Koichi Sugiyama, composer of the lengthy-operating and immensely standard Dragon Quest franchise, has handed away at the age of 90. Confirmed in a tribute submit on the official Dragon Quest web site, Sugiyama died of septic shock on September 30, 2021.
While Dragon Quest has solely loved roughly a decade and a half of success in the west, due to the breakout hit that was Dragon Quest 8 on the PS2, the series has remained one in every of Japan's hottest for 35 years, and Sugiyama composed the rating for all eleven video games in the mainline Dragon Quest series.
Sugiyama's musical contributions to the Dragon Quest series are recognizably whimsical. The series' foremost theme particularly is so iconic that it was performed throughout the Tokyo Olympics 2020 opening ceremony amongst a number of different well-known gaming themes.
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Several loveable songs composed by Sugiyama have appeared all throughout the series, together with the charming menu theme and the sweeping orchestra that's Dragon Quest 8's overworld theme: Marching Through the Fields.
Koichi Sugiyama's closing contribution to the Dragon Quest series can be in the upcoming Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate, which is because of launch on Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4 and PC at an as of but unannounced date.
And whereas the idyllic, carefree melodies that fill the Dragon Quest worlds are actually amongst the series' most iconic tracks, it is exhausting to not bob your head to the series' quite a few battle themes. Dragon Quest 8's basic battle theme, War Cry, is maybe one in every of the extra effectively-identified items in Sugiyama's repertoire, thanks in no small half to its energetic salvo of trumpets and marching percussion.
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However, even a few of the series' earliest tracks sound like they have been written for a giant orchestra to carry out, as demonstrated by Dragon Quest 3's phenomenal Fighting Spirit, carried out right here by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
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A gifted man with controversial views
Unfortunately, Sugiyama's work has been tarnished by a few of the man's personal views on political and societal points. While he was undoubtedly musically gifted, his opinions typically landed him in sizzling water.
Sugiyama infamously denied the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, through which Japanese troopers murdered lots of of 1000's of Chinese troopers and civilians.
The man drew ire in 2018 when he co-hosted a program with anti-LGBT politician Mio Sugita, whose views embody axing the schooling of LGBT points in faculties throughout Japan.
Such views are troublesome to abdomen for many, they usually positively take one thing away from Sugiyama's catalog of undeniably unbelievable work. But it is exhausting to think about what the Dragon Quest series would sound like with out Sugiyama's work, as it lends the series a distinctly whimsical aptitude that completely matches its cartoonish aesthetic and bigger-than-life characters.
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