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[Ultimate_Trainer]

I bought this board back in March last year. It was the first time I have come across a Dev board for sale that actually had the flash cards included. Looking at the auction I knew I could at least dump the 2 eproms that were on the board and I was immediately worried about the 2 Adtek SRAM cards. If this board was from the 90s, there was a high likelyhood that the batteries were dead (but more on that later). The Panasonic cards are Linear Flash and I was pretty confident that the data would be in tact if I could figure out how to dump them.

There are 12 characters, though several are still very rougly drawn or unshaded. Some dont have hitboxes and some are missing frames of animation. The ones who are complete and very nice. It looks like it would have been a very interesting fighting game. Each character looks to have 3 classes:

Chaotic
Neutral
Lawful

And depending on what class you pick your character's speed, stance, special moves, and special bar change. Even the character's win screen sprite changes depending on the class. Two characters have animal companions who can be used in attacks. The bosses are not selectable, but I managed to get their win poses a few times and (kind of) pulled out their sprites while I was messing with the C roms. I'm sure someone will be able to get good rips of them, that's just beyond my knowledge.

Link

A really interesting looking fighting game with a cool cast of characters. Neutral/Law/Chaos is a neat idea for the different types of playstyles/schisms.

Thanks Pepsiman on Twitter!

 

[Glowsquid]

I thought this thread was gonna be about the recently-dumped Last Resort proto but holyyyyyy shit, this is great!

 

[TreIII]

How interesting...things like this will never cease to intrigue me.

 

[Phoenixazure]

Holy crap. Is there anything that gives any informaiton on the potental developers or when the prototype was made? It looks like a DnD based fighting game, which also reminds me of Sam Sho's Slash/Burst mode resulting in alternate versions of characters.

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

That's amazing, I wonder what other lost treasures SNK have in their vaults...or if it's all just lost by this point after so many mergers, acquisitions and changes of direction.

 

[DrFunk]

This is so awesome

 

[doctorcdcs]

Wow this is great!

 

[Ultimate_Trainer]

It looks like a D&D fighting game? Is there no title for this?

From the link, there seems to be no title shown since it just cuts to the character select screen

 

[mollipen]

Saw Jeremy Parish mention this on Twitter. As a longtime Neo fan, this is so crazy and exciting. Can't wait until I get the chance to try it out.

 

[Glowsquid]

That's amazing, I wonder what other lost treasures SNK have in their vaults

Fun fax: The Virtual Console and Humble Bundle releases of Ironclad/ Brikin'ger are not the original Neo Geo CD version, but rather an unreleased cartridge prototype nobody had access to until SNK released it on the VC.

 

[RoryDropkick]

So glad this has finally been released to the public!

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Nvm.

 

[RoryDropkick]

I wish this had made it to production, this could have been an awesome game.

 

[TheSpoiler]

I love that concept of the alignment being a determiner for movesets and the actual "type" of character. MKX does this with the variations, and you can play SFV characters in different formats, but this goes far and beyond.

 

[dallow_bg]

I love stories like this. Wish we knew more.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

That's pretty awesome! I want to see video.

 

[Augemitbutter]

this is cool. love good old NG aesthetics. vid pls.

 

[CadetMahoney]

Chaotic Evil > Your fave.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

These are people doin' the Lawd's Work here.

I love that concept of the alignment being a determiner for movesets and the actual "type" of character. MKX does this with the variations, and you can play SFV characters in different formats, but this goes far and beyond.

CHIVALRY OR TREACHERY!

 

[ThatsMytrunks]

Their thread title says released, but I don't see a binary anywhere. I'd love to look through it myself, and I imagine some people would find some pretty neat stuff hidden in there.

 

[Soltype]

That dude on the right is giving me strong Treasure vibes.Very cool find.

 

[xzeldax3]

I always imagined a Shin Megami Tensei fighting game that would have characters spanning the series and sorting fighters by Law, Chaos, and Neutral. So this looks pretty awesome.

P4 Arena basically made that dream come true though, even if it only covers Persona stuff.

 

[SatoAilDarko]

So based on the colors and relative detail of the sprites I feel this is a late 90's early 2000's release? I could be way off. Then again Waku Waku 7 was mid 90's.

I wish stuff like that was on the Wii Virtual Console. The US selection is limited because only US home releases were used, Waku Waku 7 didn't have a home release in America but did in Japan so Japan got it on their VC.

Also since SNK went basically in chronological order to release all their games Sengoku 3/2001 was the most recent game other than Metal Slug 4, Sengoku 3 was released in 2013 on VC. So you don't have stuff like Rage of the Dragons or Matrimelee.

In fact these sprites resemble those of Noise Factory developers of those late Neo Geo games. Wonder if they're behind it?

KOF stopped at '99 and Fatal Fury stopped at Real Bout Fatal Fury 2. At least Last Blade 2 was released.

There's something really nice about a roster that stays around 20 and below.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

Wonder who developed this?

I always imagined a Shin Megami Tensei fighting game that would have characters spanning the series and sorting fighters by Law, Chaos, and Neutral. So this looks pretty awesome.

P4 Arena basically made that dream come true though, even if it only covers Persona stuff.

Persona Arena doesn't have Law, Chaos or Neutral, though.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Oh man

Do want

 

[PantsuJo]

I bet that the game was developed from Tecnos.

