Bingo. People are arguing about the midi quality - that's not the point, although that could of been better too. DQ8 had that kind of sound, and it worked. But here, it's the astonishing lack of variety. Smacks of laziness, or, tbh, Sugiyama being an utter dick when he could of added that special magic to what is, in spite of its sonic shortcomings, still a phenomenal game.
you know what makes replaying ffx so great every time ? first you hear calm before the storm in kilika woods , then you hear the luca theme ( which isnt like the besaid or kilika town theme ) then theres mihen highroad ( which i personally dislike ) moonflow , which has one of my favorite themes ever , then guadosalam and the thunderplains with unique themes , macalania again has the kilika theme (calm before the storm) the other part of macalania later has a different theme bikanel and the calmlands have great themes , especially calmlands has a wonderful hd version too ( the music ) you could play ffx while i just am in voice chat with you , and as long as you have your game through your speakers i will be able to tell where you are but for dragonquest , when i reached the new area with the fire slimes , i thought "okay new overworld theme " ( since i saw theres a 2nd on yt before ) nope , totally unfitting theme for an area with a vulcano in the background and generally a hotter environment now i completed the whole sidequest with the prince , the town theme fit the first town better than that one , thats for sure ruclips.net/video/K8GRDNU50b8/видео.html this would fit the town much better like i honestly enjoyed the music , the overworld is simple but catchy , but now after 7 hours its getting boring , i already disliked the battle theme at the start , its not really getting better either
Nail on the head for me. 40+ hours in, and I made a decision to stop playing this game because I was sick of the same 2-3 songs. Music is a huge part of games for me, and the midi quality is something I can get over. Hearing the same marching overworld theme drum by on repeat hour after hour made me give up completely.
I prefer Synthethic... I've listened to battle theme so much, i can't listen to Symphonic version of battle theme without feeling that Symphonic sounds wrong.
I.. think the synthezised one sounds way better. The orchestration is way too generic. But it also doesn't save the melodies from being very uninspired regardless of what instruments you use.
I like how before XI S was announced everybody was quick to defend the music quality but then after XI S was confirmed to have an orchestrated ost everyone is like “the old ost is trash and always was trash” Ps: it really was bad.
It was so bad that after 2 hours of playing I told myself "this can't be true, I bet the community has fixed this" and went to google. I instantly found the mod to change the music to the orchestral score :)
@@MegamanNG Very happy for you and the switch community! I've played through the whole game with the orchestra and can't even imagine how some amazing moments would sound with the midi soundtrack. I just hope SE will give a patch to ps4 / Xbox with the switch ost.
Thats why I got the PC version even though my laptop is not as powerful as a gaming computer because I could mod the soundtrack. I wanted to get the PS4 version though. Going to pick up the switch version
Yeah, after putting in well over 100 hours into the Switch version, just out of curiosity I switched it to the synthesized version. Had to swap it back after 5 minutes, the orchestra sounds so much better. Maybe if I grew up playing the previous DQ games (XI was my first, and so far it's the only one I've played) I would have been used to it but I don't see why anyone would opt for the synthesized version over the orchestra.
I'd purchased the PC version on Steam a few months before the Switch version was revealed and was going to patch in the high quality version of the music but than I said screw it and got the Switch version instead.
@@RandomShinigami7 I grew up with an NES and moved all the way through the generations. I've no problem with MIDI music in general. I can listen to FFVII's MIDI music just fine Using it in modern games feels cheap unless you're purposefully going for a retro style. If you have the option for orchestrated music, or at least well made digitised music (basically nything but MIDI) you should do that. I do not see it as a nostalgia thing, and no-one honestly should either. Because if tradition is king and "How we've always done it" is that important, the games should still be 8bit. Why should graphics advance while music stays in poor quality for the sake of "tradition"?
As Stuart Ashen would put it: "A fitting punishment." Too bad that the man was an unironic Japanese icon that could mostly dodge major criticism or repercussions, in life. We can now point to his grave and yell criticism at him, but it's a hollow victory.
I don’t think people realize how much of what they hear in music and soundtracks is still, in fact, midi. Midi doesn’t mean shitty, it’s more a difference in composition and recording workflow. Sample choice, repetitive composition and mixing are the issues here, not midi as a technology.
Indeed. Even many real recorded sessions are controlled by midi in some way. They might record a real orchestra and then use midi to automate all the levels, compression, effects etc. of the master
yes. most music today that uses 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶 are not 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶 files that are played directly. today, 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶 music is most often played in one of two ways, that let the composer choose the sound of the instruments exactly: the 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶 music is exported in a format for pre-recorded audio - like 𝗼𝗴𝗴 or 𝗺𝗽𝟯 - from the music program (𝗱𝗮𝘄), with the samples and effects that the composer chose in the music program. or the game comes with its own samples and effects that the 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶 files get played with. this freedom of control lets composers make great and real-sounding music, if they're good enough at using the tools
"I can understand not wanting to pay for a full orchestra--" I don't. If you're SquareEnix and you know that DQ is gonna make that sweet sweet yen on name alone then pony up the cash and get the music right. They already work with different symphonies around the world for shows so finding one is not that hard.
That's the thing. It's Square Enix. Moreover, it's one of Square Enix's FLAGSHIP IPs. They don't do this with Final Fantasy, but have to do this shit with Dragon Quest because of Sugiyama.
The Synthezised ones just sound better. Orchestration isn't better by default it has to actually be well done. Which it.. isn't here to be honest. It just doesn't fit the music.
@@Zangelin Bullshit. If that was at all true, it wouldn't even use orchestra samples. The entire purpose of samples is to imitate real instruments, which guarantees that real instruments will never sound worse.
In Past Mortem three years after this video released: In 2019: Dragon Quest XI S included the orchestrated OSTs, while the original MIDI compositions were added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate alongside Hero’s inclusion as the game’s third out of twelve post-launch DLC characters. In 2020: Dragon Quest XII was announced. On September 30th, 2021; Koichi Sugiyama passed away.
I was so happy to hear about his passing, sorry but i've got zero sympathy for anyone that denies that Japan committed war crimes, I don't care how "classic" his music was, fuck him.
@@ChadVigilante The LGBTQ community represents a group of human beings born with immutable traits. If you wouldn't discriminate against or look down on someone for the color of their skin, you shouldn't do it because they are gay, lesbian, transsexual, asexual, etc.
It's not that the songs themselves are bad, it's the lack of songs that is the issue. With only 5 tracks, it gets annoying fast and becomes intolerable.
+Theroux There's a reason classic games on low tech systems had better and more memorable music: Back then, on *that hardware*, you didn't have a choice. They couldn't make ambient music or sounds sound very good, and couldn't make songs that were musically complex, and old games were boring without constant music, so every game had to be packed with constant music and it all had to be catchy and hummable and focused on the melody and beat. These days, games don't have those limitations. Music can be complex, ambient, generic or absent and work just fine for what it's trying to do. So that's why music went downhill. It doesn't HAVE to be good. It just has to create a feeling. And since the music all went downhill... some people got used to it and got lazy and the music got even worse. So RIP good game music.
@@MrSafior Well I really like the music from dragon quest and I dont really feel like abstaining from it just because of Sugiyama. You can love a persons art without liking the artist, atleast thats what I think
@@keto4366 Bullshit, don't give me that "nobody is an angel" crap, people who use their power to denied war crime and the suffering of minority. Also by you'r screwy logic, only douchebag can make "good work" ? That a great phylosophy. No bad person don't deserve credit and even less getting approval, therefore more power to hurt people, just because they do some good work!
OMG... Many seem that they did not play RPG video games in their life and now it comes to say that repetitive music .. Play any Final Fantasy (VI, VII, VIII, IX, X ...) battle music It is always the same in ordinary battles, from beginning to end, it is the one that you will hear the most by far. Does it game worse? Complain now after decades...
@@Zekushion6 in ff there is also different music for the different levels you are in. In dragon quest 11 there one music for the main big world, one music for caves/dungeons and sometimes when you're lucky you get a different music when you get in a town. And even that they manage to mess it up because some town music are used for two different towns. I didn't mind the one combat music, but damn when I get more excited when the music changes rather than a story related event, you clearly did something wrong with your game.
So much coming out on my birth month dq the superior version, monster hunter icy world ultimate, and Luigi’s 3rd wheel on his own vacation cause he won’t invite daisy 3 ( which is as sad as it is Funny
Stop Skeletons from Fighting - Update, DQ 11 S Definitive Edition for the Nintendo Switch will let the Player choose Orcastrated or Midi soundtrack, both English and Japanese Voice acting and High Difinition graphics or 16 Bit Retro mode. the Upcoming Switch version will be the BEST version of DQ11 to play.
@@_V.Va_ Hell yeah. It has a lot of references to old games (especially the original trilogy), but other than that, yeah it's super accessible. Though it doesn't hurt to try out DQI, DQII and DQIII. They're all ported over to Android and IOS, and to be honest, they are really well-made ports. Well, compared to the other mobile ports Square Enix has done anyway.
@@snuppssynthchannel The graphics only look bad if you at them reeeaaaalllllyyyy closely, but whose gonna spend 100+ hours just looking at rocks really closely instead of playing the game?
In my opinion the individual pieces in the new dragon quest aren't all that bad. I mostly have a problem with the amount of repetition and diversity within the soundtrack.
that's basically all I ever knew this guy for, that and his homophobic comments that he made a few years ago. I heard some DQ music before I knew who he was and was never particularly impressed by it.
@@Daidoro If I'm being totally honest, his music isn't even that good imo, I much prefer other video game composers but music is subjective anyways so w/e
@@crubat9429 nah, thats understandable...His dragon quest theme will always be iconic and he does have some standout soundtracks but he is definitely not nearly as dynamic as other composers..Yoko Shimamura is honestly underrated (I think so), her work in Front Mission was incredibly underrated..
I'm sorry, but stating that early consoles used Midi is a blatant misunderstanding of what Midi actually is. Midi stands for 'musical instrument digital interface' and is something to STANDARDISE how digital musical instruments, sound modules, synths and so on communicate with one another. Playing back a sequence of notes in a specified order is NOT midi. It's something that midi allows you to do in a standardised way, but midi is the STANDARD, not the METHOD. And really, while there is technically some midi found on 16 bit consoles (some Mega Drive games contain an audio program that is specifically designed to play back standard midi commands from a file), this has nothing to do with the techniques used. PC games mostly weren't using midi either, until the mid 90's, and it's primarily games which support something like MPU-401 which get close to midi - or which explicitly support midi - something that's rare amongst dos games, but more common among windows ones. The n64 and Playstation undoubtedly had midi playback software in their standard audio libraries (I know the n64 did), but you didn't HAVE to use it, and the mere fact that you're playing back audio samples at varying pitches using a set of note commands does not in and of itself make something midi. Something like an NES isn't even capable of complying with the actual midi specification, and the SNES and Mega Drive can comply with most of it, but lack enough audio channels to meet the full standard specification. (much less later enhanced specifications.) Midi is a standard, not a technique. The MOD file concept that originated on the Amiga is functionally the same technique as midi, but is absolutely NOT midi in and of itself.
I know why you used the term midi but that's not quite right. The NES had dedicated synth hardware for sound which negated the use of Midi. Midi wasn't really a thing on consoles until the 5th generation. It's a memory hog without dedicated midi hardware. Midi is more like USB a hardware standard with software instrument libraries. No samples, think like doom. You are thinking of something like Sega's gems or unreal engine mod system. They were libraries or software designed to make programming instruments and samples easier.
@@googleisafuckingjoke6855 But the OST is LITERALLY worse because of his political views. If he did not have his views of ownership, which are very much political, we literally would've gotten the symphonic version on PS4 and PC. They are specifically to blame.
