Around the temp you're seeing many many threads of all that "Creepy Pokemon Black" or "Pokemon Red kills kids" and stuff.
Well I wanna discuss them here. Now I've been researching about all those and read some very, very creepy stuff.
Example:
Now about that story. Someone please tell me this isn't true. If it is, I don't think I'm ever gonna look at Pokemon the same way again. And I'm a HUGE pokemon fan. Being a fan is something I don't wanna lose. I was checking this stuff on google. It doesn't seem like a very famous story. I decided to go on YouTube and look for any video perhaps related to those carts that kill people. Found nothing. It's creepy. Please confirm that this is fake as it kind of puts me in a bad mood. I'm very gullible and sensitive. I hate this kind of talk and crap. I kept shivering as I read it.
Now about that story... Umm which one was it?
Yeah this one:
This one isn't all that scary. It's just a little freaky. I would definitely go mad if I found something like that at a flea market.
I don't think this one is true though. Cause we haven't heard about this anywhere else. But thanks to the temp there are a group of guys working on a game based on that story. I don't like the story though. It's so sad. And the whole death idea. One of the reasons why I liked Pokemon was because of the brightness and positivity in it.
Now there's one here:
Now this one got me wondering. Can someone really inject harmful music into a very famous game just like that? Or perhaps it wasn't studied enough and happened by mistake? I can't believe I read something like this. The story itself is maddening.
I don't know what the whole fuss is about Pokemon these days on the temp. I wanna go back to just remembering Pokemon as a cool fun game with out all those stories. I'm sure the biggest gaming company wouldn't put all that in their games. Why must someone make such stupid rumors to freak people out. I'm trying to stick to forgetting about all this nonsense and thinking it's just lies.
Well, I felt like putting this all in one thread to clean things up a bit.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks for reading.
Well I wanna discuss them here. Now I've been researching about all those and read some very, very creepy stuff.
Example:
During the first few days of the release of Pokemon Red and Green in Japan, back in February 27, 1996, a peak of deaths appeared in the age group of 10-15.
The children were usually found dead through suicide, usually by hanging or jumping from heights. However, some were more odd. A few cases recorded children who had began sawing off their limbs, others sticking their faces inside the oven, and chocked themselves on their own fist, shoving their own arms down their throat.
The few children who were saved before killing themselves showed sporadic behavior. When asked why they were going to hurt themselves they only answered in chaotic screams and scratched at their own eyes. When showed what seemed to be the connection to this attitude, the gameboy, they had no response, but when combined with either Pokemon Red or Green, the screams would continue, and they would do their best to leave the room it was located in.
This confirmed the authorities suspicion that the games, somehow, had a connection to these children and the deaths. It was a strange case, because many children who had the same games did not show this behavior, but only a few. The police had no choice but to pursue this, since they had no other leads.
Collecting all the cartridges these children had purchased, they kept them sealed away as strong evidence to look over later. They decided the first thing to do was to talk to the programmers themselves. The first person they met was the director of the original games, Satoshi Tajiri. When told about the deaths surrounding his games, he seemed slightly uneasy, but admitted nothing. He lead them to the main programmers of the game, the people responsible for the actual content.
The detectives met Takenori Oota, one of the main programmers of the game. Unlike Satoshi, he did not seem uneasy, but very kept. Explaining that it was impossible to use something like a game to cause such deaths, and also bringing up the point that not all the children were affected, he brushed it off as some kind of odd coincidence or mass hysteria. It seemed like he was hiding something, but he wasn’t giving way. Finally, he did say something interesting.
Takenori had heard a rumor going around that the music for Lavender Town, one of the locations in the game, had caused some children to go ill. It was only a rumor, and had no real definite back up, but it was still something to look into.
He directed the detectives to Junichi Masuda, the music composer of the series. Masuda had also heard of these rumors, but again said they had no evidence that his music was the cause. Even to prove a point he played the exact song from the game completely through with no effects to anyone, the detectives nor Masuda himself, feeling anything different or odd. Although they still had their suspicions of Masuda and the music of Lavender town, it seemed they had reached another dead end.
Going back to the cartridges they had seized from the homes of the children, they decided to take a slightly more direct look at the games. They knew that it was these games that gave the children the ill effects, so they took extreme caution. Popping in the cartridge and turning the console on, the game screen booted. The title screen appeared, and the option to continue or create a new game appeared.
When they chose to continue the game, stats of that game appeared. They saw the names of the children who had played, usually “Red” or another simple name. However, the interesting thing was the time played and the number of Pokemon they owned. On every game, the time was very low, and all of them had only a single Pokemon in their inventory. They came to the stunning reality that it could not have been the music from Lavender town that had caused such ill effects in the children, since it was impossible to reach that part of the game in such small amount of time and with only one Pokemon in their inventory. This brought them to the conclusion that something early on in the game had to be the cause.
If it wasn’t the music, nor the title screen, it had to be something within the first few minutes of the game itself. They had no choice but to turn off the game now and go back to the programmers. Asking for a list of all the programmers from Takenori, they found, surprisingly, that one of the programmers had committed suicide shortly after the game was released. His name was Chiro Miura, a very obscure programmer who had provided very little for the game. Even more interestingly, he had requested his name did not appear in the credits of the game, and so it was not.
Looking over the evidence found at Chiro’s apartment, they found many notes written in bold marker. Most of it was crumbled, or marked out, making it very difficult to read. They few words they could find in the mess was “Do not enter”, “Watch out” and “COME FOLLOW ME” in bold. The detectives were unsure what these meant, but knew they had to have a connection. Further searching, they discovered Chiro was good friends with one of the map designers, Kohji Nisino, and this was probably the only reason Chiro had given a part in making the game.
Kohji Nisino, since the release of the game, had locked himself in his apartment, barely leaving in the dark of night to fetch anything he might need. He told his friends and family he was mourning for his dear friend Chiro, but they didn’t believe this, since Nisino had locked himself up the day the game was put in stores, a few days before Chiro had killed himself.
