Kizuna Encounter

I'm currently writing an article about rare games and I am want to put this title in. The European version of course. The one that has sold for over $10k on eBay.

Question is... why are there so few copies? I take it that it wasn't a proper commercial release (ie. you could buy it from the shops) and that it slipped out somehow into some peoples' hands? Or were they demo/test carts produced to see how the game would run in Europe?

So any information would be useful. And a link to a couple of good shots of the box and cart itself would be nice. Thanks

Mayhem said:

I'm currently writing an article about rare games and I am want to put this title in. The European version of course. The one that has sold for over $10k on eBay.

Question is... why are there so few copies? I take it that it wasn't a proper commercial release (ie. you could buy it from the shops) and that it slipped out somehow into some peoples' hands? Or were they demo/test carts produced to see how the game would run in Europe?

So any information would be useful. And a link to a couple of good shots of the box and cart itself would be nice. Thanks

Click to expand...

There are so few cause I believe this was pulled from the market and most were made back to JP versions.
Only a few escaped this fate though. I may be wrong, I read this a long time ago.

Good luck with your article. But I have to say, I'm always disappointed when I see a topic for Kizuna, look inside, and see people only talking about how rare the Euro homecart is, or how much it's worth...rather than talking about the game itself. It's kind of a shame, because it's a fun game.

Not your fault; I just had to get that out.

If I remember well, some copies were put on sale by some European distributors, but almost none of them got sold (I think 4 so far that we know of). The rest of them were sent back to Japan, were they reconverted (by changing the label/insert as the carts are always the same) to Japanese versions.

You could try search to fins threads about this, if it works.

EDIT: Found one of the old ones: http://www.neo-geo.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001207

SouthtownKid said:

Good luck with your article. But I have to say, I'm always disappointed when I see a topic for Kizuna, look inside, and see people only talking about how rare the Euro homecart is, or how much it's worth...rather than talking about the game itself. It's kind of a shame, because it's a fun game.

Not your fault; I just had to get that out.

Click to expand...

Totally agree, I own the JAP AES version. I did, initially buy it for collectors purposes, but the first time I actually played it, I was hooked for hours. Although pricey, for me, this is one of my favourite fighters on the Neo and if gamers dont mind splashing out a bit with their cash, this should certainly by owned by many, especially as it was the frist official team-tag fighter!

Tbh I have actually played the game and found it fun as well (flatmate whilst at uni had a NeoGeo!). So it is the sort of thing I will mention in my article, it isn't solely about the 1337 rar3n355 now

I presuming for obvious reasons, there are no unwatermarked images out there? Even if there were, I'd still submit them to the magazine I'm doing the article for with some sort of watermarked proofing to avoid people copying them, just less blatent than the one above!

Kizuna isn't that good in versus mode... great game anyway.

Amano Jacu said:

If I remember well, some copies were put on sale by some European distributors, but almost none of them got sold (I think 4 so far that we know of). The rest of them were sent back to Japan, were they reconverted (by changing the label/insert as the carts are always the same) to Japanese versions.

You could try search to fins threads about this, if it works.

EDIT: Found one of the old ones: http://www.neo-geo.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001207

Click to expand...

Recycled into Samurai Shodown IV is the most common belief.

I really wanted to buy it after reading the GameFan preview in math class back in grade 9 I remember. So much for that, couldn't find anywhere selling it and was off-line then.

More to the point, another factor is the time period, 1996. More games than any other year, all just as expensive as the other. Gamers could not afford the continuing stream of carts and pre-orders were not what they would have been otherwise. Plus with games like KOF '96, SFA2 etc. dominating the arcades this one naturally had a smaller fanbase. The price fiasco still could have been avoided except that the Saturn port got canned in the end, as did the Neo CD one. So there you go. One juggle-crazy game with some amazing combos and lots of other attractive features put out of most peoples' reach since always really.

I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that this game was ever "sent back to Japan" or "recycled." To me, this has always been pure theorization. And somewhat unprecedented, I might add - normally, JAPANESE games were recycled to make English versions, and when that happened, SNK ALWAYS just slapped a English cart sticker right on top of the Japanese one.

So, anyone have a SS4 or Japanese Kizuna with an English sticker underneath?

Geddon_jt said:

So, anyone have a SS4 or Japanese Kizuna with an English sticker underneath?

Click to expand...

I am hardly asserting the theory as factual but it seems just as unrealistic to find so few numbers of a video game floating around these days that likely never would have been produced in a sub-500~1000 quantity. Maybe even 300 at the lowest?, but that seems a stretch. Of course there are infinately more owners off-line than on and only so much of the global market's stock is thus accessible etc. but I digress. Then again I am speculating myself. We can essentially believe whatever we want about this and minus irrationality nobody will likely ever be proven wrong.

....meh, should have kept it.

Kusanagi-sama' said:

....meh, should have kept it.

Click to expand...

If that cart were in my possesion, it would have been sold long before you got rid of it.

This question is best answered by Simone I think. As owner one of the 4 confirmed copies and also someone that has made the Kizuna story a personal cause, he has some interesting info and theories about it.

One thing to note is that most of the copies are known to have gone through Australia as K-S above knows. Can't remember the reason for this.

Also, I'd say that the theory that is more obvious is that the carts weren't recycled into new japanese Kizuna carts, but into other carts like SSIV as mentioned above. It is very common to find MVS kits from 1996 that were processed into other titles altogether. I have a Ragnagard kit where the box label is on top of a Ninja Master's label and the cart is labelled over a Savage Reign. Don't forget how popular SSIV was at this time as were Metal Slug, Turf Masters, KoF96, etc.

Imagine walking into a game store in 1996 and looking at the titles to choose from. You're going to buy multiple $200 carts? No, you buy SSIV since SSII was freaking awesome. Or you buy the awesome Metal Slug you played in the arcade. Or you loved the gameplay of Turfmasters. Note that the arcade industry was still really big in '96 and that no doubt influenced a lot of purchases. Kizuna is not only a rare AES cart but a very rare MVS cart by comparison with other titles from that time. Arcade ops weren't buying it so not many people got to play it, just like Ninja Master's. Less exposure = less demand for the homecart.

Given, this is an EXTREME supply/demand/timing case. Obviously there has to be more than 4 carts in existence still. BUT, Mr. Mayhem, there are guaranteed to be fewer Kizuna carts than Pocket Reversi complete carts, which undoubtedly suffered the same fate of return and reprocess.