To honor the passing of the late Koichi Sugiyama™, I have started work on completed a new update (0.1.1). This version uses the new tools we have available to greatly increase the music variety present in the game. Over 160 songs are now present combining tracks from previous versions throughout.
The default orchestral music is also accessible at any time in-game by switching the 'Soundtrack' setting to 'Synthesized' in the 'Audio Settings' menu.
v0.1.2 is now complete and adds even more tracks (now approx 180 total) thanks to the incredible work of Demolinizer's Project IX Music Mod, as well as a number of QoL improvements and small adjustments.
I've only been able to squeeze in a relatively small sampling of the full Project IX experience, so please go check out the full thing if you like what's been added!
I wish I knew how to change the music. All I wanted was just to change the normal battle music to some BGM that I really like. Too bad it doesn't have a BGM folder with the songs so I can replace them more easily. :(
Thanks for the reply man! I gave up trying to change the BGM as soon as I saw the guide. It's not worth all that time to change just 1 BGM. If only there was a folder with files to change songs quickly like in YS VIII and IX. All I wanted was a Mana khemia 2 Battle theme song. So sad. :( Btw this Retro music mod is amazing. Thanks for the mod man! :D
Awesome mod. Almost gave up on the game with how insultingly bad the over world theme is. It should be mandatory to download this mod before you can launch the game
Mike question, does this outright replace all the tracks in the game or can i still experience the Vanilla soundtracks along side the retro tracks Because the single 1 battle theme is kinda driving me crazy, its a good track but at the point i am, i faught 2 boss battles and they have the same encounter track, but i dont wanna miss the unique towns music if there is some, does it shuffle the main battle theme? or how does it work?
The default orchestral music is also accessible at any time in-game by switching the 'Soundtrack' setting to 'Synthesized' in the 'Audio Settings' menu.
^Switch that setting and you'll be able to swap to the default tracks at any time.
This mod increases the # of music (BGM) references in the game -- I recommend looking at the documentation listed in the 'Articles' tab for all the details on every track used for each place / etc.
The quick tl;dr is that there's more flexibility when it comes to the games overworld tracks than the game's battle BGMs, as each overworld track has their own BGM entry in the table, but the battle BGMs are controlled by a single blueprint file. In many cases I modified the blueprints to allow for more music references in battle but they're typically limited to what point you're at in the game / etc since it still relies on a single table lookup. They're not going to be different for every single one as it doesn't allow for that. This is detailed at the bottom of the v0.1.3 article above:
Multiple Standard Battle Tracks:
Default: DQ8 Battle Theme --> plays anytime any of the below do not apply
Phenomenal mod. I tried two other music mods, but this one feels the best to me. Only issues I've had to far in ~10h of playtime with it is: 1) After engaging in a battle in Zwaardrust Region, walking to the Warrior's Rest Inn, and back out the gate into Zwaardrust Region, the battle theme will play in Zwaardrust Region (Daytime) 2) The BGM in Zwaardrust Region seems to frequently just break altogether after finishing a battle, leaving the region without any music at all until you exit and re-enter it, regardless of time of day 3) The music when Jasper summons the giant squid after boarding the Salty Stallion (Silvando's ship) for the first time when escaping Gondola is extremely quiet. This happened at nighttime for me.
The daytime battle music also loops a bit wonkily, but the overall quality of the rest of the soundtrack outweighs that minor gripe. Can't thank you enough for all your mods. You work on Project Rebuild and the Steam Deck tweaks take this game back to a straight 10/10 for me.
Is there any way I can test if it's actually loaded and working, because I don't think it is for me. Heliodor and downtown Heliodor has been playing the same track on loop.
Just wanted to let you know this mod single-handedly saved me from hating DQ11. The default overworld theme was so awful that I put down the game the first time I played but now with this mod and Project Rebuild it truly is the Definitive Edition.
The battle themes can get repetitive very fast due to many encounters geinding unlike other themes.
If ever possible can we make a shuffle list for battle themes; for example day battles have 3-4 different themes, night battles have 3-4 themes and rainy weathers too including oringinal dq xi battle theme etc...
