Just wanted to say I really enjoy ya'll's content. I don't own any of the hardware or software most of the time that you talk about, yet I find myself listening. Just in case some day I am fortunate enough to have a Japanese Computer or a Neo Geo. The way that the information is given is very unconfrontational. Great info! Thanks again!
Great educational upload by you Alec. I'm going to keep this for reference for our members on the Neo-Geo thread for those that are interested on gaining knowledge for themselves if they ever come across concerns on them buying and distinguish the official carts to the fakes bro. I posted this up on post #28,419 for you to view. Always a pleasure to see you sharing your works with us bro. 8^) Anthony..
Oh, hey! I see me at 15 minutes. Wasn’t expecting that. :) I should probably point out that the spudgers will not scratch if you are careful about your placement (wedged between to widen the gap). Of course, you want good, clean, flat, spudgers with no pry marks or anything that would make the leading edge uneven.
Thanks for this awesome video! I spent an hour today opening my collection of 11 MVS carts, hoping that my Garou, Windjammers, and Baseball Stars 2 (the more expensive games I’ve bought) were authentic. Looks like they are! I did find 2 bootlegs in my pile, Puzzle Bobble and Aero Fighters 2, but everything else was legit and at least I am better informed now!
I'd add that you should do your research to find out if a game was MVS only or region locked. If a seller claims their AES copy of Breaker's Revenge is authentic you know right away they're lying.
Great vid. The first Neo Geo MVS game I bought was a copy of Metal Slug 3 at a retro store, and it worked just fine on my 1 slot board. A month later when trying to play it on my 4 slot board, the graphics were all glitched out. Turns out it was a boot leg. Yes I got my money back on the cart. The young clerk was surprised that repro games was a thing back then.
Seen a lot of Fatal Fury 3 carts converted to Puzzle Bobble. Remaining FF3 ROM chips were still there. Plus side is you can convert it back to FF3 with a few repair ROM chips.
The reason they say 068 on the chips in Puzzle Bobble probably isn’t a manufacturing error. I’m pretty sure it’s because that game used salvaged Power Spikes 2 cartridges and they did not bother removing the ROMs from unused banks. Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move is a relatively small game so they only needed a few ROMs/EPROMs. It was also produced by a third party, Taito, on a platform that had very few third party games at the time so getting it made at all was probably kind of an exception or deviation from the norm. I guess SNK over-produced Power Spikes 2 and so it was the ideal game to convert. They only had to remove a few ROMs per board. They probably knew from over-producing the MVS version of Power Spikes 2 not to over-produce the AES version so, consequently, there was no AES version of Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move.
That was my first thought as well, but there are only EPROM's for the M rom and P rom. The V, C, and S roms are all marked 068 or D96. The D96 roms are all in the final position. Not sure if there's a jumper setting for that or they did something special in the code, but assuming the 068 roms are just leftover, then the D96 roms and the EPROM's are for Puzzle Bobble. Interesting if true that SNK allowed Taito to make them.
So to support the theory that the D96 roms are the only thing used by Puzzle Bobble, I opened up the Neo Geo CD version, and yeah, the amount of data does look like it would fit into only the ones marked D96. Also, I compared the 068 roms to Power Spikes II, and they appear to be the same. Wish I hadn't called it a "manufacturing error" in the video. Oh well. No matter how thorough you try to be, this is what day one of posting a new video is all about. Thanks for the info!
@Magma MK-II Normally all third party cartridges were manufactured by SNK, including Power Spikes II from Video System/Taito. Puzzle Bobble is an exception.
At NeoGeo Japan we could use 70 different company's (depends on deal/cheapist/mvs request) to produce a cartridge. The only check we use in the office to test if its a product programmed by us and manufactured by MVS (different companys) is a composite lane test. Composite will be 100% the same in every board we've touched or made regardless of design or chips used. Hopefully you can spot our composite, takes years to make. And is the whole reason we produce via MVS. Any questions, just ask :)
Thank you for your video. So far today I've checked and cleaned 3 out of my twenty games. They are 💯% authentic. 😊 I even checked my japanese pulstar like yours.
Awesome video! I've always thought my Bust-A-Move cart was a bootleg since it has an EPROM and some of the chips say 068 for Power Spikes 2, but maybe it's real after all?
Hey guys! We referenced your channel on a video I put out a couple weeks ago. May I use a bit of this video for reference? We are talking about bootleg NeoGeo games and I'd love to point people back to your excellent channel. Thanks for considering.
@@BasementBrothers really appreciate that. It’s about 5 or so seconds of footage as b roll and you are credited both on screen and in the description. Thank you!