It was troubling, but the authorities finally persuaded Nisnino to sit down and speak with them. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, dark rings under his eyes. He stunk, his nails had grown black and his hair was greasy, sticking to his forehead and neck. He spoke in stutters and murmurs, but at least he had something to say.
When asked if he knew anything about the children who had died after exposure of the game and if it had any connection to the game, he answered them seemingly carefully, choosing his words thoughtfully before answering. He told them that his friend Chiro had an interesting idea with the game, something he had wanted to try since he heard the project was starting. Nisino himself knew Takenori, the director and main programmer, for a long time, so he could easily get a mediocre programmer in on the project with a little persuasion. It seemed Chiro had convinced Nisino to get him in on the project, and it had worked.
The detectives knew they were on to something. This unknown obscure programmer, Chiro, had to have something to do with it, something... They asked what Chiro’s idea was, why he wanted so badly to have a part in making this children’s game. Nisino told them that Chiro never told him much about it, other than a few details every now and then. He wanted to insert a special Pokemon in the game, one completely different from all the others. It would serve as an extra, a kind of out of place thrill for the player. It wasn’t, however, Missing No. It couldn’t be. With the gameplay time recorded on the cartridges, it was impossible for the children to have time to meet that Pokemon.
Nisino, throughout the entire conversation, seemed to break down even more with every question. The detectives pushed him more and more, searching through his mind for any and every scrap of knowledge this man had no game and Chiro... and Chiro’s intentions...
It was when they asked about the notes found in Chiro’s home that he snapped. From under the couch Nisino was sitting on he whipped out a pistol, pointing it straight at the police while backing away a few steps. Then, just as quickly, he brought the pistol to his face.
“Don’t follow me...” muttered Nisino as he stuck the pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It was too quick for the police to react. It was done. Nisino had killed himself, repeating slightly differently what was written on one of Chiro’s papers...
It seemed all leads had finally died. The team who had created this original game were splitting up, becoming harder to find. It was as if they were keeping a secret. When the police finally managed to talk with anyone who had parts in the game, even the obscure character designers or monster designers, it seemed they had nothing of interest to say. Most of them didn’t even know Chiro, and the few who did only seen him once or twice working on the game itself. Throughout all of this the only confirmation they had was that Chiro was indeed the one who had worked on the very early parts of the game.
It had been a couple of months after the original children suicides and the death rate had dropped dramatically. It seemed that the game was no longer giving any ill effects to any children. The call back of the games that was planned was canceled, since it seemed the game was no longer harming any children. They had began to think that maybe Takenori was right and it was all just a very odd coincidence or mass hysteria... Until they received the letter.
It was given to one of the detectives himself, quite directly out on the street. It was a woman who gave him the note, a very frail, thin, sick looking thing. She gave him the letter quickly, telling him it was something he needed to see, and without waiting for a response or another word, she disappeared into the crowd. The detective brought it to his office, and calling the others in, he brought it out and read it aloud.
It was a letter written by Chiro himself, but it wasn’t one found at his apartment. They had throughly searched and cleared out the place, so wherever this letter had come from, it wasn’t kept at his home. It was signed to be given to Nisino. It started off quite formal, a hello, how are you, regards to the family, and such. After one or two of these normal paragraphs, they reached a section that requested Nisino to get him into the game team, to get him a programming position in Pokemon Red and Green.
As the letter continued, the handwriting seemed to grow more jittery. He talked about a glorious idea he had, a way to program something unseen in any game before. He said it would certainly revolutionize not only the gaming industry, but everyone. He went on to say that it was a very simple procedure to program this idea into the game. He did not even have to add any foreign programming, but could use what was already given in the game itself. This would, the detectives agreed, make it impossible to notice any obscurities in the programming itself. It was a perfect way to hide whatever this was.
The letter ended abruptly. There was no goodbye, no say hi to the family, no write back, or thank you. Nothing like that. It was just his name, written hard in the letter where the paper almost broke through. It was only his name. “Chiro Miura.”
This was the nail in the coffin for the detectives. They had no more suspicion about the cause. Chiro had programmed something into the early parts of the game, something maddening. To further increase this streak of success, they discovered that the programming team had worked in pairs, even Chiro himself. He had worked with another programmer, Sousuke Tamada.
If anyone knew what the secret in this game was, Sousuke Tamada would be the man. This was their final hope of unraveling this mystery once and for all.
They learned Sousuke had provided a lot of programming to the game, and seemed to be an average, good guy and worker. They were easily allowed into his home, a fair place, and they entered his living room where they sat. Sousuke did not sit, however. He stood by the window of the second story floor, looking out onto the busy street. He was smiling a little.
There is no direct witnesses to the events that followed. The only thing from this conversation that remained was found on a voice recorder sitting on the table in front of the two detectives assigned to talk to Sousuke. What follows is the unedited recording:
“Sousuke Tamada, what part did you have in the games Pokemon Red and Green?” asked the first detective.
“I was a programmer.” His voice was light, friendly, almost too friendly. “That’s all.”
“Am I right in knowing that the programmers working on the game worked in teams?” asked the detective.
One could hear the voice of feet moving on the floor slightly. “You would be right,” said Sousuke after a moment of silence.
“And your partner, his name was--” The detective was quickly cut off by Sousuke eerie voice.
“Chiro Miura... That was his name. Chiro Miura.”
Another silence. It seemed the detectives were a little uneasy about this man. “Could you tell us if Muira ever acted strange at all? Any particular behaviors you observed while working with him at all?”
Sousuke answered them. “I don’t know him that well, really. We didn’t meet up frequently, only every once in a while to trade data, or when the entire group was called up for a meeting... That’s the only times I really ever saw him. He acted normal, as far as I could tell. He was a short man, and I think this affected his consciousness.. He acted weaker than any other man I met. He was willing to do a lot of work to gain recognition, this I do know. I think...”