I don't know if this possible but would be great addition in my opinion.
Or different sets of themes for each Act maybe? Or different sets of themes when enemy is ambushed or ambushed by an enemy? Perhaps when encountering metal enemies? All are just ideas that would be great,
I hear ya -- this has been explained before though. Even being able to edit the BGM table now, it appears that standard battles are pretty much hard-coded to only use one BGM ID (BGM_Battle).
Event and boss battles are the exception here, those have a lot more variety as a result. And pretty much everything else does now too.
The forced Act 3 overworld theme was possible to overcome in this latest update as I was able to edit the table such that certain game progress flags no longer triggered a BGM ID change for certain maps. However, I have no idea how to do this for battles since those don't work like overworld areas (they don't load a separate map, for example).
Edit: Out of pure curiosity (and determination), I have found the file that controls this (and a lot of the sound/music logic, for that matter). However, as I might have suspected, this one is extremely difficult to modify as it would actually require rewriting a lot of Blueprint ScriptBytecode.
It's my hope that I can get v0.1.3 up tomorrow. v0.1.3 will include a number of massive under-the-hood changes to the game's music scripting.
The trick that i've found for the battle theme (along with some others which are "hard-coded" like it) was to assign an arbitrary Map ID to them. I could swap the lookup call from "PlayfromBGMID" to "PlayfromMapID".
The map itself doesn't matter as it's just used as a reference for the BGMScenario table. This way I can assign certain flags to what BGM IDs are played. So, certain parts of the game will now play certain songs for the battle theme depending on where you're at.
Unfortunately, no matter which way I tried, I could not modify the function call for night themes. Normally, these tracks just use a boolean variable which is assigned based on the "/Temp/????" (/Temp/isNightTime) flag. 'Hard-coded" ones will simply have this set to "True" -- anytime I tried to add a variable in there, it would just cause the game to crash (due to accessing an invalid memory location).
I will tell you that overall, this took an insane amount of effort. Compiled ScriptBytecode is very low-level (reminds me a lot of CIL / MSIL, in fact) and so it is extremely finnicky about offsets. There's a specific, rather obscure tool by "Hunted", a member of the "Remnant: From the Ashes" modding community which made this even possible in the first place. To say that we are lucky to have this would be an understatement.
It's called simply 'Notes.exe' and it's linked on our Discord (under #de-tools) and may also be listed on our website (https://sites.google.com/view/dqxi-commands/tools), but I believe there's actually a slightly newer one now that's properly hosted on GitHub (renamed to "Hunted Editor") -- https://github.com/RemnantETS/AuriHellMod/tree/master/Hunted%20Editor
Thank you for making this mod! Love the Dragon Quest soundtracks, and having so many tunes to listen to makes a great game even better. Really appreciate your work.
I'm really glad to hear it. The amount of time it took to put the mod together was quite considerable. Each release takes a lot out of me, if i'm being honest (one reason why it took over a year for me to get around to the last update).
But I really do feel like the end result is worth it, and I'm very grateful for those that have picked up the mod and have good things to say.
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To honor the passing of the late Koichi Sugiyama™, I have
started work oncompleted a new update (0.1.1). This version uses the new tools we have available to greatly increase the music variety present in the game. Over 160 songs are now present combining tracks from previous versions throughout.The default orchestral music is also accessible at any time in-game by switching the 'Soundtrack' setting to 'Synthesized' in the 'Audio Settings' menu.
You can see more details in the track listing here
v0.1.2 is now complete and adds even more tracks (now approx 180 total) thanks to the incredible work of Demolinizer's Project IX Music Mod, as well as a number of QoL improvements and small adjustments.
I've only been able to squeeze in a relatively small sampling of the full Project IX experience, so please go check out the full thing if you like what's been added!
More details in the track listing here.
Edit (11/10/22): v0.1.3 is now up and makes even more improvements. Details at the bottom of the track listing page above.
You can change among the tracks I have added by using the options described above, or find another music mod in the "Audio" category here on Nexus -- https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxisdefinitiveedition/mods/categories/3
Because the single 1 battle theme is kinda driving me crazy, its a good track but at the point i am, i faught 2 boss battles and they have the same encounter track, but i dont wanna miss the unique towns music if there is some, does it shuffle the main battle theme? or how does it work?
