A friend of mine on IRC once said a sentence to me:"Dragon Quest albums are tricky."
Yep, that exactly hits the spot, doesn't it? Obviously. Let's compare the Dragon Quest
music encyclopedia with other RPG giants like Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Tales or Seiken Densetsu. At first, all these series have less albums in their discography. Secondly, and that's where it's getting interesting, there aren't dozens and dozens of different reprints, re-reprints and remastered versions. Don't get me wrong, there are definitively reprints of FF & Buddys, but they are equal in terms of tracklisting, recording quality and cover design. DQ albums are therefore a pain in the neck to list, organize and collect (the last aim is not mundane -_-)
My personal experience (= paranoia) was, when I created this site the first time. My childish and tranquil webmaster thoughts on these days were:"Aaaye~, there is one symphonic suite for each Dragon Quest game. Simple mathematics." My character was shattered into pieces when i had to rebuild my old
discography after realizing what huge dimension I have entered. Getting stuff about certain albums was difficult too, because 50% of the more rare ones had album infos in strict japanese only.
But did I manage to get trough this jungle, with all the rescued hostages?
There were as many helpful sites on the net as pointless ones, when it comes to DQ music. English websites which can really be recommened are:
Rpgfan &
Chudah's Corner. Most of the
other sites, i used for research were in japanese.
Let's come to different questions someone might ask when he first approaches the discography.
How many Dragon Quest albums are there?
About ~80+
Are there more albums?
Probably.
Who publishes the Dragon Quest albums?
The first five DQ symphonic albums were released by Apollon (Under the registerID BY and APCG), including the piano, brass & electone arrangements. Pony Canyon and Philips did some special releases. All remix + DQVI and DQVII symphonic were done by Sony of Japan, as well as the first DQ Monsters album.
The drama Theater CDs were published by Enix itself.
All remastered prints and live albums of newer age are nowadays done by SPE Visual Works.
Dragon Quest V PS2 OST was the first album released by Koichi Sugiyama's own label SUGIlabel (which appears to be a offshoot of Sony Records).
Why come, there are so many different Publishers?
I don't know the answer. But what i know for sure is the aftermath:
Forlorn DQ music fans confronted with an insane collection of releases.
Are you planning to list even the most seldom ones?
Yes I probably will. Whereby it could take longer to wait for reviews than for scans.
In the end, what advise would you give?
When you are searching for DQ albums, rely on the ID catalog numbers. And always
remember that each reprint symphonic suite sounds different than the original, due to the often redone orchestral recordings (due to the changed score in DQ remakes, e.g. added tracks, bonus tracks). And beware of bootlegs by Son May Ltd and others, which are spreaded widely on ebay auctions.