All tracks are MIDIs and there aren't even new remixes, which is a real shame because we already seen they somehow turned Beneath The Mask into an absolute banger
@@polocatfan Well when you're dealing with Sugiyama, who is very against others using his music, its not like he had a choice. He didn't even allow the normal DQ 11 to have the orchestrated version of the soundtrack, he tried selling that on his own. So with someone like that, I really doubt Sakurai had a choice
Okay, so I'm not crazy! DQXI on the Switch is my first DQ game, and I was confused as to why people were complaining so much about the music. Then I changed the music to "synthesized" out of curiosity. I couldn't last two minutes. It can't be overstated how much the orchestrated soundtrack adds to the experience (and emotion) of DQXI.
I actually turned down the music because the default had it so loud that when I'd turn my speaker volume down, it would drown out the dialogue. Because of that, I barely noticed the game had music, ha!
Its creepy how this video showed up in my recommends. I 've not looked up , referenced, or searched for anything Dragonquest related as far as I can remember. However, I was having this same conversation with my wife who just bought me the game! While I totally agree the music in this game is lacking (annoyingly so) its kinda scary this video was on my front page. Is the PC listening to me? LEARNING!?
Your phone is definitely listening to you. And if you share same email on all your devices, them they are all in sync... listening..trying to sell you something.
@@AntBeastin1991 It might not be inconceivable that the PC is as well, if you have either a laptop with a built-in mic or any other kind of external mic (headset, recording mic, webcam mic, etc.), also due to email and other things.
I remember that one day a friend ask me through Messenger what kind of character I wanted printed on a shirt she was going to give me and I started asking her to send me pictures of the shirt with "Metroid" and She did, after we stopped messaging facebook started suggesting links where to buy shirts
All you people in the comments are ignoring the point of the video. And that is that Sugiyama is a greedy xenophobe which means that us consumers get an inferior product because of this guy's attitude. Even worse, sometimes we in the west get an inferior product compared to what Japanese gamers get because of this guy.
Pandaman - Because it is a bad thing. I don’t know who told you what being xenophobic means, but they lied to you. Being a xenophobe means having an irrational fear/hatred of other countries and the people in it.
The music in the Playstation 4 version of Dragon Quest XI (just like the 3DS version) are prerecorded streamed music files (kinda like an MP3 or WAV). Technically you should call this synth(esized) music, not MIDI. MIDI carries no audio information. It is not, itself, music. Instead, it's a set of instructions that tell something that can create audio/music what to do, but DQXI doesn't use (MIDI-like) sequenced music.
i think that there was a confusion in the video script. In 4:59 she does explain what MIDI is, but claims that NES uses it. She also proceeds to ignore her own explanation about MIDI and calls all synthesized video game music MIDI. It's... weird. I liked the video tho
To be even more precise. The music of DQXI PS4 are prerecorded ATRAC9 files. They're very similar to MP3. They're both lossy music files. Still...."synth" music should suffice 😉
Now only Horii is left of the OG team. When Sugiyama passed away I was ... well, to put it bluntly, I was optimistic about the musical future of DQ. In recent games, his compositions had been rather uninspired, vaguely fantasy-themed noodling. Losing Toriyama hurts infinitely more. I hope Bird Studio will continue to carry his torch because there's no DQ without the Toriyama art style.
Hey electronic musician/sound design nerd here I dont want to he that guy but youre using the word midi wrong. midi is a form of data or a language developed a long time ago for musical intruments. it is not a "sample" there is no such thing as a "midi sample" instead midi is the data that is being used to trigger a sample of audio. or it is used to do other things as well such as turn volume up or down or add effects...think of it as a virtual pair of hands turning knobs and playing keys. This is the reasom 8 bit sounds the way it does. midi information is controlling the systems soundcard telling it to produce basic waveshapes. ie saw, pulse, triangle, sine(classic video game sounds)...Also you can make orchestrations with samples that are just as good as acoustic recordings from the real thing but it takes a lot of effort in automating things properly...I dont think the fact that he used samples made it bad but that he was lazy and clearly did not understand how to properly automate things in his daw or whatever method he used.
Well put. I used to sit with Pro Tracker (?) on my Amiga and an Alesis synthesizer. Had an external midi interface for the computer. Damn I was so bad at music. Sorry for the nostalgia rant.
Looking at the like/dislike ratio shows how controversial it can be to criticize certain aspects of beloved games. I think it’s important to criticize everything that is wrong with some of the best games because it can help improve future releases in the series. Dragon quest 11 is one of my favorite jrpgs on the PS4 but I found the music sound quality disappointing.
People are exaggerating a lot as usual. Same kind of people who say that "30 fps is unplayable". Dude, we had GoldenEye running at like 10 fps in 4 player split screen, and it was playable and we had fun. While I do agree orchestral is better, the synthesis isn't nearly as bad as people here make it out to be. The melodies and harmonies are still as great.
So basically, Koichi Sugiyama is so good of a composer, he can use japanese warcrimes as an instrument, and that's your least favourite kind of horn when used in midi.
Hey, honestly I’ve got a gut feeling that Sakurai pulled some strings, plus they promised remixes. So I wouldn’t be too worried (I’m just hoping that they add more ffvii and possibly Mario rpg music too when hero releases)
Funny, coming back to this video and learning about his death. I don’t have any respect for Sugiyama at all after watching this video, but he created some of the most iconic music of all time. That I’ll remember about his legacy at least.
I wonder how Dragon Quest are going to do without Sugiyama's music now? Square Enix doesn't have ownership to them and there's currently no one to replace him. They deserve to be rewritten to really match the world better & be done by a better composer that helps fit the theme of those titles. I mean, they could chose Yoko Shimomura to replace his work aside from remixes and the main theme.
Then take off the soylatte squited glasses, and look up the truth, look up one of my recent posts and i have disproven the lies, unless derek alexander wants to delete my comment.
@@cartooncritic7045 dragon quest main theme was definitely iconic enough to be played in the introduction parades of the olympics..that said, yes sugiyama is a shitty person that i will not shed a tear for
Agreed. We should try and discuss which composer would better off replacing him altogether. After all, music is key for any game, provided its not out-sourced.
Dude, don't even fucking talk about people being "fanboys", you're the exact opposite of whatever a fanboy is. You're DESPERATE to shit on this for no reason. You're overexaggerating a "problem" that hardly can be said to exist. you're insane.
Music is actually pretty good as it is. Dragon Quest uses this music on purpose on all its games (and XI is a celebration of all its history) DQ8 was an oddity and mostly the only entry everyone played it so now everyone wants all the games to be orchestrated because "Hey its not like that DQ8 i played years ago".
Why do they keep employing him? If I hired a composer that said he purposely makes his music shittier to make money on the side, I'd find another composer who'd do his best to make my game great. Then he does stuff like that which makes Square Enix looks like crap for hiring a horrible person, risking their sales and they still use him? Why?
Japan has a reoccurring culture of never changing ways. Sugiyama is synonymous with the franchise. Taking him away is like if FF took Uematsu off the list. No one really will really like the change (is what they think)
Nothing that affects the game's quality for the exception of the MIDI ost (solved in PC). If the game is good the creator/director/composer can be literally Hittler that I will still buy it. I don't fucking care as long as the game isn't filled with propaganda (spoiler alert, it isn't)
My only problem with the music is that there isn't enough of it. I don't think MIDI is objectively never as good than Orchestral, I actually prefer it in some cases. It gets a big nostalgia modifier from me, I liked the retro feel, got late 80's/early 90's anime vibes which complement Toriyama's art style very well
I think we can all agree this game has about 1/3rd or 1/4th the number of unique tracks that it should have. It's even worse when a lot of the battle themes sound like each other or are just variations on each other.
I think the main issue was the amount of recycled songs from previous games. The new songs, however, reminded me of every other DQ game. You can always expect a great battle theme, great overworld theme, some good town themes, awful boss/final boss themes, and terrible dungeon themes, with a few exceptions like V (which has great dungeon themes) and VIII (which has both great boss/final boss themes and a great dungeon theme). For better or worse, XI is no different.
tbh DQ music overall is mediocre to my ear. orchestrated doesn't really change the fact that it still sounds meh. some lower budget company such as falcom has 10 times better music than DQ. the story and the gameplay however is kinda okayish
@@Jordan3DS I think Sugiyama's standard boss themes are generally solid (I'll even stick up for VII's and IX's), and like you said, his standard battle themes are always great. I think Sugiyama knows how to make a good battle theme, it's just that about half the time he decides to go in a different direction with his final boss themes that make them an acquired taste at best. III, VI, VIII, IX, and X all have good to great final boss themes IMO (haven't listened to XI's yet).
I'm not happy that Sugiyama passed away, but he should have chosen his successor and retired a long time ago. He was too old to continue working at this point.
I really don't get the love for Sugiyama's work. As a classical musician myself I don't find his work to be anything special. Some of it is pretty bad even. There are way more talented composers who need more recognition imo.
True. To my mind, the series' music took a nosedive after DQVIII. The music was always simplisticly old-fashioned, bordering on corny, but it had some stand-out pieces. Considering it was originally written for an 8-bit system with only five sound channels, and the series' slavish devotion to its own tradition may, in combination with the composer's inflexible mindset, explain why it never developed in more modern directions. Now that Sugiyama has passed away, I hope younger, more daring composers like Squareenix' own Yasunori Nishiki inherit his duties.
i kind of a agree with this..I find his music Iconic for sure, and his main theme can never be replaced but I don't think he was that particularly special..Im kind of excited who will be taking over..plenty of great talent out there
NES didn't use midi... It used tracker programs and a dedicated APU. If you were to try and make genuine 8bit music, for example, the last thing you would do is use midi. Old PC games started using midi format which is why soundcards were a big deal back in the day. Try out an old arrangement program (they should have a free version) which actually uses midi called "tabit" and you'll see what I mean. Also, DQXI doesn't use midi either. You said it yourself when you mentioned "poor quality samples". Midi format uses built-in soundcard hardware to play arrangements and doesn't actually include any audio. Think of MIDI more as instructions for what the soundcard will play. DQXI uses prerecorded audio. I think what you're trying to say is that they used digital instruments rather than live orchestra audio. There was likely another reason they decided to use the digital arrangements, I guess you'd have to ask them. All that said... I really don't think the quality is so bad.
Although I agree with 99.9 % of what you said, I think in the end we should not dismiss how much copyright laws (especially in the entertainment industry, and in-between Japanese people) are enforced by the Japanese themselves. I remember how I was strangely fascinated by all the JASRAC-catalog-reference found in footnotes of manga pages when the characters where singing or even simply humming a song.
If you're composing using digital instruments or samples in the last 20 years, I'd be really surprised if MIDI standard was not involved. Typically that's the interface for triggering virtual instruments and samples.
Many people don’t understand that MIDI is an interface and not a type of sound. Hell, most orchestra music in games and movies could use a form of MIDI and these folks wouldn’t know.
Well, strictly speaking people working on NES were probably coding "bare metal" or using very bare-bones compositional tools. And for that matter, the SNES used a portable sample-based format much closer to Amiga .MOD files than actual MIDI. But it's still close enough for the sake of simplifying the discussion for people who don't want a history lesson in early game music formats. :-)
It would have been more accurate to describe the NES sound format (literally "NSF") and SNES equivalent as MIDI-like, as they share many features in common with MIDI, but narrowed to the scope of the sound chips available on their platforms and cartridges. Personally, I'm okay with the hand-wavy description even if it's technically inaccurate. The underlying point is to accuse Square-Enix, or more specifically Sugiyama, of shipping MIDI-like music with the game and releasing the orchestral recording separately as a money-making strategy.
The NES APU was mostly an FM synthesis chip. The closest it came to MIDI support was delta modulation, which is only useful for producing very static-y voice samples that might as well have been just another noise channel.