Btw, too bad the sound is lost

 

[CharminUltra]

Those characters remind me a little of Dragonlance.

 

[Ultimate_Trainer]

I bet that the game was developed from Tecnos.

Btw, too bad the sound is lost

Yeah people around have been speculating that it is. The dates on the card are apparently coincide with the year that they went bankrupt.

 

[Mattlikewhoa]

I bet that the game was developed from Tecnos.

Btw, too bad the sound is lost

This makes a lot of sense... I bet you're correct.

This title looked like it was going to be AWESOME!

 

[abstract alien]

That's pretty awesome. Definitely reminds me of Mortal Kombat with the three style choices.

 

[LeleSocho]

Sounds a very neat game shame it didn't see the light.
Interesting watching the incomplete sprites.

 

[entremet]

Weird use of spoilers in the link to that forum, but Neo fans are some of the most hardcore.

 

[akilshohen]

Crazy we never heard anything about this before. Well drawn too.

 

[Raticus79]

Those characters remind me a little of Dragonlance.

Knight of the Rose on the right?

 

[Red Liquorice]

Very cool.

 

[Raitaro]

Very cool.

.

(Sorry, not much to add to this except perhaps that I'd really wish someone would finish this game so that we can play the full thing.)

 

[Fersis]

The art style reminds of Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer which was hella wesome

 

[cuilan]

.

(Sorry, not nuch to add to this except perhaps that I'd really wish someone would finish this game so that we can play the full thing.)

Unfortunately, it seems like the game is much too incomplete for anyone to finish it, especially now with Technos long gone.

 

[leroidys]

That looks really cool. Makes me think of a western European equivalent of SamSho.

 

[Seishin]

Wow, this looks really cool.

I hope some information is uncovered regarding it - though it may take quite a bit of digging around.

Kinda sad that they got so far into development and the game never got finished though...

 

[ponpo]

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/a-mysterious-neo-geo-prototype-hits-the-web

More info. photos, and videos of it in action

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxQg5N9cw1U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etFKR0BXO-U

In the short term, we can likely expect the mystery of the game's identity to resolve itself. While the ROM's finders were unable to find any similar-looking games previewed in Neo-Geo-specific magazines, several people have speculated the game might have been Technos' Death Match. According to @ChristopherRasa on Twitter and the Neo Geo master list, Death Match was rumored in about 1994 and may have been set aside until after Technos completed Double Dragon and Gowcaiser in 1995. A second possibility, given the Gowcaiser label on the ROM, is that this could be the skeleton of Technos' other rumored/incomplete title, a presumed Gowcaiser follow-up called High Voltage 12+1.

 

[Englebert3rd]

You would've expect for every prototype to be unearthed in the Internet age, but there we are. Another prototype popped up.
I'm glad there are still this stuff to discover.
I'll give it a try!

 

[7DollarHagane]

This happened at the show I was at this weekend. So much good stuff happened there!

 

[sixteen-bit]

when they gonna leak Garou 2 tho?

 

[WarRock]

Awesome stuff. Hope someone from the development team appears soon.

 

[leroidys]

when they gonna leak Garou 2 tho?

I realllllllllllly wish they had made a Garou 2 circa 2000. That game had such a great core but just wasn't quite developed enough IMHO. I can't even imagine how often a 'third strike' iteration of Garou would have been.

 

[Pouh]

Technical bits from Razoola :

« – This proto is 100% based on voltage fighter.
The game init code routines are identical.
Its possible to get an almost identical DEV mode to trigger in voltage fighter. On spinning neogeo logo enter unibios ingame menu and set debug dip 2-8, exit ingame menu. DEV mode menu will appear once spinning logo has completed.
– There appears to be no Attract mode coded but I cannot confirm this 100% yet. I need to look more before I can confirm that with certainty.
– There appears to be no Title page coded but I cannot confirm this 100% yet. I need to look more before I can confirm that with certainty.
– DEV MODE is hard coded to trigger on attract mode start but can be NOP’d out, three NOPS from address 0x6B6C to remove the JMP opcode there.

Once NOP’d out game will boot with no DEV mode and instantly goto a blank screen with just ’00’ displayed (titlepage with incorrect timer due to no credit). Once you insert a coin this will count down from 30. If you press start you get to the character select screen. Crediting for 1 or 2 player game seems correctly supported.
There appears to be no AI and thus I’m not sure if game over is correctly supported, there appears to be no level end timer.
I think I would be right in saying there is a game in the very early stages of development. It seems to be using the Voltage Fighter game engine.

—
What you have seems so much in the initial stages of development that its possible there was no M1 ROM created yet. This has got to be the rarest of the rare prototypes. So early it was not even assigned a NGH number. Got to be the find of the century.
—
In my view this proto is so early in development (post voltage fighter or near completion) that it was not ready for submission to SNK to have a number assigned. You could almost say its possible the artists had finished voltage fighter and started drawing more characters for a new fighter (they had a story line outlined) while the programmers tidied up voltage fighter and removed the final bugs. The bosses probably did not want them in the office twiddling their thumbs. »

 

[katsubento]

Amazing. It looks really cool as well.

 

[Shinriji]

Amazing find. So probably a Technos game, but the video kinda remind me of an early Spectral vs Generation.

 

[djtiesto]

I love these kinds of finds... watched some of the videos on USGamer and the sprite effects for the backgrounds were lovely (especially the lens flare and the cloud scrolling).