Kizuna Project: Or, how an idiot like me managed to do a successful cart conversion...

Posted on April 29, 2002  (Updated on April 6, 2003)

Written by Tiptonium

Hello Everyone! Welcome to Tiptonium's Kizuna Encounter Super Tag Battle Project.  Here you will find my complete chronology of events that lead me to doing this project and its ultimate completion and success. J

It all started one day innocently enough as I was perusing through the neo-geo.com's message board when I came upon an article written by Big Bruno. (Click here to view the article). Big Bruno took it upon himself to create a helpful tutorial that described how to convert a Neo Geo MVS Kizuna Encounter cart into a Neo Geo AES Kizuna Encounter cart using a home cart version of Savage Reign as the  "sacrifice" cartridge, commonly known as a SAC cart for those in the Neo Geo world.  Basically, this involves moving the appropriate computer chips from the two MVS circuit boards to the corresponding SAC circuit board as well as moving some jumper settings.  At the end of Big Bruno's post he indicated that this could probably have been done using an SAC Samurai Shodown 2 AES home cartridge.  That's when the bells started going off in my head. I happened to have a tattered and abused Samaurai Shodown 2 cartridge I don't even have a manual for that I could use to pull off a similar conversion!

Why do we do such things? Well, one reason is that a genuine Kizuna Encounter AES cartridge can cost well over $900 due to its extremely limited release back in '96 and its high collector value.  The arcade MVS version can be found in varying condition for $25-$35. Since we are only interested in the chips, the external condition is irrelevant. Secondly, sometimes its fun to play the game while sitting in an easy chair on a big TV screen. Arcade cabinets are not well suited for reclined gaming.  And finally, the game looks cool as part of one's home collection.

So, I decided to take the plunge. I have some soldering ability as I have performed a few PSX and Saturn modifications as well as a few other soldering tasks involving electronic circuitry.  I already had the necessary tools and components so all I needed to do at this point was to supply the labor  --- yours truly.

Following Big Bruno's helpful guide, I removed the following chips from the MVS and AES PROGTOP  boards: V2, V4 and P1. Each chip on the board is well labeled both on the chip itself and on the circuit board itself.  This would become my first mistake.. Remember, I'm using a Samurai Showdown 2 SAC cart, not a Savage Reign cartridge. J

Next I removed these chips from the MVS and AES CHAR256 boards: C4, C3, M1 and S1.  This would be mistake number 2.  Are you keeping count? Hehehe.

Taking great care, I soldered the appropriate chips  onto the Samurai Shodown 2 SAC cart. Next I moved the appropriate jumpers. I based this on the chart below.

This would be my 3^rd mistake.  Hint. Note the red Y. I assumed that since the MVS cart only had jumpers 1-15 that I could just leave 16-20 as is on the SAC cart.  I should have paid more attention to Big Bruno's information!

Excitedly, I powered on my "new game."  It booted up! But some of the graphics were garbled. The title screen was all messed up.



Uh Oh. I checked the solder points. They were all good.  I began to wonder about the other chips, should I have moved those two. I remembered Big Bruno said that he chose a Savage Reign as the SAC cart since it would require fewer chip moves but I was unsure of myself.  So, I sent Big Bruno and Jeff Kurtz a "help me" email message. Jeff responded to my query and sure enough I needed to move all of the C chips (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8) and all of the V chips (C1, V2, V3, V4) since these were all part of the total package.  So converting using a Samurai Shodown 2 SAC Cart requires 8 more chip moves than the Savage Reign SAC conversion. So that is exactly what I did..Apparently, Savage Reign shares many of the chips used in Kizuna so not as many chips had to be moved.  

I fired up the game again and "almost" everything was working.  I say almost because 4 of the characters had garbled graphics. 6 were perfect. The configuration screen was spot on, but the attract animation was a mixed up mess.  Soooo... I fired off another email asking Jeff and Big Bruno if they thought that I was having a jumper problem. Jeff responded a short time later with a Yes to that question.  Which brings me back to my third mistake, Big Bruno had correctly specified that jumper 16 should be off. I still had it on. I removed jumper 16 and low and behold Kinuna Encounter play's perfectly on my home system! Amazing.

Here is the correct jumper conversion!

Wow! Just like Big Bruno's final jumper setting. I'm such a goof!

Click Here For a Close Up Look At The Converted Kizuna Encounter Circuit Boards (300KB IMage)

After playing several rounds I decided it was time to put the game down and work on some graphics for the label and the insert so that's how I spent the evening.  I printed them off and here are the results of that work:

Click Here For Insert                                                   Click Here For Label

I'd like to give my personal thanks to Big Bruno for making this project possible. I'd also like to thank Jeff Kurtz for his timely consulting to get through this fun little project despite myself! Both of you have taught me a great deal.

-- Tiptonium Out...