Even with the full orchestration of the Switch version there’s WAY too few songs. Why does a basic Zelda or Mario game have so many more tracks than Dragon Quest? Almost every town and every open area (including at night) has the same music.
I get your point but Breath of the Wild has like ten songs and half of them is just some intern furiously banging away on a piano. Probably my main gripe with that game. Nintendo pls.
@@jeremy8473 Believe me, I've been a fan since the '80s. BotW has very little music in comparison to the previous fans. Perhaps because there are no real dungeons.
@@lobstrosity7163 Is it because Zelda uses music from previous games, unlike Dragon Quest which has different music for Battles, towns, and overworld every game?
I havent picked up the game but was likely gonna get it in a sale IF there was a mod switching out the ost for the orchestrated version. Sounds like it is a thing, so definitely something worth having. Otherwise i'd probably just mute the DQ ost and play a FF soundtrack in the background tbh.
That mod is a godsend, and I praise the team who put in the work to make this happen. It elevates the game, and it's been a point of envy from my PS4 playing friends.
I've been wary of trying an unofficial mod for something like this. Do the tracks loop smoothly? Are there still a ton of tracks that never got full orchestra treatments?
I won't miss Sugiyama when he drops dead tbh. Guy wrote some great music but fuuuuuuuuck him as a human being. If there was a way to buy Dragon Quest games specifically with a different composer's music, I 100% would.
Errrrrrrrrr... Yuji Hori is not the creator of Dragon Quest and he didn´t selected Akira Toriyama, it was Kazuhiko Torishima, ex editor of Toriyama when he was publishing Dragon Ball in the Shonen Jump. Dragon Quest was created by a collaboration between Shonen Jump and Enix, Torishima selected Hori to be the story writer because he worked for some shonen jump mangas and Toriyama because he was working with him at the time. If you are interested in more information, i recommend to you this interview: www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2016/10/15/kazuhiko-torishima-on-shaping-the-success-of-dragon-ball-and-the-origins-of-dragon-quest/
I'm not a pro, but I have enough knowledge about music production to say: It's pretty good. But it cannot compete. The used samples don't sound like real instruments, but i feel like that was a deliberate decision to give it this sweet sweet nostalgic 80s/90s vibe. The quality itself is fine. But damn. It's way too repetitive.
13:25 "Okay, I just don't understand" Not sure what you don't understand tbh. The synthesized version has more present percussion, more audible bass, and the instruments are mixed to be in the front of the track as opposed to the orchestral version which is more spacial and has a heavy emphasis on reverb. Some of us grew up with 8-bit and 16-bit systems and have a fondness more classic video game aesthetics, and some prefer a live symphony. It's really not that deep.
Why does this video have so many dislikes? Is it because it calls DQ11's music bad? Is it because it calls Sugiyama a bad person and that's like, insulting DQ as a series in some way? Or is there misinformation in here I"m not aware of. All in all it seems like a well put together video with decent information. Actually just got to the part where you forced me to listen to Yoshi's New Island music so that's definitely worth hating. Reeeee
I was on board with this video until the "Yikes" chapter, because I can't get behind the idea that we should be scrutinizing a person's political views to determine whether their work is good or that we should be working with them as I think they leads to a fractious society and community. He can use his money in whatever stupid way he wants. This is especially annoying when you can make a perfectly strong case that its time to move on based on him insisting on lowering the quality of the product based on personal greed or based on the idea that his quality has gone down and so its time to move on. But instead it's gotta be about historical revisionism or sexual politics.
A lot of people were quick to defend Sugiyama. I get the impression that most of it was from non-DQ fans who got uncomfortable when the video got "political," since every actual DQ fan I've spoken to seems very frustrated with Sugiyama, to put it lightly.
@@2kano113 I think it's super valid to be frustrated with Sugiyama, because he's screwing over everyone who bought the PS4 version (including me) out of what seems to be simply greed. There are plenty of valid reasons to be mad at him as a result, and as such there's no need to go into his personal life.
@@valiantparagonvideos2383 Yeah, because his problematic political views are perfectly fine, since shitty personality traits from influential people with a worldwide audience have no bearing on anything whatsoever. Get out of here with this bullshit. If his "personal life" really didn't matter then the dislike would be lower. The only reason it's that high is because we have a lot of shit apologists like you crying foul anytime someone's called out for being a dick. Sorry, EVERY time someone's called out for being a dick for racist, sexist, or homophobic reasons. No one's buying your bullshit rhetoric except other race apologists. Sugiyama can be a crappy creator AND human being. You're only mad because you care more about him fucking up the OST than him being a dick to an entire group of people for nationalistic and racist reasons.
Well that's half the point. Laziness from the composer. Sugiyama didn't make any new compositions, and the ones he did are just average at best, and reused to a ridiculous level. It's a damn shame. They should of enlisted a new composer who could of injected some sonic magic. This is 2019, the score is just not good enough.
I absolutely hate how 99% of battle music is the exact damn same. Dq games are long too so that's alot of the same crap. I like ff7 music because it's always changing. Ahhh The Temple of the Ancients in ff7
Personally, I have just two remarks about the video, but I did appreciate all the work that went into making it. Firstly, it's probably because I was taught how to play the violin at a very early age, but it is "the strings" that do get my attention when I notice how artificial they sound, much more than "the horns" or "the brasses" (sorry if I explained it poorly, English isn't my first language). Secondly, I really can't agree with the use of the acronym MIDI when it's not MIDI... I kinda understand why the name got generally associated with the primitive sound capabilities of early machines, and the compilation of music albums "@MIDI" comes to mind, but I'd rather talk about chiptunes (like for the 8-bits & 16-bits era), modules/sample tracks (for many of the "non-audio-CD" 32-bits era) and full-sound audio for Red Book CD and "monolithic" audio files which are not "interpreted-as-a-sheet-of-music" by the machine but rather played "as is". The games I remember playing with MIDI music were mostly Lucas Arts or Sierra games, but if I had Japanese computers in the '90s, I would have probably been all over the amazing compositions that some of my favourite composers did back then. Thank you anyway for having brought the subjects that were in the video, and I am very saddened by learning how Japanese revisionists are still very active even now. Wishing you a very good end of the year and a very great new one.
Geez I agree that music are subpar but the amount of people that misunderstood what "Midi" mean in this comment sections are staggering. In an essence, midi is just digital music notes. It’s use to trigger samples. That’s it. There are no "Midi Sound" because it doesn’t have a sound in itself. Saying you hate Midi because its sound quality is bad doesn’t make any sense. It’s like saying that you hate using sheets in an orchestra performance because it sounds bad. See, does that make any sense? The things that’s bad here is the samples that Sugiyama is using. It’s just pure low-quality garbage.
@@BigSnipp No, that is the sound of the General MIDI itself. GM is the standardized soundbank for MIDI. The “MIDI” doesn’t contain any sound. It only carried information for the sounds. Think of it as vector vs raster files. MIDI is like what vector is.
@@BigSnipp It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been producing. If you can’t distinguish between “MIDI” and “General MIDI” then you’ve misunderstood the term. That’s it. If you still gonna said that MIDI has a sound then try plugging your MIDI controllers directly into speaker (if you can even do it, no MIDI controllers have audio I/O port for a reason) and see if it makes any.
I don't get it, I was expecting some atrocious pieces of music, but when you played them I only thought, "this really isn't that bad, I still kinda like it". Obviously it's subjective, you can dislike the midi version of the soundtrack, that's fair. However, it was just such an overreaction to something that I felt _really_ didn't need it- be it played up for the sake of the video or otherwise, it just felt unnecessary. It's not that bad, I get that the horns may be relatively low in quality, but it comes across as rather snobbish from the video. It came across as a, "this soundtrack fucking sucks, it's _so_ bad, you must be brain-dead to enjoy it", kinda reaction, of course exaggerated- more than it already was anyways. And yes, I get that it's all about Sugiyama and how he's the reason behind all of this, and I agree that he's a jackass. But over-exaggerating how bad the music is _purely_ because the samples aren't the best- almost as though it's torture to listen to- just irks me, again kinda sounds like, "We're forced to sit through horrendously shitty music and who's fault is it? HIS, it's *_HIS_* fault- if it weren't for him, we'd have _amazing_ music". It's not wrong to say any of this, because it's true that he's keeping us from just _having_ the orchestrated soundtrack, but the way that it's said (while not as exaggerated as I made it sound) was just too extreme to sound reasonable. Though the Switch is getting the Orchestrated soundtrack without having to resort to mods which is nice. Basically, the difference isn't _that_ big, but I guess that it's just used to make a point. Then again, you can sound reasonable _while _*_also_* giving the same points.
I dunno, if you ever grew up with Dragon Quest XII, and have fond memories of that game, you also would have been massively disappointed when it wasn't orchestrated. What poured even more salt on the wound was the fact that it was created, but simply wasn't put on the disc. That music sounds better when orchestrated.
@@cartereckblad Oh ok! I wasn't sure if you meant VII and I was a bit confused because it was originally synthesized. Thanks for clarifying and sorry if I sounded smart-assy, I was half asleep lol.
@@cartereckblad VIII was only orchestrated in the western version, where they literally ripped it all from the Symphonic Suite CD. Thus, it sounds terrible in game, but great when listening to it from the actual CD itself. Arrangements are nice, but they rarely fit being played in the games themselves, especially in this case when every Symphonic Suite song has a terrible echo due to the means of recording.
God, speaking of the Resident Evil Dualshock Ver. Basement, the story of Mamoru Samuragochi, the deaf composer of RE Dualshock Ver. and Onimusha, who wasn't actually deaf, and Takashi Niigaki, the guy who actually wrote all his songs, is probably one of the most compelling video game composer histories. Great video as always.
After how bad the Director’s Cut was, no one really questioned Samuragochi’s deafness until the truth came out, which is both sad and deeply hilarious.
The Dual Shock version of Resident Evil: Director's Cut actually has quite a few good tracks. Some that are even better than those in the original version such as the end credits music. Buuuuuuut 99.9% of the people that ever criticize the Dual Shock version's soundtrack, they always specifically single out the basement track and never say a word about any of the other tracks on the OST.
The ending theme of the original was pretty bland and boring. The only thing memorable are the gameplay snippets that play throughout. The Dual Shock version's ending thing sounds like you just finished a grand adventure.
This video really just seems like a "I hate MIDI" video with not much substance to it. A lot of people really do like the sound of those older consoles and soundfonts, so it's no surprise that Dragon Quest, the franchise most known for sticking to tradition, sticks with MIDI. Also, the SNES could use MIDI, but the NES couldn't. Those really old consoles like the NES and Master System couldn't use it. I also got a laugh at this person's attempt to cancel a 90 year old Japanese man for having antiquated views LOL. People in 50 years will probably do the same to you because you weren't a vegetarian, you "animal genocider." Any who, not a great video, 4/10. Thanks.
There's a difference between political beliefs and basic human rights. I can respect his work and legacy, but he's still a terrible human being. Good riddance.
What basic human rights did he violate, or support the violation of? I'm assuming you've actually read/heard his words and aren't just basing "good riddance" off of what someone from a different culture that speaks a different language told you he thinks?
@@Bcast64 I wouldn't believe anything coming out of the chinese government. I'd much rather take japan's word on things. Not condoning any massacres but it was a war. If the sides had been switched, we know what the chinese are capable of.
It's clear you didn't even remotely do a research on what a MIDI file is and does. I mean, people kinda expect you to do that for a 23 minute rant about bad sequenced music. Also, "NES uses MIDI"? Jesus Christ.
@@VideosbySteve Midi is just a couple years older, both coming from the mid-80's, but NES did use a sound chip, not sounds represented standardized in a digital form. Midi is supposed to stand for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, so let us all remember it isn't just a term for general electronic sound technology.