Silence. “Yes?” asked the detective, pushing for him to continue. “You think what?”
“I think he was a very weak man. I think he wanted to prove himself regardless of this point... I think he wanted to make himself known for something special, something that would make people forget about the way he looked and pay attention to the powerful mind that lay inside his skull.. Unfortunately for him, however.. heheh.. He didn’t have much of a mind to back up that reasoning.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the second detective.
“Well it’s the simple truth,” answered Sousuke quickly. His feet could be heard moving across the tiled floor. “He was nothing special, even if he wanted to believe so. You can’t become greatness, even if you believe it. It’s impossible... Somehow, I think Chiro knew this himself, somewhere deep in there, he knew it.”
The detectives were silent again, not sure how to steer the conversation. After a moment, they continued. “Can you tell us what Chiro’s part of the game was? What did he work on exactly?”
Sousuke answered more quickly than before. “Nothing... I mean, nothing important. He worked on some obscure parts of the beginning of the game.” A pause, then a little more information. “It was Oak’s part to be exact. He worked on some of Oak’s parts... When he’s seen first, you see..”
“What else?” pushed the police. They could hear it in Sousuke’s voice. He knew something. “We know you know about the children and the deaths. We know it was Chiro who did it. He programmed something in the game.”
“What are you implying?” asked Sousuke. It sounded like he was trying to maintain his voice.
“We’re implying that since your his partner, if you’re hiding something from us then you could just as much be responsible for those children’s deaths as Chiro is himself!”
“You can’t prove anything!” Sousuke shouted.
“Tell us what Chiro did to the game!” they shouted back.
“WHAT I TOLD HIM TO.”
Silence. Complete silence.
“You want to know, huh?” asked Sousuke finally, breaking the eerie silence, but replacing it with his voice. “You want to know what is this all about? Chiro was an idiot. He’d do anything for a bit of attention, anything at all. He couldn’t program worth a shit either. The one thing he could do, however, was be manipulated. You could tell him what to do, and he’d do it. He wouldn’t even question it, he’d do it. Just to hear that ‘thank you’ when you received the finish product, that was his reasons. That’s all he wanted.”
Two clicks from the detective’s guns could heard.
“I could control his flawlessly. He’s a lot like Takenori... Of course none of you knew this, but I was the one who brought up the idea of the game, the idea of the entire operation. I just told the fellow what to do, and he followed me without doubt. He knows nothing, just like Chiro.”
A sound of a window opening could be heard, follow by the detectives.
“Don’t move or we’ll shoot!”
“Let me tell you about a mechanic in the game,” continued Sousuke. His voice was more rushed, but it still held that slyness. “Consider it a hint, alright? If you walk around in grassy areas enough a Pokemon will appear, and you’ll have the chance to go into battle with it. It’s a necessary part of the game overall, you see?”
“Step away from the window! We won’t warn you again!”
“At the start of the game you have to walk into the grassy area before Oak appears and you receive your first Pokemon, understand me? Under normal circumstances, it was programmed that even though you’re in a grassy area, no Pokemon will spawn... I made it different. I manipulated that Chiro, told him what to put in the program, gave him all the instructions on how to do it, and he did it flawlessly. It’s rare, but it can happen.. Stepping into that grass, one can spawn...”
“Sousuke, we don’t want to shoot!”
“Shoot me?” asked Souske, laughing at the same time. “Shoot ME? You’re as dumb as Chiro was! Once he found out the truth, he had to end it! It was his fault after all! He shot himself because of it! If you’re so determined to finish that case of yours, if you want to know, play the damn game for yourself! Roll the wheel, and who knows? Maybe you’ll learn the secret for yourself!”
A shot could be heard, loud enough to distort the audio. Sounds of screaming, murmuring could be heard. The table the recorder was on crashed. Ear shattering distortions. Silence. Then laughing. Sousuke was laughing, and then words. “Come follow me... Come follow me...” And then nothing.
The recorder continued to record until the tape ran out. There was nothing else on it. The police arrived on the scene quickly, and to their horror they discovered Sousuke and the two detectives dead. They had all been shot, but not after struggling. The detectives had been shot multiple times, at least ten each, before dying after being shot in between their eyes. Sousuke himself had clearly died of two shots to his chest, straight through the heart.
This game was causing a massacre. At least a hundred children were dead. Nisino, the unexpecting friend, dead. Chiro, the manipulated toy, dead. The two detectives, dead. And now, even the creator, the cause of this atrocity, Sousuke, dead. This game was stretching far over it’s original intentions. It was killing anyone and everyone who got involved.
The lead detective had decided to put this case away. He man who committed the crime was dead, so there was no longer any reason to continue the case. All evidence, all the cartridges, all the notes, all the letters, they were locked away, kept in the darkness where they belonged. There were talks about the entire thing, small conversations every now and then, but over the years even these began to fade away. Eventually, the case was only a memory in the minds of those who experienced it first hand.
Ten years passed. February 27, 2006 was the date. The lead detective, the man who locked away the original evidence ten years previous, was reminded of the awful event that occurred. Although he was no longer in the force, he still had access to files and was helped when he could. The reminder of the event caused him to look back, to open the sealed container that held all the evidence collected.
He read through the letters and the notes. He remembered the woman who had appeared to him on the street that one day and handed him that letter that lead to the change of the entire case. He wondered who she was, and where she had come from. Perhaps she was Chiro’s mother... or maybe Sousuke’s. It was far too late to pursue any of this. Far too late..
Sealing the container again, he saw a second one directly behind it. Pulling it out, he read the note on top of it. “Evidence #2104A” He opened it up, and looked inside. Filling the container were exactly 104 Pokemon Red and Green cartridges, each one in perfect condition, untouched since the day they had last checked them ten years ago.
He reached in and pulled one out, Pokemon Red. He hadn’t seen one in a long time. He didn’t know what he thought next, but he reached in his desk and pulled out an old Gameboy. He received it a long time ago, but it still worked. It was his son’s, but he had died a few years ago. His wife was gone too. That was then though. Popping in the cartridge in the back of the Gameboy he turned on the system.