Yeah that's one of the things I really dislike when it comes to the people claiming they have a conversion and then you read the description and it states that it uses EPROMs. I really don't mind conversions as long as they're using legit parts because the chips themselves are literally identical on the two different boards. Would love to see some high-quality replacement artwork for both labels and inserts that probably say in very fine print on them that there reproductions.
I have a awesome Shock Troopers conversion cart. I opened it up and it looks all original. It has authentic chips and boards. It even passes the test on Neo Geo bios as all ok. I got it years ago from a guy from France it looks like he put alot of love into his work. I'm not ok with conversion carts I just have the one.
I really only started caring about bootlegs a decade or so into MVS collecting, and I was totally shocked at just how many of those cheapo carts actually turned out to be probably-legit. ...And then there was this one time I was specifically looking the boot--SVC chaos. 'Had to wade through those crap legit ones there 🤣
Good thing about eeproms is you can just rewrite them. I use to really not like the 161 because of the nonsense hacks and the difficulty stuck on the max for all the games which ruined the games.
Paused at 00:42 - i'd say Pulstar is fake, because its definitely a replacement label. Plus no one bothered to bootleg a golf game.... Pressing play again :D Edit: damnit.
Yeah, holo labels are of course a great indicator of authenticity. However, it's really inconsistent which carts have them. With the video already at 20 minutes, this didn't make the cut.
hmm my comment got removed? maybe cuz I put a url in it. Just wanted to point out CROMs always come in pairs. If a game has a C1 rom, it also has a C2 rom. The tiles are split in half and the halves are stored across the two roms.
i usually go by if its not an official mvs board its a bootleg. If its got eproms and not the ones that are used as repairs its a conversion cart. To anyone reading this there are sites that'll help tell you if its authentic or not. I personally love finding already converted cheap boards to make them into a different games and not sacrificing a good authentic one.
Sounds like you're talking about AES carts. I dunno... I think "conversions" were usually made with sacc'ed official parts back in the day. It's generous to call anything with inauthentic chips using sacc'ed boards anything more than a bootleg.
Im more about the mvs carts lol aes is just to out of my reach price wise. i figured that its just taking one game and making it another with use of the actual boards are conversions. Feels like there are slight differences from a full blown bootleg but at the end of the day its still not authentic snk mask roms / eproms.
Wait isnt there like a table over weight of legit carts in exact measures? I figure, if there are less chips it should be less total weight in grams. If original kof 2002 weighs exactly (say 1599 grams) any discrepancy should be perceived as fake? Fakes are usually = less chips.
You boys be quiet down there and listen to my comment, nobody would have ever liked basement Brothers if it wasn't for Neo Geo but you guys are trying to stray off from that like your AVGN or something so I'm just going to say good day do you sir unsub
It was never meant to be a Neo Geo channel. The Neo Geo series was just my contribution. One of the three brothers quit before posting his first video. -Neo-Alec
Apology accepted. It happens. By the way, you should check out my brother's Ys 2 & 3, and Legend of Heroes videos in PC-88 Paradise some time. They're really good. -Neo-Alec
This entire channel is a labor of love and it shows. Glad i stumbled across it.
Just wanted to say I really enjoy ya'll's content. I don't own any of the hardware or software most of the time that you talk about, yet I find myself listening. Just in case some day I am fortunate enough to have a Japanese Computer or a Neo Geo. The way that the information is given is very unconfrontational. Great info! Thanks again!
Great educational upload by you Alec. I'm going to keep this for reference for our members on the Neo-Geo thread for those that are interested on gaining knowledge for themselves if they ever come across concerns on them buying and distinguish the official carts to the fakes bro.
I posted this up on post #28,419 for you to view. Always a pleasure to see you sharing your works with us bro. 8^)
Anthony..
Oh, hey! I see me at 15 minutes. Wasn’t expecting that. :) I should probably point out that the spudgers will not scratch if you are careful about your placement (wedged between to widen the gap). Of course, you want good, clean, flat, spudgers with no pry marks or anything that would make the leading edge uneven.
Yeah, I agree with that, and trust your take on it. Thanks so much for your video.
Thanks for this awesome video! I spent an hour today opening my collection of 11 MVS carts, hoping that my Garou, Windjammers, and Baseball Stars 2 (the more expensive games I’ve bought) were authentic. Looks like they are! I did find 2 bootlegs in my pile, Puzzle Bobble and Aero Fighters 2, but everything else was legit and at least I am better informed now!
I’m glad you mentioned how SNK would occasionally use Eproms to make last minute changes to their official releases.
I'd add that you should do your research to find out if a game was MVS only or region locked. If a seller claims their AES copy of Breaker's Revenge is authentic you know right away they're lying.
Just a friendly correction - Neo-Geo games are Region Free, not Region Locked. This also applies to the Neo-Geo CD system.