Andreas Weber that Sugiyama is using his wealth trying to erase war crimes from history. It's trying to show why he works like this with DQ by showing what a giant dick he is outside of DQ as well and how he's using his money he's earned from DQ in a dickish way. It's part of who he is and this video is all about the composer behind the music. It is important!
+mrtiagosuper And when she did, she spread misinformation as "midi instruments"/"nes used midi" etc which are totally wrong in concept and fake facts period.
That ridiculous kitchen horn-track from *Resident Evil - Director's Cut: Dual-Shock Analog Version - Greatest Hits version* is the epitome of dumpy game music. Also typing out that games proper title+version as seen in your video was more of an undertaking than I thought it was going to be.
Alexandre Michaud because he hosted a political talk show in which he hosted a politician that had very negative views of Japan's LGBT community. Since Sugiyama politely nodded and continued the conversation instead of violently denouncing and kicking her off the show, he is now a bad person by association. You can fact check this on places like Wikipedia with their S-tier references such as "Anime News Network."
@@PepsiMan666 I like you leave out how he's an imperialist who denies Japanese war crimes. He literally signed a published statement denying the war crimes. I'm sure you'll either dismiss that as "fake news" like your idol Trump would or you also deny the war crimes committed by Imperial Japan
Im sorry, but this video just got unnecessarely personal real fast. Ok, "midi" (synthed) is worse than orquestrated, but why is it "so terrible"like the title calls it? Also no matter how bad is the man, what does what he do with him money have anything to do with his stand on copyright? If he spent the money on charity instead would anything change? This should had been a v-blog entry, not a past mortem. I love this channel to death, but this video guys...
I'd also like to mention two other composers who worked on the series and that I'd very much like returning: Kaoru Wada, who made the soundtrack for the Emblem of Roto prequel, and Manami Matsumae, who worked on Dragon Quest Swords and whose tunes were great as well and fitting for the series.
I like your work but I'd honestly would've rather this video be honest and be named "The Politics of Dragon Quest's composer" because it's clearly what you wanted to talk about
I think its quite ridiculous to say the quality of the synthesised soundtracks is 'bad' just because you don't like how it sounds. I like both versions of the soundtracks, but it rubs me the wrong way to see you saying its 'low quality' when its not, you just don't like how it sounds. Some people like how old video game synths sound, which is why they are sampled in loads of songs and used in some breakcore/chiptune music. I can't help but feel the decision to originally have the synthesised soundtrack in DQ11 was because the developers wanted the game to feel oldschool not only gameplay wise, but through audio as well (hence the use of synthesised sound effects still, which no one complains about by the way). The synths used in the original version of the soundtrack are not low quality, they don't need to be. The game isn't being made for the DS! Everyone also seems to throw the word MIDI around, without knowing what it means. The devs could easily have composed an orchestral version of the soundtrack, literally using this so called 'MIDI' and most listeners wouldn't be able to tell if the instrumentation was created using recorded instruments or VSTs (MIDI instruments).
The problem is it's a 100+ hour game with 5 tracks. I don't mind the quality of the songs, but there's not nearly enough of them.
Bingo. People are arguing about the midi quality - that's not the point, although that could of been better too. DQ8 had that kind of sound, and it worked. But here, it's the astonishing lack of variety. Smacks of laziness, or, tbh, Sugiyama being an utter dick when he could of added that special magic to what is, in spite of its sonic shortcomings, still a phenomenal game.
Rich Jones It could also be an age issue. He was in his mid 80s when this was being worked on so I doubt he is anywhere near his prime.
you know what makes replaying ffx so great every time ?
first you hear calm before the storm in kilika woods , then you hear the luca theme ( which isnt like the besaid or kilika town theme ) then theres mihen highroad ( which i personally dislike ) moonflow , which has one of my favorite themes ever , then guadosalam and the thunderplains with unique themes , macalania again has the kilika theme (calm before the storm) the other part of macalania later has a different theme
bikanel and the calmlands have great themes , especially calmlands has a wonderful hd version too ( the music )
you could play ffx while i just am in voice chat with you , and as long as you have your game through your speakers i will be able to tell where you are
but for dragonquest , when i reached the new area with the fire slimes , i thought "okay new overworld theme " ( since i saw theres a 2nd on yt before ) nope , totally unfitting theme for an area with a vulcano in the background and generally a hotter environment
now i completed the whole sidequest with the prince , the town theme fit the first town better than that one , thats for sure
ruclips.net/video/K8GRDNU50b8/видео.html
this would fit the town much better
like i honestly enjoyed the music , the overworld is simple but catchy , but now after 7 hours its getting boring , i already disliked the battle theme at the start , its not really getting better either
THIS. I like the MIDI sounds - it takes me back.
Nail on the head for me. 40+ hours in, and I made a decision to stop playing this game because I was sick of the same 2-3 songs. Music is a huge part of games for me, and the midi quality is something I can get over. Hearing the same marching overworld theme drum by on repeat hour after hour made me give up completely.
I guess it's a post mortem now
yup lol. Someone will obviously step in to compose some of the other tracks for DQ12 now so its a new era for DQ in that regard
thank fuck for that, DQ series is better off without the involvement of a bigoted war crimes denier.
For the sake of a quick comparison:
0:56 - Synthetic
1:56 - Orchestral
Christopher Luna this hurts to listen to and accept
Daiyaan Slamang i like the midi version. Its a bopping tune. I myself dont mint midi music. As long as its catchy.
I like the midi version better
I prefer Synthethic...
I've listened to battle theme so much, i can't listen to Symphonic version of battle theme without feeling that Symphonic sounds wrong.
I.. think the synthezised one sounds way better. The orchestration is way too generic. But it also doesn't save the melodies from being very uninspired regardless of what instruments you use.
I like how before XI S was announced everybody was quick to defend the music quality but then after XI S was confirmed to have an orchestrated ost everyone is like “the old ost is trash and always was trash”
Ps: it really was bad.
Mostly since Sugiyomi is a grade-a asshole.
It was so bad that after 2 hours of playing I told myself "this can't be true, I bet the community has fixed this" and went to google. I instantly found the mod to change the music to the orchestral score :)
@@revolvingpathos9015 Smart idea. Thank god the Switch version has the orchestrated soundtrack and I will be using it.
@@MegamanNG Very happy for you and the switch community! I've played through the whole game with the orchestra and can't even imagine how some amazing moments would sound with the midi soundtrack. I just hope SE will give a patch to ps4 / Xbox with the switch ost.
Thats why I got the PC version even though my laptop is not as powerful as a gaming computer because I could mod the soundtrack. I wanted to get the PS4 version though. Going to pick up the switch version
And then the Switch version of the game will have both the synthesized _and_ orchestrated soundtrack.
@iSlayEskimos Wait, Dragon Quest 11 will be available with the music from Dragon Quest 8 in its soundtrack?
@whyemceeay iSlayEskimos Thanks for the heads up. Now we wait for the game to come out...
PC version has had this since release.
Christopher Chilton if you use a mod
Can I have te orchestrated soundtrack on ps4?
God, the music on the Switch version sounds so much better.
Yeah, after putting in well over 100 hours into the Switch version, just out of curiosity I switched it to the synthesized version. Had to swap it back after 5 minutes, the orchestra sounds so much better. Maybe if I grew up playing the previous DQ games (XI was my first, and so far it's the only one I've played) I would have been used to it but I don't see why anyone would opt for the synthesized version over the orchestra.
They are still bad pieces
I'd purchased the PC version on Steam a few months before the Switch version was revealed and was going to patch in the high quality version of the music but than I said screw it and got the Switch version instead.
@@eval_is_evil no they really aren’t lmao.
@@RandomShinigami7 I grew up with an NES and moved all the way through the generations. I've no problem with MIDI music in general. I can listen to FFVII's MIDI music just fine
Using it in modern games feels cheap unless you're purposefully going for a retro style.
If you have the option for orchestrated music, or at least well made digitised music (basically nything but MIDI) you should do that. I do not see it as a nostalgia thing, and no-one honestly should either. Because if tradition is king and "How we've always done it" is that important, the games should still be 8bit. Why should graphics advance while music stays in poor quality for the sake of "tradition"?
So is a MIDI orchestra going to perform at his funeral?
As Stuart Ashen would put it: "A fitting punishment."
Too bad that the man was an unironic Japanese icon that could mostly dodge major criticism or repercussions, in life. We can now point to his grave and yell criticism at him, but it's a hollow victory.
@@MrNobody47710 Victory? You are legitimately disgusting. You're talking about the man's death as if he's massacred millions of people.
Lol. I'm late, but I hope they did.
I don’t think people realize how much of what they hear in music and soundtracks is still, in fact, midi. Midi doesn’t mean shitty, it’s more a difference in composition and recording workflow. Sample choice, repetitive composition and mixing are the issues here, not midi as a technology.
Indeed. Even many real recorded sessions are controlled by midi in some way. They might record a real orchestra and then use midi to automate all the levels, compression, effects etc. of the master
*slams table*
THANK YOU
@@DonnyKirkMusic wow I did not know that, you learn something new everyday! Especially if it has to do with Dark Souls :)
yes.
most music today that uses 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶
are not 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶 files that are played directly.
today, 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶 music is most often played in one of two ways, that let the composer choose the sound of the instruments exactly:
the 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶 music is exported in a format for pre-recorded audio - like 𝗼𝗴𝗴 or 𝗺𝗽𝟯 - from the music program (𝗱𝗮𝘄), with the samples and effects that the composer chose in the music program.
or the game comes with its own samples and effects that the 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗶 files get played with.
this freedom of control lets composers make great and real-sounding music, if they're good enough at using the tools
They’re not complaining about the soundtrack being a midi but the samples themselves are awful.
"shockingly poor quality!"
**plays a clip that sounds.... fine?**
Uhhhhh....?
Thank you for having the correct reaction to this video Daria. I knew there was a reason I end up watching almost every one of your videos! 😉
It's pretty bad for a AAA game from 2017/2018.
Glad I'm not the only one! Hey Daria :)
CuppaKofe You haven’t played enough games.
"bad" then you listen to the shit you hear on the radio....MIDIS FOR LIFE PLZ
"I can understand not wanting to pay for a full orchestra--"
I don't. If you're SquareEnix and you know that DQ is gonna make that sweet sweet yen on name alone then pony up the cash and get the music right. They already work with different symphonies around the world for shows so finding one is not that hard.
That's the thing. It's Square Enix. Moreover, it's one of Square Enix's FLAGSHIP IPs. They don't do this with Final Fantasy, but have to do this shit with Dragon Quest because of Sugiyama.
The Synthezised ones just sound better. Orchestration isn't better by default it has to actually be well done. Which it.. isn't here to be honest. It just doesn't fit the music.
he's not an asshole, he's just old-school.
if all the world were candy and nuts, we'd all be living in lollipop huts...
@@Zangelin Bullshit. If that was at all true, it wouldn't even use orchestra samples. The entire purpose of samples is to imitate real instruments, which guarantees that real instruments will never sound worse.
In Past Mortem three years after this video released:
In 2019: Dragon Quest XI S included the orchestrated OSTs, while the original MIDI compositions were added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate alongside Hero’s inclusion as the game’s third out of twelve post-launch DLC characters.
In 2020: Dragon Quest XII was announced.
On September 30th, 2021; Koichi Sugiyama passed away.
Good riddance
I was so happy to hear about his passing, sorry but i've got zero sympathy for anyone that denies that Japan committed war crimes, I don't care how "classic" his music was, fuck him.
@@ChadVigilante then you're a vile catch u next tuesday who should be locked up.
burn in hell bigot.