The title screen. Then the option to continue or start a new game. “Tanaka.” That was the child’s name, the one who played it first. He was probably dead, along with all the others. He pressed New Game, and started a new game. It was normal, average. He walked around, talked to his mother, went outside. He started walking towards the grass.
In his head, he could still hear Sousuke’s words. Even though he was not there, even though he had never seen the man in his life, he could still see him, hear him. “Come follow me.”
He was getting closer and closer, only a step or two away.
“Roll the wheel, and who knows? Maybe you’ll learn the secret for yourself!”
He entered the grass. The screen did nothing at first. Nothing at all. It just sat there, and so did the detective, completely frozen, as if time had stopped just for them. The screen went black. and then lit up again, the iconic green background with black text appearing.
The lead detectives weary eyes grew wide. He couldn’t help but read out what was there in front of him.
“Come follow me, come follow me, come follow me. I miss you dad, I miss you my husband, I miss you so much.”
Tears formed in his eyes, falling down his cheeks. Screens and screens of text appeared and he rapidly clicked the A button to continue it. It was his wife and his child. They were speaking to him, calling to him, crying with him. They wanted to see him, they loved him, he loved them.
“I love you too,” muttered the man in a hoarse, scratching voice.
“Come follow me, become new again. We want to see you and hold you, and be with you forever and ever and ever and ever.”
“AND EVER AND EVER...”
“Don’t stay away. You can see us too.. We miss you.. Come follow me. We love yo--”
A black screen. The detectives eyes grew wide, his jaw dropping. The screen lit back up, and Oak was leading him out of the grass. “Come follow me,” said Oak.
“NO!” shouted the man, dropping the game onto the floor. He quickly fell forward, reaching for it, bringing the screen back to his face. “Bring them back, bring them back to me!” The game continued on as usual, not responding to the detective at all. “My wife, my child, listen to me! Bring them back to me, I said!”
Voices... He heard voices, hundreds of voices. He turned around from his seat, looking behind him, and standing in his small room were children, many children. Some had no eyes, some had rings around their throats, some were burned all across their body. They were screaming, reaching towards him.
“Bring back my mommy, bring back my daddy, bring back my pet!” they all screamed out, reaching for the game, their mouths agape with horror and pain. “I don’t want them to go away, bring them back to me, bring them back to me!”
“No!” shouted the detective. “It’s mine! My family is here, don’t touch it!” Horror was across his face.
“Come follow me...” said a voice. The lead detective looked over, and in the corner of his room, next to an old desk, was Sousuke. He stood in the corner, tall, handsome, clean. A smile was on his face, stretching across his face. “Come follow me...”
The lead detective jumped up, stepping back, trying to force away the children crawling towards him, reaching out for the game held tightly within his hands. “Wh-what’s going on here!? What’s going on!? Where is my family!?”
Sousuke smiled generously. “I’ll show you. I’ll help you get away from them, you see? Just follow me.” Sousuke reached down, and opened a drawer on the old desk. The lead detective, pushing through the crowd of children, trying to get away, looked inside.
Siting there, covered with dust, was his old gun from when he was on the force. He had not used that gun in many years and had put it away, not wanting to remember the things he had to do with it. But right now he didn’t see it as something that caused pain or that killed. It was shining, it was light. It was something that could set him free.
“Just follow me,” said Sousuke, picking up the gun and putting it in the lead detectives hand. He formed his hand to hold the gun, then brought it up to his temple. “Just pull the trigger. That’s all.”
The lead detective turned around. The children were crawling at him, grabbing his legs and pulling at him. They reached for the game. He turned back towards Sousuke, and smiled.
“My family... I’ll follow you.” He pulled the trigger. Bang. His brains spread the wall as he fell to the ground, dead.
It was a few days before the body was discovered. It lay on the floor, blood everywhere. In one hand held an empty gun, and in the other was a classic Gameboy with Pokemon Red on the back. The battery had long died, and only an empty, black screen was left.
This was the final murder that the remaining authorities would allow. The last detective who was ever a part of this case personally carried all 104 cartridges away, and burned them all, making sure not a single one survived. There would taunt no more.
However, this is not the end of the story. The code was said to have survived, and was even passed on to other language versions of the games. If you have an old Pokemon game, you can place the cartridge in the back of the classic Gameboy, turn on the system, and roll the wheel who knows? Maybe you’ll learn the secret for yourself.
The children were usually found dead through suicide, usually by hanging or jumping from heights. However, some were more odd. A few cases recorded children who had began sawing off their limbs, others sticking their faces inside the oven, and chocked themselves on their own fist, shoving their own arms down their throat.
The few children who were saved before killing themselves showed sporadic behavior. When asked why they were going to hurt themselves they only answered in chaotic screams and scratched at their own eyes. When showed what seemed to be the connection to this attitude, the gameboy, they had no response, but when combined with either Pokemon Red or Green, the screams would continue, and they would do their best to leave the room it was located in.
This confirmed the authorities suspicion that the games, somehow, had a connection to these children and the deaths. It was a strange case, because many children who had the same games did not show this behavior, but only a few. The police had no choice but to pursue this, since they had no other leads.
Collecting all the cartridges these children had purchased, they kept them sealed away as strong evidence to look over later. They decided the first thing to do was to talk to the programmers themselves. The first person they met was the director of the original games, Satoshi Tajiri. When told about the deaths surrounding his games, he seemed slightly uneasy, but admitted nothing. He lead them to the main programmers of the game, the people responsible for the actual content.
The detectives met Takenori Oota, one of the main programmers of the game. Unlike Satoshi, he did not seem uneasy, but very kept. Explaining that it was impossible to use something like a game to cause such deaths, and also bringing up the point that not all the children were affected, he brushed it off as some kind of odd coincidence or mass hysteria. It seemed like he was hiding something, but he wasn’t giving way. Finally, he did say something interesting.
