian, who teaches at Arizona State University (as of the time this review was written) and was a founding member of the Empire Brass Quintet. Koichi Sugiyama has done a… Read More »

Ahh, the Electone. A simple, synthesized orchestra sound. Sugiyama and crew stopped releasing these albums after Dragon Quest VI, likely due to their lack of popularity. But once upon a time, they were part of the standard Dragon Quest music release schedule. They were the closest thing to an “OST” that you would get. And… Read More »

I’ve been ranting and raving about the Gust Sound Team for years now, because the team (Daisuke Achiwa, Ken Nakagawa, and Akira Tsuchiya) could do no wrong. Everything they made was awesome. With each new soundtrack release, I wondered if I would ever find myself tired, or worn down, by their style. Would it ever… Read More »

Awesome. Pure awesome. Takashi Okamoto has proven himself time and again with his work over at Flight-Plan. This time, Okamoto works with a number of other musicians to put out live, instrumental (and a few vocal) recordings for about 40% of the album (with the rest being synthesized). If there’s one thing we can say… Read More »

The soundtrack to the Korean MMORPG “Red Stone,” featuring one arranged track from Motoi Sakuraba, packs in almost 80 minutes of music on one disc. Across the 16 “main” tracks on the OST are songs that help paint pictures of various parts of a fantasy world. Like many MMORPG scores, it’s important to have a… Read More »

The Shin Megami Tensei series is known for its unorthodox soundtracks: part techno, part intimidating organs and deep synth sounds, and part whimsy. The Shin Megami Tensei Sound Collection combines Masaki Kurokawa’s and Kenichi Tsuchiya’s compositions from the PlayStation ports of the first two entries in the series and the Shin Megami Tensei if… spin-off,… Read More »

“Spectral Gene” is a gaiden title in Idea Factory’s “Spectral” series. The soundtrack was composed entirely by Mr. Yuki Sugiura, who is a part of the band “Heinrich von Ofterdingen.” Alongside vocalist “miqui,” Sugiura and his band recorded a number of tracks for the OST as well. Strung together in their present order, the OST… Read More »

Namco Bandai has pushed the Tales series so hard, that the time has finally come that Motoi Sakuraba can’t compose for all of the planned releases. While he is still quite active with his partner-in-crime Shinji Tamura, the soundtrack for Tales of Innocence was composed by Kazuhiro Nakamura (not to be confused with the martial… Read More »

Question: what has the Tales series been lacking? Answer: arranged albums. Finally, perhaps after fighting for the rights to his own work, Sakuraba has the opportunity to do some arranged albums for the series that he, primarily, composed for. What we have here is a solid collection of rock-influenced battle themes, arranged for a typical… Read More »

Note: This soundtrack is for the sequel to Tales of Symphonia for Nintendo Wii, known in North America as “Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.” I don’t know how he does it. Sakuraba put out this OST and the Tales of Vesperia OST in the span of one month. Granted, Tamura helped him… Read More »

With Tales of Vesperia, Motoi Sakuraba has composed his tenth soundtrack for the Tales series (though only half have made it to North America). His name is always associated with the series, so he is to Tales what Nobuo Uematsu is to Final Fantasy. He gets a little help from Hibiki Aoyama this time around,… Read More »

The opening theme song for the PSP title Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology is, in a word, excellent. I’ve come to expect a lot from Kana Uemura. I had heard her ending theme song for this same game, “Paper Plane,” awhile back, and I loved it. I am not surprised to find that her… Read More »

Composer Shigeki Hayashi, a long-time member of Sting’s music team and composer for such games as Riviera and Yggdra Union, stepped in to write the music for the PlayStation 2 / Wii remake of Sting’s classic RPG Baroque. It must be noted that this soundtrack shares virtually nothing with its original counterpart, whose score was… Read More »

Note: track 20, “Demon Academy Alma Master” is either a pun or a typo…we’re not sure which. One would think it ought to read “Alma Mater.” Released as a special bonus item alongside NISA’s English release of Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, the Disgaea Custom Soundtrack is a best-of album for Disgaea 1, 2, and… Read More »

This album is a character vocal album, featuring “original” (that is, all-new and not in-game) vocal tracks for each of the eight major characters. The first track, “Difficult Love Puzzle,” is sung by protagonist Cornet. It is the epitome of happy, upbeat music. The vocal performance is excellent: subdued voice on the verses, but strong… Read More »

In general, Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei series and all its spawn are unique amongst the epic catalogues of roleplaying games available today. They are often comprised of equal parts horror flick, psychological thriller, and surrealist film. Persona 3 set a lighter pace with its more mainstream approach, but was no less compelling to gamers everywhere.… Read More »