@@ChadVigilante Being homophobic, transphobic and supporting sex slavery is not "based"
@@ChadVigilante The LGBTQ community represents a group of human beings born with immutable traits. If you wouldn't discriminate against or look down on someone for the color of their skin, you shouldn't do it because they are gay, lesbian, transsexual, asexual, etc.
It's not that the songs themselves are bad, it's the lack of songs that is the issue. With only 5 tracks, it gets annoying fast and becomes intolerable.
no.... the songs themselves are bad
Few songs because Sugiyama was very old.
Yo know what does have good horns? Gen 3 Pokémon
They had to otherwise they would break with the heavy use
Now that's a fair assumption. Why is it early 2000s GBA games produce far better and more memorable music than a 2018 AAA PS4 release?
Let's just be glad that ign didn't put "too many trumpets" in its list of cons.
You know what else has good horns!?......... And his name is John Cena!!
+Theroux
There's a reason classic games on low tech systems had better and more memorable music: Back then, on *that hardware*, you didn't have a choice.
They couldn't make ambient music or sounds sound very good, and couldn't make songs that were musically complex, and old games were boring without constant music, so every game had to be packed with constant music and it all had to be catchy and hummable and focused on the melody and beat. These days, games don't have those limitations. Music can be complex, ambient, generic or absent and work just fine for what it's trying to do. So that's why music went downhill. It doesn't HAVE to be good. It just has to create a feeling.
And since the music all went downhill... some people got used to it and got lazy and the music got even worse.
So RIP good game music.
Classic case of "Love the work, Hate the Jerk."
So don't listen/read their work so they wont get any approval and money.
@@MrSafior Well I really like the music from dragon quest and I dont really feel like abstaining from it just because of Sugiyama. You can love a persons art without liking the artist, atleast thats what I think
@@CuriousKnuckle I disagree.
Shitty people shoulnd't get support.
MrSafior If you go by that logic we never will have great work. Nobody is a clean innocent angel. Always separate art from the artist.
@@keto4366 Bullshit, don't give me that "nobody is an angel" crap, people who use their power to denied war crime and the suffering of minority.
Also by you'r screwy logic, only douchebag can make "good work" ? That a great phylosophy.
No bad person don't deserve credit and even less getting approval, therefore more power to hurt people, just because they do some good work!
I completed dragon quest 11 after 100 hours on hard. Yes, the music was so repetitive i lowered the volume after 50 hours.
Does the hardmode involve putting the volume to the max?
@@Narusasu98 definitely 😂😂
OMG... Many seem that they did not play RPG video games in their life and now it comes to say that repetitive music .. Play any Final Fantasy (VI, VII, VIII, IX, X ...) battle music It is always the same in ordinary battles, from beginning to end, it is the one that you will hear the most by far. Does it game worse? Complain now after decades...
@@Zekushion6 in ff there is also different music for the different levels you are in. In dragon quest 11 there one music for the main big world, one music for caves/dungeons and sometimes when you're lucky you get a different music when you get in a town. And even that they manage to mess it up because some town music are used for two different towns. I didn't mind the one combat music, but damn when I get more excited when the music changes rather than a story related event, you clearly did something wrong with your game.
@@Zekushion6 nah, there's no boss music, not music for different towns, there's on theme that plays when an intense thing happens
“You already know who owns the license”
Ad plays: TROJAN MAN
lmao
whatever Nintendo or Square Enix or whoever did, we got orchestral tracks now
So much coming out on my birth month dq the superior version, monster hunter icy world ultimate, and Luigi’s 3rd wheel on his own vacation cause he won’t invite daisy 3 ( which is as sad as it is Funny
Hmm, I’m just hoping they pulled the right strings not only to do that, but also add more than two songs to smash when the character gets released
Ok but sugiyama is still using that good good SE money to deny war crimes
Not in Smash tho
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand we didn't get it
Stop Skeletons from Fighting - Update, DQ 11 S Definitive Edition for the Nintendo Switch will let the Player choose Orcastrated or Midi soundtrack, both English and Japanese Voice acting and High Difinition graphics or 16 Bit Retro mode.
the Upcoming Switch version will be the BEST version of DQ11 to play.
Would DQ11S be a great place to jump into the series?
@@_V.Va_ Hell yeah. It has a lot of references to old games (especially the original trilogy), but other than that, yeah it's super accessible. Though it doesn't hurt to try out DQI, DQII and DQIII. They're all ported over to Android and IOS, and to be honest, they are really well-made ports. Well, compared to the other mobile ports Square Enix has done anyway.
it's a shame there won't be an update for the PC version then. I'm shit out of luck and I don't have a switch...
@@wardogs667 - NEW Switch Lite starts at $199 + TX.
@@_V.Va_ - I would recommend starting with DQ2 & 3.
Uemastu > Sugiyama
Hisaishi > Uematsu + Sugiyama
Good news is that the switch release is fully orchestrated
If you dont mind the graphics :(
@@eval_is_evil The graphics aren't that different really, the S version is still very playable.
@@snuppssynthchannel The graphics only look bad if you at them reeeaaaalllllyyyy closely, but whose gonna spend 100+ hours just looking at rocks really closely instead of playing the game?
@@paperluigi6132 True.
@@paperluigi6132 Not even bad, just not as good. I think even the S version is a good looking game.
In my opinion the individual pieces in the new dragon quest aren't all that bad. I mostly have a problem with the amount of repetition and diversity within the soundtrack.
came for music didnt expect war crimes
Always expect war crimes when it comes to Japan
@@spudsbuchlaw so does the US and every major world power in the world today
that's basically all I ever knew this guy for, that and his homophobic comments that he made a few years ago. I heard some DQ music before I knew who he was and was never particularly impressed by it.
Came back here after Sugiyama-san passed on just now at the age of 90!
man.. if he would have died just a bit sooner we could have gotten more dq music in smash.
@@fistpump64 that's fucked up but true.
Man, it's still really hard to sympathize with the guy, even if you understand why he's like that
Good riddance.
Don't call him that. He denied the Rape of Nanjing. He's dead, and good.
He isn't worth the honorific.
Glad the bastard's gone.
Had to revisit this video, after hearing about his death
Good riddance 🙂
@@crubat9429 You are not wrong about the old man with controversy (except his music, of course).
@@Daidoro If I'm being totally honest, his music isn't even that good imo, I much prefer other video game composers but music is subjective anyways so w/e
@@crubat9429 Yeah, I sought out a few tracks after he died. I was not impressed, especially compared to Uematsu and Shimomura.
@@crubat9429 nah, thats understandable...His dragon quest theme will always be iconic and he does have some standout soundtracks but he is definitely not nearly as dynamic as other composers..Yoko Shimamura is honestly underrated (I think so), her work in Front Mission was incredibly underrated..
I'm sorry, but stating that early consoles used Midi is a blatant misunderstanding of what Midi actually is.
Midi stands for 'musical instrument digital interface' and is something to STANDARDISE how digital musical instruments, sound modules, synths and so on communicate with one another.
Playing back a sequence of notes in a specified order is NOT midi. It's something that midi allows you to do in a standardised way, but midi is the STANDARD, not the METHOD.
And really, while there is technically some midi found on 16 bit consoles (some Mega Drive games contain an audio program that is specifically designed to play back standard midi commands from a file), this has nothing to do with the techniques used.
PC games mostly weren't using midi either, until the mid 90's, and it's primarily games which support something like MPU-401 which get close to midi - or which explicitly support midi - something that's rare amongst dos games, but more common among windows ones.
The n64 and Playstation undoubtedly had midi playback software in their standard audio libraries (I know the n64 did), but you didn't HAVE to use it, and the mere fact that you're playing back audio samples at varying pitches using a set of note commands does not in and of itself make something midi.
Something like an NES isn't even capable of complying with the actual midi specification, and the SNES and Mega Drive can comply with most of it, but lack enough audio channels to meet the full standard specification. (much less later enhanced specifications.)
Midi is a standard, not a technique.
The MOD file concept that originated on the Amiga is functionally the same technique as midi, but is absolutely NOT midi in and of itself.
Ok
What about the PC Engine and Sega Saturn? Were they capable of MIDI?
nerd, nobody cares. get this essay out my face
@@airzonasprite4060how about the +51, idiot?
@@airzonasprite4060 Apparently you cared enough to reply, home schooler.
I know why you used the term midi but that's not quite right. The NES had dedicated synth hardware for sound which negated the use of Midi. Midi wasn't really a thing on consoles until the 5th generation. It's a memory hog without dedicated midi hardware. Midi is more like USB a hardware standard with software instrument libraries. No samples, think like doom. You are thinking of something like Sega's gems or unreal engine mod system. They were libraries or software designed to make programming instruments and samples easier.
I love this channel especially punching weight
When I heard "used a technology call MIDI" I went straight to the comments to see if someone made a correction on the use of MIDI. Thanks.
My ignorance is dying you baster
The word you're looking for is protocol. MIDI is a protocol. About the rest, spot on, have a thumbs up.
And NES didn't have a synth like the Genesis with FM Synth. NES had a soundchip.
WHY ARE YOU BOOING HER!? SHE'S RIGHT!
No she isn't, she's calling it bad because of his political views, lying on about art because of someone's personal beliefs is dumb.
@@googleisafuckingjoke6855 you're an idiot.
@@googleisafuckingjoke6855 It's no longer just "political views" or "personal beliefs" if they're A) blatantly wrong, and B) hurting people.
@@googleisafuckingjoke6855 There's a lot more to this video than just that but ok.
@@googleisafuckingjoke6855 But the OST is LITERALLY worse because of his political views.
If he did not have his views of ownership, which are very much political, we literally would've gotten the symphonic version on PS4 and PC.
They are specifically to blame.
I come from the future and I have some bad news.
Sugiyama pulled the same shit with Dragon Quest’s music in Smash Bros 😡
All tracks are MIDIs and there aren't even new remixes, which is a real shame because we already seen they somehow turned Beneath The Mask into an absolute banger
@@speedm222 Yeah the remix of Beneath the Mask is now my second favorite Persona song (First being Life Will Change)
speedm222 excuse me but it was already fantastic before
@@polocatfan This has nothing to do with Sakurai, this is about the composer of the DQ series being uptight about his music
@@polocatfan Well when you're dealing with Sugiyama, who is very against others using his music, its not like he had a choice. He didn't even allow the normal DQ 11 to have the orchestrated version of the soundtrack, he tried selling that on his own. So with someone like that, I really doubt Sakurai had a choice
Okay, so I'm not crazy!
DQXI on the Switch is my first DQ game, and I was confused as to why people were complaining so much about the music.
Then I changed the music to "synthesized" out of curiosity.
I couldn't last two minutes.
It can't be overstated how much the orchestrated soundtrack adds to the experience (and emotion) of DQXI.
Dont tell the composer that Sylvando exists. He might quit lol
He's dead now, so
Maybe he finally found out about Sylvando and that's what did him in? :P
Ayoooooo
I don't get it... What is the composer like?
Well he did quit be he didn't just quit music.
I actually turned down the music because the default had it so loud that when I'd turn my speaker volume down, it would drown out the dialogue. Because of that, I barely noticed the game had music, ha!
You missed the whole glory of this series 😢
@@libyangamer3698 Nope. He missed the same garbage 5 tracks over and over
DQ purists would only play it by reading the dialogue with sound effect
Its creepy how this video showed up in my recommends. I 've not looked up , referenced, or searched for anything Dragonquest related as far as I can remember. However, I was having this same conversation with my wife who just bought me the game! While I totally agree the music in this game is lacking (annoyingly so) its kinda scary this video was on my front page. Is the PC listening to me? LEARNING!?
Your phone is definitely listening to you. And if you share same email on all your devices, them they are all in sync... listening..trying to sell you something.
@@AntBeastin1991 It might not be inconceivable that the PC is as well, if you have either a laptop with a built-in mic or any other kind of external mic (headset, recording mic, webcam mic, etc.), also due to email and other things.
