 | Album Title: Dragon Quest VI on Piano |
| Record Label: Sony Records | |
| Catalog No.: SRCL-2740 | |
| Release Date: February 21, 1996 | |
| Purchase: Buy Used Copy |
Overview
A half hour? What is this, a rock album? I tend to love piano collections, I really do. Noting how they changed various things to make it a piano arrangement is really interesting, not to mention relaxing. But one of the worst things you could do is shorten such arrangements. That’s a problem present on this whole album, sadly.
Body
“Overture” is the standard theme to the Dragon Quest world and hasn’t changed much. It’s as good as it was with the full assembly of instruments. The length of this track isn’t a real problem since this piece is usually this length anyway. “In The Town” is a somewhat painfully simple town theme; it’s nothing really happy or mellow, just there. The plodding along of the song tires me out somewhat, which is why I wasn’t too annoyed by the length of this song, which reaches around 1:43.
“Happy Humming” is a very well done upbeat song, using the technique of playing one melody with one hand and another with the other hand. The sound is very early 1940s/1950s, in my opinion anyway.
“Dungeons” is probably one of the few pieces that bores me. The intro to the arrangement is not that inspiring, nor is the follow-up. All in all, it’s not much of a hit. I kind of wished this one was over a bit faster than it was. “Ocean Waves” drags itself along as well, which is a shame as this arrangement is one of the rare long ones coming in at 3:46. I almost fell asleep while listening to it. Nothing at all keeps you awake until the midway part where you think it’ll pick up, but it drops back into obscurity.
Summary
I had much higher expectations from this album, especially since this was in the Dragon Quest name. Nothing new is offered in terms of style or originality and everything seems to be just tossed about. The length doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
