[Vert1]

Here are some indicators I use:

(1) Certain artists/game series
-Yuzo Koshiro, Shoji Meguro, (add your own here that are consistently good).
(2) Longer than average track durations
-Idea here is that more effort was put into the track and that it is fully fleshed out, i.e. Motoi Sakuraba's "Beyond the Beyond"
(3) Piano album
-I have yet to hear a bad piano vgm album--yea, most these guys start off playing the piano.
(4) Number of tracks
-The less tracks, the less filler. Tales of Symphonia 2 suffers terribly from this. I'd rather have 1 cd with great tracks every track than 5 cds with a small amount of good tracks scattered throughout.
(5) Vinyl release??
-I find that in music in general vinyl releases can be expected to be better albums/releases than cds (who wants to press shit vinyls compared to 1cent cds).

That's all I can think of right now. I was thinking that (2) and (3) are more attributed to arrange albums. I only got serious about collecting vgm in 2007, so I'm sure there are much better indicators from our vgm vets.