^Switch that setting and you'll be able to swap to the default tracks at any time.
This mod increases the # of music (BGM) references in the game -- I recommend looking at the documentation listed in the 'Articles' tab for all the details on every track used for each place / etc.
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxisdefinitiveedition/articles/21
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxisdefinitiveedition/articles/16
The quick tl;dr is that there's more flexibility when it comes to the games overworld tracks than the game's battle BGMs, as each overworld track has their own BGM entry in the table, but the battle BGMs are controlled by a single blueprint file. In many cases I modified the blueprints to allow for more music references in battle but they're typically limited to what point you're at in the game / etc since it still relies on a single table lookup. They're not going to be different for every single one as it doesn't allow for that. This is detailed at the bottom of the v0.1.3 article above:
Only issues I've had to far in ~10h of playtime with it is:
1) After engaging in a battle in Zwaardrust Region, walking to the Warrior's Rest Inn, and back out the gate into Zwaardrust Region, the battle theme will play in Zwaardrust Region (Daytime)
2) The BGM in Zwaardrust Region seems to frequently just break altogether after finishing a battle, leaving the region without any music at all until you exit and re-enter it, regardless of time of day
3) The music when Jasper summons the giant squid after boarding the Salty Stallion (Silvando's ship) for the first time when escaping Gondola is extremely quiet. This happened at nighttime for me.
The daytime battle music also loops a bit wonkily, but the overall quality of the rest of the soundtrack outweighs that minor gripe.
Can't thank you enough for all your mods. You work on Project Rebuild and the Steam Deck tweaks take this game back to a straight 10/10 for me.
The battle themes can get repetitive very fast due to many encounters geinding unlike other themes.
If ever possible can we make a shuffle list for battle themes; for example day battles have 3-4 different themes, night battles have 3-4 themes and rainy weathers too including oringinal dq xi battle theme etc...
I don't know if this possible but would be great addition in my opinion.
Or different sets of themes for each Act maybe?
Or different sets of themes when enemy is ambushed or ambushed by an enemy?
Perhaps when encountering metal enemies?
All are just ideas that would be great,
Thank you kindly.
Event and boss battles are the exception here, those have a lot more variety as a result. And pretty much everything else does now too.
The forced Act 3 overworld theme was possible to overcome in this latest update as I was able to edit the table such that certain game progress flags no longer triggered a BGM ID change for certain maps. However, I have no idea how to do this for battles since those don't work like overworld areas (they don't load a separate map, for example).
Edit: Out of pure curiosity (and determination), I have found the file that controls this (and a lot of the sound/music logic, for that matter). However, as I might have suspected, this one is extremely difficult to modify as it would actually require rewriting a lot of Blueprint ScriptBytecode.
The trick that i've found for the battle theme (along with some others which are "hard-coded" like it) was to assign an arbitrary Map ID to them. I could swap the lookup call from "PlayfromBGMID" to "PlayfromMapID".
The map itself doesn't matter as it's just used as a reference for the BGMScenario table. This way I can assign certain flags to what BGM IDs are played. So, certain parts of the game will now play certain songs for the battle theme depending on where you're at.
Unfortunately, no matter which way I tried, I could not modify the function call for night themes. Normally, these tracks just use a boolean variable which is assigned based on the "/Temp/????" (/Temp/isNightTime) flag. 'Hard-coded" ones will simply have this set to "True" -- anytime I tried to add a variable in there, it would just cause the game to crash (due to accessing an invalid memory location).
I will tell you that overall, this took an insane amount of effort. Compiled ScriptBytecode is very low-level (reminds me a lot of CIL / MSIL, in fact) and so it is extremely finnicky about offsets. There's a specific, rather obscure tool by "Hunted", a member of the "Remnant: From the Ashes" modding community which made this even possible in the first place. To say that we are lucky to have this would be an understatement.
Just curious.
But I really do feel like the end result is worth it, and I'm very grateful for those that have picked up the mod and have good things to say.