Have you ever been in the import store, and thought you had found something really awesome, but due to your lack of proficiency in the language, realized later that it wasn't nearly as cool as you had hoped? Then take a trip with me back to the year 2004, to my purchase of the Dragon Quest Daizenshu albums, so you may laugh at my misfortune.

Okay, perhaps I'm succumbing to hyperbole, but I was honestly very disappointed with my purchase of these three albums, mostly because I thought I was getting a collection of all the orchestrated music from the Dragon Quest games. Little did I know, THAT collection wouldn't come out for another year or two, and so I bought, unknowingly, three 3-disc collections of all the in-game Dragon Quest music. All of it. Joy.

Okay, now that the nattering naybob is out of the way, lemme judge these albums on their own merits. Honestly, these albums are nifty, in that they do some innovative things with the ol' chiptunes. For example, Disc 1 and 2 provide a "sound playthrough" of the first 4 games. You basically listen to the music in a fashion similar to if you were actually playing the game. For example, you hear the opening music, then the name entry music, then the castle, town, field, battle, field again, back to town, etc. The effect is kinda cool, actually, even though it's a little tricky to "get into it" unless you're a real fan of the Dragon Quest games themselves. Don't expect any orchestration here, trust me.

But the weirdness doesn't end there, folks. Disc 3 is an odd duck, in that it has the music from the first 7 games being played on something between a moog synthesizer and the SNES sound chip. Upon further investigation, I found out that these are actually ringtones! Imagine having the main theme alerting you to a call! Could it be the call of...ADVENTURE?! Probably not, but anyone who wants some DQ goodness on their phones, you can get it here!

If you're really a fan of the music from the first 4 games, I suppose you might want to pick up volume 1. Also, the ringtone thing is nice. Otherwise, spend your money somewhere else, and stay tuned for a review of volume 2!

Reviewed by: Damian Thomas