You can actually find voice samples of what Google records of you. I forgot how but there's an option. Creepy though
I remember that one day a friend ask me through Messenger what kind of character I wanted printed on a shirt she was going to give me and I started asking her to send me pictures of the shirt with "Metroid" and She did, after we stopped messaging facebook started suggesting links where to buy shirts
Grace is psychic and made this video for you. UwU
All you people in the comments are ignoring the point of the video. And that is that Sugiyama is a greedy xenophobe which means that us consumers get an inferior product because of this guy's attitude. Even worse, sometimes we in the west get an inferior product compared to what Japanese gamers get because of this guy.
BZZT WRONG
No, right.
arkane9b What’s wrong with wanting to maintain your culture and traditions? You treat Xenophobia like it’s a bad thing?
If you think xenophobia is about maintaining culture and traditions, you have sorely been misinformed.
Pandaman - Because it is a bad thing. I don’t know who told you what being xenophobic means, but they lied to you. Being a xenophobe means having an irrational fear/hatred of other countries and the people in it.
The music in the Playstation 4 version of Dragon Quest XI (just like the 3DS version) are prerecorded streamed music files (kinda like an MP3 or WAV). Technically you should call this synth(esized) music, not MIDI.
MIDI carries no audio information. It is not, itself, music. Instead, it's a set of instructions that tell something that can create audio/music what to do, but DQXI doesn't use (MIDI-like) sequenced music.
You're talking to people who think NES games used MIDI. You're wasting your breath.
i think that there was a confusion in the video script. In 4:59 she does explain what MIDI is, but claims that NES uses it. She also proceeds to ignore her own explanation about MIDI and calls all synthesized video game music MIDI. It's... weird. I liked the video tho
Unfortunately MIDI seems to have become a shorthand for any type of sequenced music and any music that sounds like it's from a retro console.
To be even more precise. The music of DQXI PS4 are prerecorded ATRAC9 files. They're very similar to MP3. They're both lossy music files. Still...."synth" music should suffice 😉
Well Sugiyama would have made the music using MIDI though
Now only Horii is left of the OG team. When Sugiyama passed away I was ... well, to put it bluntly, I was optimistic about the musical future of DQ. In recent games, his compositions had been rather uninspired, vaguely fantasy-themed noodling. Losing Toriyama hurts infinitely more. I hope Bird Studio will continue to carry his torch because there's no DQ without the Toriyama art style.
To add insult to injury, Most if not all of the songs for smash use the Midi versions
All of them
At least they're more than two songs, even if none are remixes, which i assume is a square thing as well
All 8 of the soundtracks are Midi. But hey it's more than two.
And even the JP players are stuck with MIDIs.
that's quite sad, i was wondering about why those trailer orquest version never got in the game, maybe is just him the main problem i guess
Hey
electronic musician/sound design nerd here
I dont want to he that guy but youre using the word midi wrong.
midi is a form of data or a language developed a long time ago for musical intruments.
it is not a "sample" there is no such thing as a "midi sample"
instead midi is the data that is being used to trigger a sample of audio. or it is used to do other things as well such as turn volume up or down or add effects...think of it as a virtual pair of hands turning knobs and playing keys. This is the reasom 8 bit sounds the way it does. midi information is controlling the systems soundcard telling it to produce basic waveshapes. ie saw, pulse, triangle, sine(classic video game sounds)...Also you can make orchestrations with samples that are just as good as acoustic recordings from the real thing but it takes a lot of effort in automating things properly...I dont think the fact that he used samples made it bad but that he was lazy and clearly did not understand how to properly automate things in his daw or whatever method he used.
Oh hey, I wasnt the only one to protest this inaccuracy and general misunderstanding of how midi works
thats why i dislike the video, the girl in this chanel is not that good
You should see Sid Stereo Player for the Commodore 64 here on youtube Type it up!
Well put. I used to sit with Pro Tracker (?) on my Amiga and an Alesis synthesizer. Had an external midi interface for the computer. Damn I was so bad at music. Sorry for the nostalgia rant.
@@lobstrosity7163 that's awesome don't be sorry haha
Looking at the like/dislike ratio shows how controversial it can be to criticize certain aspects of beloved games. I think it’s important to criticize everything that is wrong with some of the best games because it can help improve future releases in the series. Dragon quest 11 is one of my favorite jrpgs on the PS4 but I found the music sound quality disappointing.
I think it is because they said LGTB people are normal. Epic gamers don't like that.
The problem is that the criticisms are flawed and the video is too lengthy to explain something so basic.
@Raving Dave Quit being a jerk
Lol still disliked Hoes Mad
@Raving Dave wtf, why did you go off on him for? Lol
Funny how half the comments are from 2 years ago and the other half from 2 weeks ago
People are exaggerating a lot as usual. Same kind of people who say that "30 fps is unplayable". Dude, we had GoldenEye running at like 10 fps in 4 player split screen, and it was playable and we had fun. While I do agree orchestral is better, the synthesis isn't nearly as bad as people here make it out to be. The melodies and harmonies are still as great.
And Pokemon OST uses synthetic Orchestral instruments and I don't see anyone complain about that
So basically, Koichi Sugiyama is so good of a composer, he can use japanese warcrimes as an instrument, and that's your least favourite kind of horn when used in midi.
on the NES, no less
underrated
Fucking kek
what the hell does this mean
Sooo we’re prob getting 2 DQ tracks for Smash huh?
EDIT: We got 8....but MIDI...
Luckily the Switch version of DQ11 has the orchestrated versions, so you shouldn't worry too much about it since something might have happened
Hey, honestly I’ve got a gut feeling that Sakurai pulled some strings, plus they promised remixes. So I wouldn’t be too worried (I’m just hoping that they add more ffvii and possibly Mario rpg music too when hero releases)
Trust me here, I don't think Sakurai is gonna let another Midgar situation happen in ultimate....
Other than Midgar itself
@Emmanuel Brijandez oh god, the MIDI's? Even for 11?
Yeah... It seems to be all Midis......
Everyone overlooks the fact that Sugiyama is old school Yakuza.
@Kainos Teleos Never said it was.
@Shaman Xeed Exactly what I said.
@Shaman Xeed Exactly what I said. One more round?
@Shaman Xeed Get a hobby dipshit.
Is he a templar?
Funny, coming back to this video and learning about his death. I don’t have any respect for Sugiyama at all after watching this video, but he created some of the most iconic music of all time. That I’ll remember about his legacy at least.
I wonder how Dragon Quest are going to do without Sugiyama's music now? Square Enix doesn't have ownership to them and there's currently no one to replace him.
They deserve to be rewritten to really match the world better & be done by a better composer that helps fit the theme of those titles.
I mean, they could chose Yoko Shimomura to replace his work aside from remixes and the main theme.
Then take off the soylatte squited glasses, and look up the truth, look up one of my recent posts and i have disproven the lies, unless derek alexander wants to delete my comment.
“Iconic” might be a strong word to describe songs that, tbh, really don’t match up well compared to his contemporaries.
@@cartooncritic7045 dragon quest main theme was definitely iconic enough to be played in the introduction parades of the olympics..that said, yes sugiyama is a shitty person that i will not shed a tear for
Agreed. We should try and discuss which composer would better off replacing him altogether.
After all, music is key for any game, provided its not out-sourced.
"Oh my god, this video was a mistake."
Yes, yes it was.
kt cool this video was worse
God awful fan boys/girls can't even be critical of one aspect of their precious franchise.
Dude, don't even fucking talk about people being "fanboys", you're the exact opposite of whatever a fanboy is. You're DESPERATE to shit on this for no reason. You're overexaggerating a "problem" that hardly can be said to exist. you're insane.
i'm only fanboy of _F A C C T S_ and this video triggered me.
Its funny you guys cant understand that the composer is almost 80 years old, some people act like he's some immortal vampire composing music lmao
Music is actually pretty good as it is. Dragon Quest uses this music on purpose on all its games (and XI is a celebration of all its history) DQ8 was an oddity and mostly the only entry everyone played it so now everyone wants all the games to be orchestrated because "Hey its not like that DQ8 i played years ago".
Demaeter this comment
D8Q >DQ11.
Tbh they should just give people choice, even if through dlc
If it is a send up to the history of dragon quest shouldn't they want to show off the orchestral tracks they already produced for the game though?
Oh dear... did you guys really watch this video?
Playing with no music make's the game more interesting and creates another ambience. ITS BETTER
Dark souls vibe
Why do they keep employing him? If I hired a composer that said he purposely makes his music shittier to make money on the side, I'd find another composer who'd do his best to make my game great. Then he does stuff like that which makes Square Enix looks like crap for hiring a horrible person, risking their sales and they still use him? Why?
Japan has a reoccurring culture of never changing ways. Sugiyama is synonymous with the franchise. Taking him away is like if FF took Uematsu off the list. No one really will really like the change (is what they think)
I was waiting for resident evil at the end
Same. This is a tune worthy of it's own video essay.
Nothing that affects the game's quality for the exception of the MIDI ost (solved in PC). If the game is good the creator/director/composer can be literally Hittler that I will still buy it. I don't fucking care as long as the game isn't filled with propaganda (spoiler alert, it isn't)
i hear nothing but blasting diarrhea sounds lol
OH! The clowns farting in my basement.
I love this song for the only reason that it makes me happy to know that other people make really bad mistakes, and still move on with life.
My only problem with the music is that there isn't enough of it. I don't think MIDI is objectively never as good than Orchestral, I actually prefer it in some cases. It gets a big nostalgia modifier from me, I liked the retro feel, got late 80's/early 90's anime vibes which complement Toriyama's art style very well
I think we can all agree this game has about 1/3rd or 1/4th the number of unique tracks that it should have. It's even worse when a lot of the battle themes sound like each other or are just variations on each other.
I think the main issue was the amount of recycled songs from previous games. The new songs, however, reminded me of every other DQ game. You can always expect a great battle theme, great overworld theme, some good town themes, awful boss/final boss themes, and terrible dungeon themes, with a few exceptions like V (which has great dungeon themes) and VIII (which has both great boss/final boss themes and a great dungeon theme). For better or worse, XI is no different.
tbh DQ music overall is mediocre to my ear. orchestrated doesn't really change the fact that it still sounds meh. some lower budget company such as falcom has 10 times better music than DQ. the story and the gameplay however is kinda okayish
I wish there were more. Imo midi sounds better with the art style
@@Jordan3DS I think Sugiyama's standard boss themes are generally solid (I'll even stick up for VII's and IX's), and like you said, his standard battle themes are always great. I think Sugiyama knows how to make a good battle theme, it's just that about half the time he decides to go in a different direction with his final boss themes that make them an acquired taste at best. III, VI, VIII, IX, and X all have good to great final boss themes IMO (haven't listened to XI's yet).
Damn so many dislikes why???
DQ IS SAVED 🦀🦀🦀
Nier Automata Soundtrack at the End ❤
I'm not happy that Sugiyama passed away, but he should have chosen his successor and retired a long time ago. He was too old to continue working at this point.
I was glad when he died, fuck homophobes and war crimes deniers.
Here after Koichi Sugiyama passed away from septic shock. Here’s hoping Hayato Matsuo does his music legacy justice. Somehow, I think he will.
I really don't get the love for Sugiyama's work. As a classical musician myself I don't find his work to be anything special. Some of it is pretty bad even. There are way more talented composers who need more recognition imo.