Takenori had heard a rumor going around that the music for Lavender Town, one of the locations in the game, had caused some children to go ill. It was only a rumor, and had no real definite back up, but it was still something to look into.
He directed the detectives to Junichi Masuda, the music composer of the series. Masuda had also heard of these rumors, but again said they had no evidence that his music was the cause. Even to prove a point he played the exact song from the game completely through with no effects to anyone, the detectives nor Masuda himself, feeling anything different or odd. Although they still had their suspicions of Masuda and the music of Lavender town, it seemed they had reached another dead end.
Going back to the cartridges they had seized from the homes of the children, they decided to take a slightly more direct look at the games. They knew that it was these games that gave the children the ill effects, so they took extreme caution. Popping in the cartridge and turning the console on, the game screen booted. The title screen appeared, and the option to continue or create a new game appeared.
When they chose to continue the game, stats of that game appeared. They saw the names of the children who had played, usually “Red” or another simple name. However, the interesting thing was the time played and the number of Pokemon they owned. On every game, the time was very low, and all of them had only a single Pokemon in their inventory. They came to the stunning reality that it could not have been the music from Lavender town that had caused such ill effects in the children, since it was impossible to reach that part of the game in such small amount of time and with only one Pokemon in their inventory. This brought them to the conclusion that something early on in the game had to be the cause.
If it wasn’t the music, nor the title screen, it had to be something within the first few minutes of the game itself. They had no choice but to turn off the game now and go back to the programmers. Asking for a list of all the programmers from Takenori, they found, surprisingly, that one of the programmers had committed suicide shortly after the game was released. His name was Chiro Miura, a very obscure programmer who had provided very little for the game. Even more interestingly, he had requested his name did not appear in the credits of the game, and so it was not.
Looking over the evidence found at Chiro’s apartment, they found many notes written in bold marker. Most of it was crumbled, or marked out, making it very difficult to read. They few words they could find in the mess was “Do not enter”, “Watch out” and “COME FOLLOW ME” in bold. The detectives were unsure what these meant, but knew they had to have a connection. Further searching, they discovered Chiro was good friends with one of the map designers, Kohji Nisino, and this was probably the only reason Chiro had given a part in making the game.
Kohji Nisino, since the release of the game, had locked himself in his apartment, barely leaving in the dark of night to fetch anything he might need. He told his friends and family he was mourning for his dear friend Chiro, but they didn’t believe this, since Nisino had locked himself up the day the game was put in stores, a few days before Chiro had killed himself.
It was troubling, but the authorities finally persuaded Nisnino to sit down and speak with them. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, dark rings under his eyes. He stunk, his nails had grown black and his hair was greasy, sticking to his forehead and neck. He spoke in stutters and murmurs, but at least he had something to say.
When asked if he knew anything about the children who had died after exposure of the game and if it had any connection to the game, he answered them seemingly carefully, choosing his words thoughtfully before answering. He told them that his friend Chiro had an interesting idea with the game, something he had wanted to try since he heard the project was starting. Nisino himself knew Takenori, the director and main programmer, for a long time, so he could easily get a mediocre programmer in on the project with a little persuasion. It seemed Chiro had convinced Nisino to get him in on the project, and it had worked.
The detectives knew they were on to something. This unknown obscure programmer, Chiro, had to have something to do with it, something... They asked what Chiro’s idea was, why he wanted so badly to have a part in making this children’s game. Nisino told them that Chiro never told him much about it, other than a few details every now and then. He wanted to insert a special Pokemon in the game, one completely different from all the others. It would serve as an extra, a kind of out of place thrill for the player. It wasn’t, however, Missing No. It couldn’t be. With the gameplay time recorded on the cartridges, it was impossible for the children to have time to meet that Pokemon.
Nisino, throughout the entire conversation, seemed to break down even more with every question. The detectives pushed him more and more, searching through his mind for any and every scrap of knowledge this man had no game and Chiro... and Chiro’s intentions...
It was when they asked about the notes found in Chiro’s home that he snapped. From under the couch Nisino was sitting on he whipped out a pistol, pointing it straight at the police while backing away a few steps. Then, just as quickly, he brought the pistol to his face.
“Don’t follow me...” muttered Nisino as he stuck the pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It was too quick for the police to react. It was done. Nisino had killed himself, repeating slightly differently what was written on one of Chiro’s papers...
It seemed all leads had finally died. The team who had created this original game were splitting up, becoming harder to find. It was as if they were keeping a secret. When the police finally managed to talk with anyone who had parts in the game, even the obscure character designers or monster designers, it seemed they had nothing of interest to say. Most of them didn’t even know Chiro, and the few who did only seen him once or twice working on the game itself. Throughout all of this the only confirmation they had was that Chiro was indeed the one who had worked on the very early parts of the game.
It had been a couple of months after the original children suicides and the death rate had dropped dramatically. It seemed that the game was no longer giving any ill effects to any children. The call back of the games that was planned was canceled, since it seemed the game was no longer harming any children. They had began to think that maybe Takenori was right and it was all just a very odd coincidence or mass hysteria... Until they received the letter.
It was given to one of the detectives himself, quite directly out on the street. It was a woman who gave him the note, a very frail, thin, sick looking thing. She gave him the letter quickly, telling him it was something he needed to see, and without waiting for a response or another word, she disappeared into the crowd. The detective brought it to his office, and calling the others in, he brought it out and read it aloud.
It was a letter written by Chiro himself, but it wasn’t one found at his apartment. They had throughly searched and cleared out the place, so wherever this letter had come from, it wasn’t kept at his home. It was signed to be given to Nisino. It started off quite formal, a hello, how are you, regards to the family, and such. After one or two of these normal paragraphs, they reached a section that requested Nisino to get him into the game team, to get him a programming position in Pokemon Red and Green.
