Karnov
- $12.99
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The cartridge or disc on its own, cleaned and tested — no box or manual. Game condition guide →
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Item Condition
Game only: the cartridge in a protective holder, no box or manual. Look over the photos for condition, packaging and details. Every cartridge's shell, label and board are checked for authenticity when it comes into the store, and it's tested before it's listed. It ships in a collector's bag or a hard plastic case.
Item Description
Few NES heroes look less like a hero than Karnov. He is Jinborov Karnovski, a fire-breathing former circus strongman with a barrel chest and no interest in subtlety, and he stomps through nine levels of monsters in search of the ultimate treasure. Data East's arcade oddity made the jump to the NES with all of that personality intact, and its sheer strangeness is exactly why it has kept a cult following among NES players for decades.
Every level ends with one or more bosses, and each victory earns a piece of the treasure map that leads Karnov onward. In between, he collects red orbs that build his flame breath up to three fireballs at once, plus a stash of items he carries and deploys when he needs them, from ladders that reach high ledges to wings for flight. The NES version adds its own tools, including a Spike Bomb that wipes out every enemy on screen and a Shield that reflects incoming fireballs. Figuring out which item solves which obstacle, and saving the right one for the right moment, gives the action a puzzle-solving layer most platformers of the era didn't bother with.
The enemy roster is gloriously unhinged: sword-wielding monks, dinosaurs, djinn, hopping fish men, gargoyles, tree monsters, rock creatures, centipede women and skeleton warriors riding ostriches. The NES release isn't a straight copy of the arcade, either. Karnov can now take two hits, turning blue after the first until he grabs a blue orb to recover, levels 4 and 8 were redesigned entirely, and the arcade's final Wizard gives way to a giant three-headed dragon.
Karnov also became a kind of unofficial mascot for Data East. He shows up as the first boss in Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja, as the final opponent in Fighter's History, and as a playable fighter in Karnov's Revenge, with cameos in games like Tumblepop. Playing his own NES adventure is a chance to meet the strongman at the source, in a stubborn, inventive action game that still feels like nothing else on the console.
Fast factsgame data via IGDB
- Released
- 1987
- Publisher
- Data East
- Genre
- Shooter, Platformer
- Players
- Single player
About the game
The NES port of Karnov. In the game, players take control of the title character Jinborov Karnovski, or "Karnov" for short. Karnov is a strongman popularly illustrated as being from an unspecified part of the Soviet Union's Central Asian republics as shown on the original arcade flyer and again in Karnov's Revenge.
Summary from the IGDB community database — the condition and contents of this listing are described above and in the photos.
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NES
Karnov
$12.99
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NES
Karnov
$12.99
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