True. To my mind, the series' music took a nosedive after DQVIII. The music was always simplisticly old-fashioned, bordering on corny, but it had some stand-out pieces. Considering it was originally written for an 8-bit system with only five sound channels, and the series' slavish devotion to its own tradition may, in combination with the composer's inflexible mindset, explain why it never developed in more modern directions. Now that Sugiyama has passed away, I hope younger, more daring composers like Squareenix' own Yasunori Nishiki inherit his duties.
i kind of a agree with this..I find his music Iconic for sure, and his main theme can never be replaced but I don't think he was that particularly special..Im kind of excited who will be taking over..plenty of great talent out there
NES didn't use midi... It used tracker programs and a dedicated APU. If you were to try and make genuine 8bit music, for example, the last thing you would do is use midi. Old PC games started using midi format which is why soundcards were a big deal back in the day. Try out an old arrangement program (they should have a free version) which actually uses midi called "tabit" and you'll see what I mean. Also, DQXI doesn't use midi either. You said it yourself when you mentioned "poor quality samples". Midi format uses built-in soundcard hardware to play arrangements and doesn't actually include any audio. Think of MIDI more as instructions for what the soundcard will play. DQXI uses prerecorded audio. I think what you're trying to say is that they used digital instruments rather than live orchestra audio. There was likely another reason they decided to use the digital arrangements, I guess you'd have to ask them. All that said... I really don't think the quality is so bad.
I agree, well said.
Thank you. This video was triggering the crap out of me.
Although I agree with 99.9 % of what you said, I think in the end we should not dismiss how much copyright laws (especially in the entertainment industry, and in-between Japanese people) are enforced by the Japanese themselves. I remember how I was strangely fascinated by all the JASRAC-catalog-reference found in footnotes of manga pages when the characters where singing or even simply humming a song.
I knew she doesn't know what she's talking about.... you could hear it in her voice.
If you're composing using digital instruments or samples in the last 20 years, I'd be really surprised if MIDI standard was not involved. Typically that's the interface for triggering virtual instruments and samples.
"NES uses MIDI" The NES is older than MIDI.
(Upps, it's only older than General Midi and a year younger than MIDI.)
NES was in 1983 MIDI started becoming popular in 1982.
Many people don’t understand that MIDI is an interface and not a type of sound. Hell, most orchestra music in games and movies could use a form of MIDI and these folks wouldn’t know.
Well, strictly speaking people working on NES were probably coding "bare metal" or using very bare-bones compositional tools. And for that matter, the SNES used a portable sample-based format much closer to Amiga .MOD files than actual MIDI. But it's still close enough for the sake of simplifying the discussion for people who don't want a history lesson in early game music formats. :-)
It would have been more accurate to describe the NES sound format (literally "NSF") and SNES equivalent as MIDI-like, as they share many features in common with MIDI, but narrowed to the scope of the sound chips available on their platforms and cartridges. Personally, I'm okay with the hand-wavy description even if it's technically inaccurate. The underlying point is to accuse Square-Enix, or more specifically Sugiyama, of shipping MIDI-like music with the game and releasing the orchestral recording separately as a money-making strategy.
The NES APU was mostly an FM synthesis chip. The closest it came to MIDI support was delta modulation, which is only useful for producing very static-y voice samples that might as well have been just another noise channel.
Even with the full orchestration of the Switch version there’s WAY too few songs. Why does a basic Zelda or Mario game have so many more tracks than Dragon Quest? Almost every town and every open area (including at night) has the same music.
I get your point but Breath of the Wild has like ten songs and half of them is just some intern furiously banging away on a piano. Probably my main gripe with that game. Nintendo pls.
@@lobstrosity7163 I don't think you have ever played BOTW, but if you have, you're probably not a big fan of the Zelda series..
@@jeremy8473 Believe me, I've been a fan since the '80s. BotW has very little music in comparison to the previous fans. Perhaps because there are no real dungeons.
@@lobstrosity7163 Is it because Zelda uses music from previous games, unlike Dragon Quest which has different music for Battles, towns, and overworld every game?
Jesus, it seems that this is the first time that he played a Dragon Quest ... Now he comes to talk about the soundtrack after decades ...
19:06 This had me in tears, the editing just adds so much to this moment
The Orchestra mod on PC is a godsend
I havent picked up the game but was likely gonna get it in a sale IF there was a mod switching out the ost for the orchestrated version. Sounds like it is a thing, so definitely something worth having. Otherwise i'd probably just mute the DQ ost and play a FF soundtrack in the background tbh.
That mod is a godsend, and I praise the team who put in the work to make this happen. It elevates the game, and it's been a point of envy from my PS4 playing friends.
I've been wary of trying an unofficial mod for something like this. Do the tracks loop smoothly? Are there still a ton of tracks that never got full orchestra treatments?
they put ton of work into it, you forget its even a mod after a few minutes
SE should reward the devs of this mod because I'm sure it contributed to the pc sales.
Huh? The music really doesn't bother me at all... Also, as many have already pointed out, this is very, very poorly researched.
As of September 30th, 2021, Koichi Sugiyama has died at 90 years old.
So allow me to do the honors:
🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀
SUGIYAMA HAS DIED
🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀
🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀
I won't miss Sugiyama when he drops dead tbh. Guy wrote some great music but fuuuuuuuuck him as a human being. If there was a way to buy Dragon Quest games specifically with a different composer's music, I 100% would.
Errrrrrrrrr... Yuji Hori is not the creator of Dragon Quest and he didn´t selected Akira Toriyama, it was Kazuhiko Torishima, ex editor of Toriyama when he was publishing Dragon Ball in the Shonen Jump. Dragon Quest was created by a collaboration between Shonen Jump and Enix, Torishima selected Hori to be the story writer because he worked for some shonen jump mangas and Toriyama because he was working with him at the time. If you are interested in more information, i recommend to you this interview: www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2016/10/15/kazuhiko-torishima-on-shaping-the-success-of-dragon-ball-and-the-origins-of-dragon-quest/
What, you expected a video with clickbait title that whines about DQ music to be well researched?
Gongo Experience you forgot to put "um, actually" in front of the sentence.
42Caio (Caio Esteves) I don't know, it doesn't feel clickbait to me. I think the music is not good too, but for a different reason.
arsetothem I thought the music was serviceable. Could be a lot better but it wasn't terrible by any means.
I bet Derek or Grace didnt even reread over this trash script.
The answer is at 14:22 and ends at 14:48
Thanks mate
The Legend of Kusakari music at the end legit scared and confused my cat. She hurriedly left the room to get away from it. Lol
Big yikes from me. There's a reason the Nanjing Massacre is also very commonly referred to as "The Rape of Nanjing."
I'm not a pro, but I have enough knowledge about music production to say: It's pretty good. But it cannot compete. The used samples don't sound like real instruments, but i feel like that was a deliberate decision to give it this sweet sweet nostalgic 80s/90s vibe. The quality itself is fine. But damn. It's way too repetitive.
Just1Pho yeah... nothing can be good when it’s been playing for hours, drives me insane
I don’t think using outdated midi instruments with modern graphics is a good mix. If you wanna make the game look like an 80s-90s game then its ok.
Feel free to hate the guy for any number of reasons, but if the Nautica theme at the start of Act II doesn't make you feel things you have no soul.
It sounds super out of place when the incident takes place. Changing it to a generic battle theme for that scene would sound better.
13:25 "Okay, I just don't understand"
Not sure what you don't understand tbh. The synthesized version has more present percussion, more audible bass, and the instruments are mixed to be in the front of the track as opposed to the orchestral version which is more spacial and has a heavy emphasis on reverb. Some of us grew up with 8-bit and 16-bit systems and have a fondness more classic video game aesthetics, and some prefer a live symphony. It's really not that deep.
Why does this video have so many dislikes? Is it because it calls DQ11's music bad? Is it because it calls Sugiyama a bad person and that's like, insulting DQ as a series in some way?
Or is there misinformation in here I"m not aware of. All in all it seems like a well put together video with decent information.
Actually just got to the part where you forced me to listen to Yoshi's New Island music so that's definitely worth hating. Reeeee
I'm not a fan of the way all sequenced music is referred to as "MIDI" in the video, but I don't think 4000 people are mad about it.
I was on board with this video until the "Yikes" chapter, because I can't get behind the idea that we should be scrutinizing a person's political views to determine whether their work is good or that we should be working with them as I think they leads to a fractious society and community. He can use his money in whatever stupid way he wants. This is especially annoying when you can make a perfectly strong case that its time to move on based on him insisting on lowering the quality of the product based on personal greed or based on the idea that his quality has gone down and so its time to move on. But instead it's gotta be about historical revisionism or sexual politics.
A lot of people were quick to defend Sugiyama. I get the impression that most of it was from non-DQ fans who got uncomfortable when the video got "political," since every actual DQ fan I've spoken to seems very frustrated with Sugiyama, to put it lightly.
@@2kano113 I think it's super valid to be frustrated with Sugiyama, because he's screwing over everyone who bought the PS4 version (including me) out of what seems to be simply greed. There are plenty of valid reasons to be mad at him as a result, and as such there's no need to go into his personal life.
@@valiantparagonvideos2383 Yeah, because his problematic political views are perfectly fine, since shitty personality traits from influential people with a worldwide audience have no bearing on anything whatsoever. Get out of here with this bullshit. If his "personal life" really didn't matter then the dislike would be lower. The only reason it's that high is because we have a lot of shit apologists like you crying foul anytime someone's called out for being a dick.
Sorry, EVERY time someone's called out for being a dick for racist, sexist, or homophobic reasons. No one's buying your bullshit rhetoric except other race apologists. Sugiyama can be a crappy creator AND human being. You're only mad because you care more about him fucking up the OST than him being a dick to an entire group of people for nationalistic and racist reasons.
I think the music is good, just repetitive as hell.
Well that's half the point. Laziness from the composer. Sugiyama didn't make any new compositions, and the ones he did are just average at best, and reused to a ridiculous level. It's a damn shame. They should of enlisted a new composer who could of injected some sonic magic. This is 2019, the score is just not good enough.
I absolutely hate how 99% of battle music is the exact damn same. Dq games are long too so that's alot of the same crap. I like ff7 music because it's always changing. Ahhh The Temple of the Ancients in ff7
I think the music is bad composition with cheesy horns and repetitive as hell
Julio Cesar exactly
I like your profile pic
Personally, I have just two remarks about the video, but I did appreciate all the work that went into making it.
Firstly, it's probably because I was taught how to play the violin at a very early age, but it is "the strings" that do get my attention when I notice how artificial they sound, much more than "the horns" or "the brasses" (sorry if I explained it poorly, English isn't my first language).
Secondly, I really can't agree with the use of the acronym MIDI when it's not MIDI... I kinda understand why the name got generally associated with the primitive sound capabilities of early machines, and the compilation of music albums "@MIDI" comes to mind, but I'd rather talk about chiptunes (like for the 8-bits & 16-bits era), modules/sample tracks (for many of the "non-audio-CD" 32-bits era) and full-sound audio for Red Book CD and "monolithic" audio files which are not "interpreted-as-a-sheet-of-music" by the machine but rather played "as is". The games I remember playing with MIDI music were mostly Lucas Arts or Sierra games, but if I had Japanese computers in the '90s, I would have probably been all over the amazing compositions that some of my favourite composers did back then.
Thank you anyway for having brought the subjects that were in the video, and I am very saddened by learning how Japanese revisionists are still very active even now.
Wishing you a very good end of the year and a very great new one.
Geez I agree that music are subpar but the amount of people that misunderstood what "Midi" mean in this comment sections are staggering. In an essence, midi is just digital music notes. It’s use to trigger samples. That’s it. There are no "Midi Sound" because it doesn’t have a sound in itself. Saying you hate Midi because its sound quality is bad doesn’t make any sense. It’s like saying that you hate using sheets in an orchestra performance because it sounds bad. See, does that make any sense?
The things that’s bad here is the samples that Sugiyama is using. It’s just pure low-quality garbage.
MIDI definitely has a sound. All general MIDI sets sound similar.