@@worldofretrogameplay6963Neo Geo CD doesn't even check if the disc is a CD-R right
This video is such a great resource for collectors. Thanks a lot for making it!
Great vid. The first Neo Geo MVS game I bought was a copy of Metal Slug 3 at a retro store, and it worked just fine on my 1 slot board. A month later when trying to play it on my 4 slot board, the graphics were all glitched out. Turns out it was a boot leg. Yes I got my money back on the cart. The young clerk was surprised that repro games was a thing back then.
Excellent information here for anyone interested in Neo Geo collecting. Keep up the good work!
Seen a lot of Fatal Fury 3 carts converted to Puzzle Bobble. Remaining FF3 ROM chips were still there. Plus side is you can convert it back to FF3 with a few repair ROM chips.
Excellent guide =D
Thanks! That means a lot coming from you!
Great video as always man :)
Thank you for the video :) great work like always !!!
The reason they say 068 on the chips in Puzzle Bobble probably isn’t a manufacturing error. I’m pretty sure it’s because that game used salvaged Power Spikes 2 cartridges and they did not bother removing the ROMs from unused banks. Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move is a relatively small game so they only needed a few ROMs/EPROMs. It was also produced by a third party, Taito, on a platform that had very few third party games at the time so getting it made at all was probably kind of an exception or deviation from the norm.
I guess SNK over-produced Power Spikes 2 and so it was the ideal game to convert. They only had to remove a few ROMs per board. They probably knew from over-producing the MVS version of Power Spikes 2 not to over-produce the AES version so, consequently, there was no AES version of Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move.
That was my first thought as well, but there are only EPROM's for the M rom and P rom. The V, C, and S roms are all marked 068 or D96.
The D96 roms are all in the final position. Not sure if there's a jumper setting for that or they did something special in the code, but assuming the 068 roms are just leftover, then the D96 roms and the EPROM's are for Puzzle Bobble. Interesting if true that SNK allowed Taito to make them.
So to support the theory that the D96 roms are the only thing used by Puzzle Bobble, I opened up the Neo Geo CD version, and yeah, the amount of data does look like it would fit into only the ones marked D96. Also, I compared the 068 roms to Power Spikes II, and they appear to be the same.
Wish I hadn't called it a "manufacturing error" in the video. Oh well. No matter how thorough you try to be, this is what day one of posting a new video is all about. Thanks for the info!
Power Spikes II is also a third party game.
@@MagmaMKII You’re right! …and also a Taito game, which explains a bit more. :)
@Magma MK-II Normally all third party cartridges were manufactured by SNK, including Power Spikes II from Video System/Taito. Puzzle Bobble is an exception.
super useful, thanks!!
Thanks for the info! Im a new collector! This was a perfect primer!
At NeoGeo Japan we could use 70 different company's (depends on deal/cheapist/mvs request) to produce a cartridge. The only check we use in the office to test if its a product programmed by us and manufactured by MVS (different companys) is a composite lane test. Composite will be 100% the same in every board we've touched or made regardless of design or chips used. Hopefully you can spot our composite, takes years to make. And is the whole reason we produce via MVS. Any questions, just ask :)
Excellent video, thanks.
Thank you for your video. So far today I've checked and cleaned 3 out of my twenty games. They are 💯% authentic. 😊 I even checked my japanese pulstar like yours.
Very useful stuff, I am just getting ready to pick up some MVS donors.
this channel is F**king sweet
Awesome video! I've always thought my Bust-A-Move cart was a bootleg since it has an EPROM and some of the chips say 068 for Power Spikes 2, but maybe it's real after all?
Sounds real. Try comparing it to the scans of legit carts online. Thanks.
Hey guys! We referenced your channel on a video I put out a couple weeks ago. May I use a bit of this video for reference? We are talking about bootleg NeoGeo games and I'd love to point people back to your excellent channel. Thanks for considering.
Sure you can show clips and refer back to this, as long as you don't just pull a huge section out unedited. I'm glad you found this useful.
@@BasementBrothers really appreciate that. It’s about 5 or so seconds of footage as b roll and you are credited both on screen and in the description. Thank you!
Sounds great. You have my permission. Thanks for thinking of our channel.
@@BasementBrothers It's up tomorrow at 11PST
Yeah that's one of the things I really dislike when it comes to the people claiming they have a conversion and then you read the description and it states that it uses EPROMs.
I really don't mind conversions as long as they're using legit parts because the chips themselves are literally identical on the two different boards.
Would love to see some high-quality replacement artwork for both labels and inserts that probably say in very fine print on them that there reproductions.
I have a awesome Shock Troopers conversion cart. I opened it up and it looks all original. It has authentic chips and boards. It even passes the test on Neo Geo bios as all ok. I got it years ago from a guy from France it looks like he put alot of love into his work. I'm not ok with conversion carts I just have the one.
