Legend of Heroes Piano Collection

I was perusing Falcom's website one night and saw they had Real Audio files. I saw one for "The Legend of Heroes Piano Collection" and clicked on it, not expecting to be impressed. Let's face it, most piano collections are not that great, especially if you compare them to their symphonic counterparts.

Not only was I impressed, but I instantly knew I had to get it! Even if the other songs sucked (which they probably wouldn't), this one was too cool! It was a jazz piano song, and I loved it. They had a wav file for download, and eventually I downloaded it and it was a nice, peaceful song. Oh yeah, I was gonna love this one.

About six weeks later, the CD finally arrived and I see in the liner notes "Win 95." Windows 95?? I put it in my CD player and track 1 was not a data track. Hmmm... I put it in Windows 95 and went to Explorer and there was a Start95.exe there! Huh??

It turns out that they made a Macromedia presentation! There are about 60 bitmaps, a jukebox so you can listen to the CD while pictures fly by, and even previews of other Falcom CDs!! They also have a MIDI of every song on the CD, perfect note for note (except the jazz one, as jazz is different every time you play it.) And the first track is not a data track. Cool.

This is quite frankly, the best piano collection I have ever heard. Nine of the songs are piano and only piano (the other one is the jazz one which needed other instruments), and a variety of music styles are represented: jazz, blues/gospel, and classical. If you like piano, then you'll love this CD!