As the letter continued, the handwriting seemed to grow more jittery. He talked about a glorious idea he had, a way to program something unseen in any game before. He said it would certainly revolutionize not only the gaming industry, but everyone. He went on to say that it was a very simple procedure to program this idea into the game. He did not even have to add any foreign programming, but could use what was already given in the game itself. This would, the detectives agreed, make it impossible to notice any obscurities in the programming itself. It was a perfect way to hide whatever this was.
The letter ended abruptly. There was no goodbye, no say hi to the family, no write back, or thank you. Nothing like that. It was just his name, written hard in the letter where the paper almost broke through. It was only his name. “Chiro Miura.”
This was the nail in the coffin for the detectives. They had no more suspicion about the cause. Chiro had programmed something into the early parts of the game, something maddening. To further increase this streak of success, they discovered that the programming team had worked in pairs, even Chiro himself. He had worked with another programmer, Sousuke Tamada.
If anyone knew what the secret in this game was, Sousuke Tamada would be the man. This was their final hope of unraveling this mystery once and for all.
They learned Sousuke had provided a lot of programming to the game, and seemed to be an average, good guy and worker. They were easily allowed into his home, a fair place, and they entered his living room where they sat. Sousuke did not sit, however. He stood by the window of the second story floor, looking out onto the busy street. He was smiling a little.
There is no direct witnesses to the events that followed. The only thing from this conversation that remained was found on a voice recorder sitting on the table in front of the two detectives assigned to talk to Sousuke. What follows is the unedited recording:
“Sousuke Tamada, what part did you have in the games Pokemon Red and Green?” asked the first detective.
“I was a programmer.” His voice was light, friendly, almost too friendly. “That’s all.”
“Am I right in knowing that the programmers working on the game worked in teams?” asked the detective.
One could hear the voice of feet moving on the floor slightly. “You would be right,” said Sousuke after a moment of silence.
“And your partner, his name was--” The detective was quickly cut off by Sousuke eerie voice.
“Chiro Miura... That was his name. Chiro Miura.”
Another silence. It seemed the detectives were a little uneasy about this man. “Could you tell us if Muira ever acted strange at all? Any particular behaviors you observed while working with him at all?”
Sousuke answered them. “I don’t know him that well, really. We didn’t meet up frequently, only every once in a while to trade data, or when the entire group was called up for a meeting... That’s the only times I really ever saw him. He acted normal, as far as I could tell. He was a short man, and I think this affected his consciousness.. He acted weaker than any other man I met. He was willing to do a lot of work to gain recognition, this I do know. I think...”
Silence. “Yes?” asked the detective, pushing for him to continue. “You think what?”
“I think he was a very weak man. I think he wanted to prove himself regardless of this point... I think he wanted to make himself known for something special, something that would make people forget about the way he looked and pay attention to the powerful mind that lay inside his skull.. Unfortunately for him, however.. heheh.. He didn’t have much of a mind to back up that reasoning.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the second detective.
“Well it’s the simple truth,” answered Sousuke quickly. His feet could be heard moving across the tiled floor. “He was nothing special, even if he wanted to believe so. You can’t become greatness, even if you believe it. It’s impossible... Somehow, I think Chiro knew this himself, somewhere deep in there, he knew it.”
The detectives were silent again, not sure how to steer the conversation. After a moment, they continued. “Can you tell us what Chiro’s part of the game was? What did he work on exactly?”
Sousuke answered more quickly than before. “Nothing... I mean, nothing important. He worked on some obscure parts of the beginning of the game.” A pause, then a little more information. “It was Oak’s part to be exact. He worked on some of Oak’s parts... When he’s seen first, you see..”
“What else?” pushed the police. They could hear it in Sousuke’s voice. He knew something. “We know you know about the children and the deaths. We know it was Chiro who did it. He programmed something in the game.”
“What are you implying?” asked Sousuke. It sounded like he was trying to maintain his voice.
“We’re implying that since your his partner, if you’re hiding something from us then you could just as much be responsible for those children’s deaths as Chiro is himself!”
“You can’t prove anything!” Sousuke shouted.
“Tell us what Chiro did to the game!” they shouted back.
“WHAT I TOLD HIM TO.”
Silence. Complete silence.
“You want to know, huh?” asked Sousuke finally, breaking the eerie silence, but replacing it with his voice. “You want to know what is this all about? Chiro was an idiot. He’d do anything for a bit of attention, anything at all. He couldn’t program worth a shit either. The one thing he could do, however, was be manipulated. You could tell him what to do, and he’d do it. He wouldn’t even question it, he’d do it. Just to hear that ‘thank you’ when you received the finish product, that was his reasons. That’s all he wanted.”
Two clicks from the detective’s guns could heard.
“I could control his flawlessly. He’s a lot like Takenori... Of course none of you knew this, but I was the one who brought up the idea of the game, the idea of the entire operation. I just told the fellow what to do, and he followed me without doubt. He knows nothing, just like Chiro.”
A sound of a window opening could be heard, follow by the detectives.
“Don’t move or we’ll shoot!”
“Let me tell you about a mechanic in the game,” continued Sousuke. His voice was more rushed, but it still held that slyness. “Consider it a hint, alright? If you walk around in grassy areas enough a Pokemon will appear, and you’ll have the chance to go into battle with it. It’s a necessary part of the game overall, you see?”
“Step away from the window! We won’t warn you again!”
“At the start of the game you have to walk into the grassy area before Oak appears and you receive your first Pokemon, understand me? Under normal circumstances, it was programmed that even though you’re in a grassy area, no Pokemon will spawn... I made it different. I manipulated that Chiro, told him what to put in the program, gave him all the instructions on how to do it, and he did it flawlessly. It’s rare, but it can happen.. Stepping into that grass, one can spawn...”
“Sousuke, we don’t want to shoot!”
“Shoot me?” asked Souske, laughing at the same time. “Shoot ME? You’re as dumb as Chiro was! Once he found out the truth, he had to end it! It was his fault after all! He shot himself because of it! If you’re so determined to finish that case of yours, if you want to know, play the damn game for yourself! Roll the wheel, and who knows? Maybe you’ll learn the secret for yourself!”