@@BigSnipp No, that is the sound of the General MIDI itself. GM is the standardized soundbank for MIDI. The “MIDI” doesn’t contain any sound. It only carried information for the sounds. Think of it as vector vs raster files. MIDI is like what vector is.
@@JayChokdee I've been producing since the 90s. This is down right insulting.
@@BigSnipp It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been producing. If you can’t distinguish between “MIDI” and “General MIDI” then you’ve misunderstood the term. That’s it. If you still gonna said that MIDI has a sound then try plugging your MIDI controllers directly into speaker (if you can even do it, no MIDI controllers have audio I/O port for a reason) and see if it makes any.
@@JayChokdee General MIDI has that classic, cheesy 80s synth tone to it. I know what MIDI is.
FF4’s “To The Moon” will always be known as Ballad of the Butts in my mind because of its horn section.
I don't get it, I was expecting some atrocious pieces of music, but when you played them I only thought, "this really isn't that bad, I still kinda like it". Obviously it's subjective, you can dislike the midi version of the soundtrack, that's fair. However, it was just such an overreaction to something that I felt _really_ didn't need it- be it played up for the sake of the video or otherwise, it just felt unnecessary. It's not that bad, I get that the horns may be relatively low in quality, but it comes across as rather snobbish from the video. It came across as a, "this soundtrack fucking sucks, it's _so_ bad, you must be brain-dead to enjoy it", kinda reaction, of course exaggerated- more than it already was anyways.
And yes, I get that it's all about Sugiyama and how he's the reason behind all of this, and I agree that he's a jackass. But over-exaggerating how bad the music is _purely_ because the samples aren't the best- almost as though it's torture to listen to- just irks me, again kinda sounds like, "We're forced to sit through horrendously shitty music and who's fault is it? HIS, it's *_HIS_* fault- if it weren't for him, we'd have _amazing_ music". It's not wrong to say any of this, because it's true that he's keeping us from just _having_ the orchestrated soundtrack, but the way that it's said (while not as exaggerated as I made it sound) was just too extreme to sound reasonable. Though the Switch is getting the Orchestrated soundtrack without having to resort to mods which is nice.
Basically, the difference isn't _that_ big, but I guess that it's just used to make a point. Then again, you can sound reasonable _while _*_also_* giving the same points.
I dunno, if you ever grew up with Dragon Quest XII, and have fond memories of that game, you also would have been massively disappointed when it wasn't orchestrated. What poured even more salt on the wound was the fact that it was created, but simply wasn't put on the disc. That music sounds better when orchestrated.
@@cartereckblad DQ 12?
@@frankwest6984 Oh goodness, sorry I mean VIII. 8 that is. My bad!
@@cartereckblad Oh ok! I wasn't sure if you meant VII and I was a bit confused because it was originally synthesized. Thanks for clarifying and sorry if I sounded smart-assy, I was half asleep lol.
@@cartereckblad VIII was only orchestrated in the western version, where they literally ripped it all from the Symphonic Suite CD. Thus, it sounds terrible in game, but great when listening to it from the actual CD itself. Arrangements are nice, but they rarely fit being played in the games themselves, especially in this case when every Symphonic Suite song has a terrible echo due to the means of recording.
God, speaking of the Resident Evil Dualshock Ver. Basement, the story of Mamoru Samuragochi, the deaf composer of RE Dualshock Ver. and Onimusha, who wasn't actually deaf, and Takashi Niigaki, the guy who actually wrote all his songs, is probably one of the most compelling video game composer histories.
Great video as always.
After how bad the Director’s Cut was, no one really questioned Samuragochi’s deafness until the truth came out, which is both sad and deeply hilarious.
The Dual Shock version of Resident Evil: Director's Cut actually has quite a few good tracks. Some that are even better than those in the original version such as the end credits music.
Buuuuuuut 99.9% of the people that ever criticize the Dual Shock version's soundtrack, they always specifically single out the basement track and never say a word about any of the other tracks on the OST.
that story has enough turns to be a video in and of itself
Nope. Nothing beats the butt rock ending theme in the original release of RE. It's one of the legitimate reasons I still play that game.
The ending theme of the original was pretty bland and boring. The only thing memorable are the gameplay snippets that play throughout. The Dual Shock version's ending thing sounds like you just finished a grand adventure.
This video really just seems like a "I hate MIDI" video with not much substance to it. A lot of people really do like the sound of those older consoles and soundfonts, so it's no surprise that Dragon Quest, the franchise most known for sticking to tradition, sticks with MIDI. Also, the SNES could use MIDI, but the NES couldn't. Those really old consoles like the NES and Master System couldn't use it. I also got a laugh at this person's attempt to cancel a 90 year old Japanese man for having antiquated views LOL. People in 50 years will probably do the same to you because you weren't a vegetarian, you "animal genocider." Any who, not a great video, 4/10. Thanks.
The video consists of made up issues. Yes he did believe in imperialism japanese politics but what do you expect from someone who was born in 1931.
I liked the “decent person award” for matsuo
did it get demonetized?
Shesez You working on a DQ video?
Hopefully , this video sux
@pancracio i wish i was
Shesez yeah man do DQVIII !
i kinda hope it did tbh
You know who always used nice horns, even for midi quality? Motoi Sakuraba!
Sakuraba is an underrated composer IMO. That man knows how to make a great battle theme.
@@starone1 Who's Sakuraba?
There's a difference between political beliefs and basic human rights. I can respect his work and legacy, but he's still a terrible human being. Good riddance.
I didn't watch the whole video. Can you sum up why he is a terrible human bean?
What basic human rights did he violate, or support the violation of? I'm assuming you've actually read/heard his words and aren't just basing "good riddance" off of what someone from a different culture that speaks a different language told you he thinks?
@@NikoofDeath shut up
@@hepzibahhez9965 he laughed at someone mentioning lgbt teen suicide and wants to downplay the nanjing massacre
@@Bcast64 I wouldn't believe anything coming out of the chinese government. I'd much rather take japan's word on things. Not condoning any massacres but it was a war. If the sides had been switched, we know what the chinese are capable of.
Are we in the Hayato Matsuo age yet?
It's clear you didn't even remotely do a research on what a MIDI file is and does.
I mean, people kinda expect you to do that for a 23 minute rant about bad sequenced music. Also, "NES uses MIDI"? Jesus Christ.
Yea i think the NES is older than midi itself.
Clabbone
@@VitoVitonerLanci fdq
@@VideosbySteve Midi is just a couple years older, both coming from the mid-80's, but NES did use a sound chip, not sounds represented standardized in a digital form. Midi is supposed to stand for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, so let us all remember it isn't just a term for general electronic sound technology.
I was coming to say this, thanks!
What has denying war crimes have to do with composing music? This makes him a bad person, but has literally nothing to do with his compositions.
Andreas Weber some people can’t separate the art from it’s creator
Same, I was very confused as to why it was brought up.
Like interesting information but not pertinent to the topic.
I think that his backwards views on Japanese society at large help explain his backwards views on his own music.
Andreas Weber that Sugiyama is using his wealth trying to erase war crimes from history. It's trying to show why he works like this with DQ by showing what a giant dick he is outside of DQ as well and how he's using his money he's earned from DQ in a dickish way. It's part of who he is and this video is all about the composer behind the music. It is important!
@@caseyizawa9305 go back to gab and leave the discussion to people who've figured out how to while their own ass.
Apparently the Switch version fixed the soundtrack, so that's good
Dragon quest 11 for the switch: now you don’t have to listen to our music, now you can listen to music from early 2000s
title seems clickbaity.
but "I stongly dislike the politics of dragon quests composer" wouldnt really get nearly as much attention for you would it?
Agreed. What a shitty video. This was made not to talk about DQ11's music, but to complain about Sugiyama.
Yeah I felt tricked.
+mrtiagosuper And when she did, she spread misinformation as "midi instruments"/"nes used midi" etc which are totally wrong in concept and fake facts period.
Kinda shows she didnt care as much about what was supposed to be the actual topic, and rather, the other stuff
Definitely.
Good thing most of the video talks about the music, or that might've been a more accurate title.
That ridiculous kitchen horn-track from *Resident Evil - Director's Cut: Dual-Shock Analog Version - Greatest Hits version* is the epitome of dumpy game music. Also typing out that games proper title+version as seen in your video was more of an undertaking than I thought it was going to be.
For the record, they re-released the Switch version of DQ11 for PS4 with the orchestral soundtrack.
I actually really like the sound of the "bad" horn samples at the end! It was fun and strange
One of them, The Legend of Kusakari, is intentionally bad.
@@NopeNaw I guessed that from the whole "Zelda parody" thing the art clearly represents.
Sugiyama is awful. Not an awful composer, not in the slightest. He's an awful person, and it's rare that I'd say that about someone.
+TheBottomTier Why ?
Alexandre Michaud because he hosted a political talk show in which he hosted a politician that had very negative views of Japan's LGBT community. Since Sugiyama politely nodded and continued the conversation instead of violently denouncing and kicking her off the show, he is now a bad person by association. You can fact check this on places like Wikipedia with their S-tier references such as "Anime News Network."
Alexandre Michaud what do you mean why? Did you watch the video?
i see then you deserve a free helicopter ride TheBottomTier
@@PepsiMan666 I like you leave out how he's an imperialist who denies Japanese war crimes. He literally signed a published statement denying the war crimes. I'm sure you'll either dismiss that as "fake news" like your idol Trump would or you also deny the war crimes committed by Imperial Japan
Im sorry, but this video just got unnecessarely personal real fast. Ok, "midi" (synthed) is worse than orquestrated, but why is it "so terrible"like the title calls it? Also no matter how bad is the man, what does what he do with him money have anything to do with his stand on copyright? If he spent the money on charity instead would anything change? This should had been a v-blog entry, not a past mortem. I love this channel to death, but this video guys...
I'd also like to mention two other composers who worked on the series and that I'd very much like returning: Kaoru Wada, who made the soundtrack for the Emblem of Roto prequel, and Manami Matsumae, who worked on Dragon Quest Swords and whose tunes were great as well and fitting for the series.
Dragon Quest swords has a very solid soundtrack for such a short game!
Problem isn't Midi, problem is sub-par music. Compare Skyward Sword's music with Twilight Princess's.
omg those midi horn songs at the end of the vid took 3 years of my life away.
I like your work but I'd honestly would've rather this video be honest and be named "The Politics of Dragon Quest's composer" because it's clearly what you wanted to talk about
Stop SJWs From Fighting should be the name of the channel. Grace is a total DNC NPC.
Afto Kinito - Can you say that in English or do your kind only know buzzwords and acronyms?
I think its quite ridiculous to say the quality of the synthesised soundtracks is 'bad' just because you don't like how it sounds. I like both versions of the soundtracks, but it rubs me the wrong way to see you saying its 'low quality' when its not, you just don't like how it sounds. Some people like how old video game synths sound, which is why they are sampled in loads of songs and used in some breakcore/chiptune music. I can't help but feel the decision to originally have the synthesised soundtrack in DQ11 was because the developers wanted the game to feel oldschool not only gameplay wise, but through audio as well (hence the use of synthesised sound effects still, which no one complains about by the way). The synths used in the original version of the soundtrack are not low quality, they don't need to be. The game isn't being made for the DS!
Everyone also seems to throw the word MIDI around, without knowing what it means. The devs could easily have composed an orchestral version of the soundtrack, literally using this so called 'MIDI' and most listeners wouldn't be able to tell if the instrumentation was created using recorded instruments or VSTs (MIDI instruments).
I've never been so glad to be a Uematsu fan
We are free with finally free to hear what Dragon Quest music with actually sound like
A quote I heard on a video analizing Dancing mad; something along the lines of: "It's like if dude painted the sistine chapel.. with crayola crayons"