H30X-20014: J. B. Harold Sound Collection Scene 1

[Chris Porter]

For this album, Yoshihiko Miyazaki is credited as the composer. However, some tracks from J.B. Harold Murder Club are also on this album, Hudson CD•ROM² Complete Music Works [HCD-0011], however it says it's composed by Masahiro Sayama.

Does anyone know if that's a mistake, or if Sayama is actually just the arranger of those tracks, or if PC-Engine and MSX versions of the game had completely different soundtracks?

[Aifread]

A cursory look at the opening themes on Youtube suggests that the soundtracks are indeed different. If I had to guess, I'd say the Redbook tracks from the PCE version are probably all original pieces by Sayama while the PSG tracks are probably arranged from Miyazaki's initial score. The PCE version credits different studios for the CD and PSG music, so this may well be the case.

[CHz]

Aifread and I were looking into the music on this album, might as well post what we found here so it's not just languishing in a random Discord channel history.

This album solely credits Yoshihiko Miyazaki as the composer, and arranger Makoto Inoue's liner notes call him the 作曲者, which unambiguously points to musical composition and not the 構成 kind of composition. MobyGames has credits for the PC-88 versions of Manhattan Requiem and Kiss of Murder that both list Miyazaki for "music," but we've been unable to verify these credits exist; the games don't seem to have staff rolls, but it's possible the manuals have staff pages or something. The PC-Engine remake of Murder Club does have a staff roll, which credits Miyazaki with "sound" in the "original staff" section.

After leaving Riverhill Soft, Miyazaki founded althi Inc., which currently owns the rights to the J.B. Harold games and has published remakes of them for DS, mobile, and Switch. We've found the staff rolls for at least one remake of all four games, and every single one we've found has listed one or more people for "music" or "sound" and then Remay Minamihata for "original music," not Miyazaki. Likewise, althi published the PC-98 soundtrack for D.C. Connection, and while that iTunes entry is dead and not archived, I'm all but certain that Minamihata was the only credited artist on that album.

We don't currently know which is correct.

[Aifread]

Fixed the platforms represented after comparing the album to rips and gameplay videos. Murder Club, Manhattan Requiem, and Kiss of Murder are all sourced from the X68000 versions while the the two DC Connection tracks are PC-98 recordings. Can add this one to the very short list of physical X68000 soundtracks.