Didnt even think of picking up a bootleg "snk leftovers" cart before. May use one for Xeno Crisis as i missed the boat on the mvs physical edition
Any update on when can we expect the next Neo Geo Generation episode?
It's in progress. Since I just work on it in my spare time, I don't set any deadlines.
I really only started caring about bootlegs a decade or so into MVS collecting, and I was totally shocked at just how many of those cheapo carts actually turned out to be probably-legit. ...And then there was this one time I was specifically looking the boot--SVC chaos. 'Had to wade through those crap legit ones there 🤣
Awesome video. Thanks truly!
Good thing about eeproms is you can just rewrite them. I use to really not like the 161 because of the nonsense hacks and the difficulty stuck on the max for all the games which ruined the games.
Music from 2020 Super Baseball makes any video sound epic.
tokyo record japan on E are selling mvs to aes converts are they fake??
did someone buy any converts from them
I don't know, but most likely EPROM's. If they don't mention what it is, most just say "conversion" to get around the fact that it's a bootleg.
@@BasementBrothers yeah it must be .the game that i want it to get was
neo bomberman .. i send them a message didnt get a respond
Paused at 00:42 - i'd say Pulstar is fake, because its definitely a replacement label. Plus no one bothered to bootleg a golf game.... Pressing play again :D
Edit: damnit.
Neo Turf is my favorite NEOGEO game !! sad you can't see the quality of that game, specialy with friends
With the prevalence of bootleg chips nowadays I'd probably alcohol/acetone swab test all these chips.
Isn't that overkill? Did you learn nothing??? :^)
I was expecting to see some sort of comment on holo-labels on MVS carts.. Last I knew those were a sign of being authentic.
Yeah, holo labels are of course a great indicator of authenticity. However, it's really inconsistent which carts have them. With the video already at 20 minutes, this didn't make the cut.
hmm my comment got removed? maybe cuz I put a url in it. Just wanted to point out CROMs always come in pairs. If a game has a C1 rom, it also has a C2 rom. The tiles are split in half and the halves are stored across the two roms.
I didn't remove your comment. What was the link? Yeah, I was thinking that. Thanks for confirming.
@@BasementBrothers Yeah I think youtube sometimes auto removes comments if they think they are spam, and urls seem to trip that
By the way, do you plan on obtaining that Block Paradise cartridge which showed up on Twitter?
i usually go by if its not an official mvs board its a bootleg. If its got eproms and not the ones that are used as repairs its a conversion cart. To anyone reading this there are sites that'll help tell you if its authentic or not.
I personally love finding already converted cheap boards to make them into a different games and not sacrificing a good authentic one.
Sounds like you're talking about AES carts. I dunno... I think "conversions" were usually made with sacc'ed official parts back in the day. It's generous to call anything with inauthentic chips using sacc'ed boards anything more than a bootleg.
Im more about the mvs carts lol aes is just to out of my reach price wise. i figured that its just taking one game and making it another with use of the actual boards are conversions. Feels like there are slight differences from a full blown bootleg but at the end of the day its still not authentic snk mask roms / eproms.
Interesting video and I don't even have a neo geo👍
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching.
Same. Like this is great. I doubt I will ever have the amount of hardware or software these folks have but its super fun to learn about these things.
Thank you so much for this video. I recently purchased my first AES. Are the bootleg games as good quality? Apart from the wiring concerns?
No, the bootlegs are suspect.
Wait isnt there like a table over weight of legit carts in exact measures? I figure, if there are less chips it should be less total weight in grams. If original kof 2002 weighs exactly (say 1599 grams) any discrepancy should be perceived as fake?
Fakes are usually = less chips.
161 in 1 can damage my mvs?
I'm not sure if you should be super concerned about it, but yeah, it could.
@@BasementBrothers Screw it. Nothing lasts forever. Thank you for replying.
😎
Bootleg is fine as long as price and no damage to console
EE PEE ROM
EPROM
Like bootrom.
cool info, but you consistently mispronouncing "eprom" made my skin crawl.
You boys be quiet down there and listen to my comment, nobody would have ever liked basement Brothers if it wasn't for Neo Geo but you guys are trying to stray off from that like your AVGN or something so I'm just going to say good day do you sir unsub
It was never meant to be a Neo Geo channel. The Neo Geo series was just my contribution. One of the three brothers quit before posting his first video. -Neo-Alec
@@BasementBrothers I just want to apologize to you, because I was very drunk when I said what I said. I'm sorry dude.
Apology accepted. It happens. By the way, you should check out my brother's Ys 2 & 3, and Legend of Heroes videos in PC-88 Paradise some time. They're really good. -Neo-Alec
@@BasementBrothers yeah I will check it out for sure thank you for accepting my apologie.