A shot could be heard, loud enough to distort the audio. Sounds of screaming, murmuring could be heard. The table the recorder was on crashed. Ear shattering distortions. Silence. Then laughing. Sousuke was laughing, and then words. “Come follow me... Come follow me...” And then nothing.
The recorder continued to record until the tape ran out. There was nothing else on it. The police arrived on the scene quickly, and to their horror they discovered Sousuke and the two detectives dead. They had all been shot, but not after struggling. The detectives had been shot multiple times, at least ten each, before dying after being shot in between their eyes. Sousuke himself had clearly died of two shots to his chest, straight through the heart.
This game was causing a massacre. At least a hundred children were dead. Nisino, the unexpecting friend, dead. Chiro, the manipulated toy, dead. The two detectives, dead. And now, even the creator, the cause of this atrocity, Sousuke, dead. This game was stretching far over it’s original intentions. It was killing anyone and everyone who got involved.
The lead detective had decided to put this case away. He man who committed the crime was dead, so there was no longer any reason to continue the case. All evidence, all the cartridges, all the notes, all the letters, they were locked away, kept in the darkness where they belonged. There were talks about the entire thing, small conversations every now and then, but over the years even these began to fade away. Eventually, the case was only a memory in the minds of those who experienced it first hand.
Ten years passed. February 27, 2006 was the date. The lead detective, the man who locked away the original evidence ten years previous, was reminded of the awful event that occurred. Although he was no longer in the force, he still had access to files and was helped when he could. The reminder of the event caused him to look back, to open the sealed container that held all the evidence collected.
He read through the letters and the notes. He remembered the woman who had appeared to him on the street that one day and handed him that letter that lead to the change of the entire case. He wondered who she was, and where she had come from. Perhaps she was Chiro’s mother... or maybe Sousuke’s. It was far too late to pursue any of this. Far too late..
Sealing the container again, he saw a second one directly behind it. Pulling it out, he read the note on top of it. “Evidence #2104A” He opened it up, and looked inside. Filling the container were exactly 104 Pokemon Red and Green cartridges, each one in perfect condition, untouched since the day they had last checked them ten years ago.
He reached in and pulled one out, Pokemon Red. He hadn’t seen one in a long time. He didn’t know what he thought next, but he reached in his desk and pulled out an old Gameboy. He received it a long time ago, but it still worked. It was his son’s, but he had died a few years ago. His wife was gone too. That was then though. Popping in the cartridge in the back of the Gameboy he turned on the system.
The title screen. Then the option to continue or start a new game. “Tanaka.” That was the child’s name, the one who played it first. He was probably dead, along with all the others. He pressed New Game, and started a new game. It was normal, average. He walked around, talked to his mother, went outside. He started walking towards the grass.
In his head, he could still hear Sousuke’s words. Even though he was not there, even though he had never seen the man in his life, he could still see him, hear him. “Come follow me.”
He was getting closer and closer, only a step or two away.
“Roll the wheel, and who knows? Maybe you’ll learn the secret for yourself!”
He entered the grass. The screen did nothing at first. Nothing at all. It just sat there, and so did the detective, completely frozen, as if time had stopped just for them. The screen went black. and then lit up again, the iconic green background with black text appearing.
The lead detectives weary eyes grew wide. He couldn’t help but read out what was there in front of him.
“Come follow me, come follow me, come follow me. I miss you dad, I miss you my husband, I miss you so much.”
Tears formed in his eyes, falling down his cheeks. Screens and screens of text appeared and he rapidly clicked the A button to continue it. It was his wife and his child. They were speaking to him, calling to him, crying with him. They wanted to see him, they loved him, he loved them.
“I love you too,” muttered the man in a hoarse, scratching voice.
“Come follow me, become new again. We want to see you and hold you, and be with you forever and ever and ever and ever.”
“AND EVER AND EVER...”
“Don’t stay away. You can see us too.. We miss you.. Come follow me. We love yo--”
A black screen. The detectives eyes grew wide, his jaw dropping. The screen lit back up, and Oak was leading him out of the grass. “Come follow me,” said Oak.
“NO!” shouted the man, dropping the game onto the floor. He quickly fell forward, reaching for it, bringing the screen back to his face. “Bring them back, bring them back to me!” The game continued on as usual, not responding to the detective at all. “My wife, my child, listen to me! Bring them back to me, I said!”
Voices... He heard voices, hundreds of voices. He turned around from his seat, looking behind him, and standing in his small room were children, many children. Some had no eyes, some had rings around their throats, some were burned all across their body. They were screaming, reaching towards him.
“Bring back my mommy, bring back my daddy, bring back my pet!” they all screamed out, reaching for the game, their mouths agape with horror and pain. “I don’t want them to go away, bring them back to me, bring them back to me!”
“No!” shouted the detective. “It’s mine! My family is here, don’t touch it!” Horror was across his face.
“Come follow me...” said a voice. The lead detective looked over, and in the corner of his room, next to an old desk, was Sousuke. He stood in the corner, tall, handsome, clean. A smile was on his face, stretching across his face. “Come follow me...”
The lead detective jumped up, stepping back, trying to force away the children crawling towards him, reaching out for the game held tightly within his hands. “Wh-what’s going on here!? What’s going on!? Where is my family!?”
Sousuke smiled generously. “I’ll show you. I’ll help you get away from them, you see? Just follow me.” Sousuke reached down, and opened a drawer on the old desk. The lead detective, pushing through the crowd of children, trying to get away, looked inside.
Siting there, covered with dust, was his old gun from when he was on the force. He had not used that gun in many years and had put it away, not wanting to remember the things he had to do with it. But right now he didn’t see it as something that caused pain or that killed. It was shining, it was light. It was something that could set him free.
