Dragon Warrior may have been the first RPG I ever played. Or perhaps I got Final Fantasy first, I'm not sure. Either way, it began a love affair with the RPG genre. Actually, the more I learn about this game audio stuff, the more glad I am that I loved RPGs so much. They seem to be regarded as one of the hardest (if not the hardest) genre to work on. At least, Alexander Brandon thinks so in his book, and I'm inclined to believe him! I think I played Dragon Warrior a lot and just found it too hard. I didn't want to spend so much time leveling up and didn't like the first person viewpoint. Much later, I came back to the game and finally beat it. I do have hardcore nostalgia for this game. I can still remember drawings in Nintendo power of a dragon and this level up card that came with the game and showed the experience necessary for each level, when you learned what spell etc, and a large fold out map of the world!
I watched this playthrough today.
Koichi Sugiyama. Nicknamed the "big boss of game music." Now that I've learned a little about him, it's no surprise that his music sounds very classical in nature. He's a conductor and composed for film and commercials; already famous in Japan before writing music for video games, he got invited to work at Enix by writing them a fan note on a postcard. These stories older musicians getting into game music give me hope that if I wanted to get into it later in life I could! I love his answer about composing the main theme of Dragon Warrior in five minutes: "People are surprised when I say it took five minutes to compose. I had 50 odd years of living experience up to that point. You could say it took fifty years and five minutes!" According to Wikipedia, Sugiyama organized the first ever video game concerts. Here's another great link on Sugiyama's music and influence. This is the only Dragon Warrior (Quest) game that I played, so I don't know his other music, but how cool to learn that someone who wrote the music to a game I played so many years ago is prolific, well respected, and inspirational!
Here's a link to the symphonic version of the music. The Battle music is particularly improved in the orchestrated version. I really like these arrangements because they don't just play through the music, they give variations, pauses, and sometimes new material in with the music as well. Plus, it's amazing to hear these pieces in orchestra, made the same year as the game! Clearly, this man was thinking well beyond the limitations of the NES (Famicon in his cases, actually).
Here's my usual breakdown of the track info and the link I used to hear the soundtrack:
-Throne room: A minor. 30 sec. A B. Sounds very baroque with figuration and counterpoint.
-Castle: A minor. 15 sec. Same as the throne room music, but only the A section. Also, a different sound is used in the melody.
-Town: F major. 25 sec. A B B'. Very classical phrase structure.
-Overworld: D minor. 17 sec. A A' Alberti bass. Very "classical" in sound, thus old.
-Battle: F minor. 22 sec. A A' B(4). Entry music into battle is 2 sec gliss of V7 (C7). Then 20 sec loop. Glissandos up to each melodic tone.
-Cave: F. 13 sec. Very eerie sounding-- tritones. As you go lower in the cave/dungeon, this music is transposed down and slowed. This is to give the effect of getting more spooky and deeper into another world. Coming back up has the reverse effect as the pitch speeds up and quickens! It transposes by minor 3rd for a diminished feel overall: D (14 sec). B (15 sec). Ab (16 sec). F (17 sec). D (18 sec). B (19 sec). Ab (20 sec.)
-Cursed: 2.5 sec. Octave B's and Bbs, then a tritone, E, back to Bb. Not sure what "key" to call this.
-Dragon Lord: Eb minor. 27 sec. 2 bar intro(vamp?) then 7 bar melodic phrase. Very chromatic! Marching minor third in the bass. Melody plays over and then a third joins above the melody.
-Ending: C major. 48 sec. Intro (11 sec) doesn't repeat. 37 sec loop plays twice, then on to ending. Intro A B C D(10) A B C D(10) A B B' E. bVi-bVII-I. Opening fanfare is reminiscent of the Title music. I also like how the end of section B references the Castle/Throne room music. My favorite part is the sequence in section C. I also like the hemiola in section D. This music acts almost like exit music in a show, referencing music heard earlier.
-Game over: D minor. 4.5 sec.
-Rainbow drop: C major. 4.5 sec. 7th chords!
-Silver harp: G9 (11? 13?) + gliss sound that has a dominant feel. 5 sec.
-Enemy defeated: C gliss. 2 sec.
-Fairy Flute: Gliss and G7. 5 sec.
-Level up: F major. 2 sec. Quick turn around.
-Gwaelin: F major. 5 sec. Waltz!
-Sleep: C major. 2 sec.
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