Developer IQ_132 recently released his port of Data East’s arcade classic, Karnov to the Neo Geo MVS/AES and CD. As awesome as this is, this is not Karnov’s first outing on the Neo Geo. He was also the boss character in Karnov’s Revenge, the sequel to Data East’s Fighter’s History. A game that is infamous due to Capcom suing Data East for allegedly cloning Street Fighter 2, but enough of the history lesson, let’s get to the facts regarding this new port.
As with his prior conversions, which were discussed in this article, you will need to download IQ_132’s conversion script from this post and provide your own ROM file. The script will then output the appropriate files that can be used with MAME, MiSTer, original Neo Geo hardware, and the Neo Geo CD. The script does not create a .neo file for NeoSD carts, but one can be created with TerraOnion’s NeoBuilder tool.
IQ_132 included some notes about this port and future conversions as well as his thoughts about bootlegs based on his work:
Please note that I’ve included the ability to build AES/MVS ROMs (in MAME format) in this.
If I don’t see bootlegs pop up on Facebook market place or AliExpress in the next couple of months, I’ll go back and release POW and Chelnov for MVS too.There are couple of things I’m not happy with this one, but I don’t feel like working on it any longer:
1. On console mode, it requires hitting the select button to coin – it’d be nice to have free play.
2. Saving high scores to sram/memcard.
3. The music quality isn’t great (I suck at sound work).
After Karnov’s release, neo-geo.com forum members posted that the game works well on the Neo Geo MVS with Unibios although it should work on stock hardware as well.
It is also playable on the Neo Geo CD platform by burning a CD or through the Neo Geo CD SD Loader. AES users reported that the game seemed to run correctly, they were unable to insert a virtual coin through the select button to begin the game. Even with the AES Unibios set to Arcade, the game will not accept coin input. IQ_132 is aware of the issue and is investigating for a possible fix in the future.
As always, if you are interested in supporting devs who perform this type of work, IQ_132’s patreon page can be found here. The page also goes into great detail about how these conversions were achieved. It’s great info for any developers who might be interested in creating their own ports and conversions or just the technically curious.
