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C Great Disappointments: Karnov's Ending

Rob Hamilton Profile _ Twitter _ E-mail _ Homepage

I don't know how the general public viewed NES platformer Karnov and I really don't care. I had hours upon hours of fun with the game — to the point where I can say WITH PRIDE that for an extended period of time, I was a true Karnov Grand Master. I simply had a blast controlling a fat, fire-breathing circus strongman as he fought an eclectic group of monsters such as that wacky fish-dude shown in the above picture. Karnov would fight through cities, a pyramid, underwater and up in the air (I hope you saved a good number of wings, so you can fly). After beating a three-headed dragon in the final stage, the game is over. So, what do you get for a reward? A lengthy ending extolling the heroic deeds of Karnov? A long list of credits ending with a "thank you" message from the designers? Or the words CONGRATULATIONS!! THE END staring at you from a plain, black screen while a happy little tune endlessly plays? Yep, the latter and nothing but the latter. Quite the demoralizing way to conclude a game. Both Nintendo of America and Data East are probably equally deserving of blame for this lazy, lackluster excuse for an ending. By doing a little research (thank you vgmuseum.com), it's possible to find out that the Japanese version of Karnov has three different endings. All three start the same way: "Having vanquished Alakatai, Karnov returned to Heaven. And God said unto him..." Uh-oh, that's a religious reference. NoA didn't like those and went to pains to eliminate them from games...even to the point they'd even change the names of AD&D spells in Pool of Radiance because "Bless" and "Prayer" are just too distressing for public consumption. But, still, couldn't something have been used as a replacement? Instead of pulling the ending completely and replacing it with a generic "congrats" screen? It's the sort of thing that makes it look like Data East was perfectly content to port the game over to America as quickly and effort-free as possible. I'm not asking for the world or anything, but even some message like, "And with the vast amounts of treasure Karnov obtained, he was finally able to buy a shirt. The End." would have been a dramatic improvement. That was one of the problems back in the day. A lot of story-related stuff was cut out because either it was censored by NoA or due to a system's memory constraints (English text takes up more space than kanji), so players like me suffered. We got to play RPGs with horrid translations such as Breath of Fire 2 and Robotech AND we got the entire plot of games like Karnov scrapped and replaced by...nothing. From looking at the endings to the Japanese game, Karnov apparently was given the mission to kill the dragon as a divine warrior. Depending on which ending you get, he either becomes the God of War, a guard of heaven or a human laborer (receiving a shirt no matter what). With all of that cut from the game, he became a treasure-hunting strongman (as told either in the instructions or the back of the box) with no purpose. And, after beating the dragon, a disappointment.

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