“Just follow me,” said Sousuke, picking up the gun and putting it in the lead detectives hand. He formed his hand to hold the gun, then brought it up to his temple. “Just pull the trigger. That’s all.”
The lead detective turned around. The children were crawling at him, grabbing his legs and pulling at him. They reached for the game. He turned back towards Sousuke, and smiled.
“My family... I’ll follow you.” He pulled the trigger. Bang. His brains spread the wall as he fell to the ground, dead.
It was a few days before the body was discovered. It lay on the floor, blood everywhere. In one hand held an empty gun, and in the other was a classic Gameboy with Pokemon Red on the back. The battery had long died, and only an empty, black screen was left.
This was the final murder that the remaining authorities would allow. The last detective who was ever a part of this case personally carried all 104 cartridges away, and burned them all, making sure not a single one survived. There would taunt no more.
However, this is not the end of the story. The code was said to have survived, and was even passed on to other language versions of the games. If you have an old Pokemon game, you can place the cartridge in the back of the classic Gameboy, turn on the system, and roll the wheel who knows? Maybe you’ll learn the secret for yourself.
Now about that story. Someone please tell me this isn't true. If it is, I don't think I'm ever gonna look at Pokemon the same way again. And I'm a HUGE pokemon fan. Being a fan is something I don't wanna lose. I was checking this stuff on google. It doesn't seem like a very famous story. I decided to go on YouTube and look for any video perhaps related to those carts that kill people. Found nothing. It's creepy. Please confirm that this is fake as it kind of puts me in a bad mood. I'm very gullible and sensitive. I hate this kind of talk and crap. I kept shivering as I read it.
Now about that story... Umm which one was it?
Yeah this one:
I stumbled on this unsettling story of an obscure Pokémon bootleg/art-hack that I thought might be neat to share on here. I think this originated from 4chan, so I’ve no idea if this hack actually exists. It probably doesn’t, but it’s still a great concept/tale!:
I’m what you could call a collector of bootleg Pokémon games. Pokémon Diamond & Jade, Chaos Black, etc. It’s amazing the frequency with which you can find them at pawnshops, Goodwill, flea markets, and such.
They’re generally fun; even if they are unplayable (which they often are), the mistranslations and poor quality make them unintentionally humorous.
I’ve been able to find most of the ones that I’ve played online, but there’s one that I haven’t seen any mention of. I bought it at a flea market about five years ago.
Here’s a picture of the cartridge, in case anyone recognizes it. Unfortunately, when I moved two years ago, I lost the game, so I can’t provide you with screencaps. Sorry.
The game started with the familiar Nidorino and Gengar intro of Red and Blue version. However, the “press start” screen had been altered. Red was there, but the Pokémon did not cycle through. It also said “Black Version” under the Pokémon logo.
Upon selecting “New Game”, the game started the Professor Oak speech, and it quickly became evident that the game was essentially Pokémon Red Version.
After selecting your starter, if you looked at your Pokémon, you had in addition to Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle another Pokémon — “GHOST”.
The Pokémon was level 1. It had the sprite of the Ghosts that are encountered in Lavender Tower before obtaining the Sliph Scope. It had one attack — “Curse”. I know that there is a real move named curse, but the attack did not exist in Generation 1, so it appears it was hacked in.
Defending Pokémon were unable to attack Ghost — it would only say they were too scared to move. When the move “Curse” was used in battle, the screen would cut to black. The cry of the defending Pokémon would be heard, but it was distorted, played at a much lower pitch than normal. The battle screen would then reappear, and the defending Pokémon would be gone. If used in a battle against a trainer, when the Pokéballs representing their Pokemon would appear in the corner, they would have one fewer Pokéball.
The implication was that the Pokémon died.
What’s even stranger is that after defeating a trainer and seeing “Red received $200 for winning!”, the battle commands would appear again. If you selected “Run”, the battle would end as it normally does. You could also select Curse. If you did, upon returning to the overworld, the trainer’s sprite would be gone. After leaving and reentering the area, the spot [where] the trainer had been would be replaced with a tombstone like the ones at Lavender Tower.
The move “Curse” was not usable in all instances. It would fail against Ghost Pokémon. It would also fail if it was used against trainers that you would have to face again, such as your Rival or Giovanni. It was usable in your final battle against them, however.
I figured this was the gimmick of the game, allowing you to use the previously uncapturable Ghosts. And because Curse made the game so easy, I essentially used it throughout the whole adventure.
The game changed quite a bit after defeating the Elite Four. After viewing the Hall of Fame, which consisted of Ghost and a couple of very under leveled Pokémon, the screen cut to black. A box appeared with the words “Many years later…” It then cut to Lavender Tower. An old man was standing, looking at tombstones. You then realized this man was your character.
The man moved at only half of your normal walking speed. You no longer had any Pokémon with you, not even Ghost, who up to this point had been impossible to remove from your party through depositing in the PC. The overworld was entirely empty — there were no people at all. There were still the tombstones of the trainers that you used Curse on, however.
You could go pretty much anywhere in the overworld at this point, though your movement was limited by the fact that you had no Pokémon to use HMs. And regardless of where you went, the music of Lavender Town continued on an infinite loop. After wandering for a while, I found that if you go through Diglett’s Cave, one of the cuttable bushes that normally blocks the path on the other side is no longer there, allowing you to advance and return to Pallet Town.
Upon entering your house and going to the exact tile where you start the game, the screen would cut to black.
Then a sprite of a Caterpie appeared. It was the replaced by a Weedle, and then a Pidgey. I soon realized, as the Pokémon progressed from Rattata to Blastoise, that these were all of the Pokémon that I had used Curse on.
After the end of my Rival’s team, a Youngster appeared, and then a Bug Catcher. These were the trainers I had Cursed.
Throughout the sequence, the Lavender Town music was playing, but it was slowly decreasing in pitch. By the time your Rival appeared on screen, it was little more than a demonic rumble.
Another cut to black. A few moments later, the battle screen suddenly appeared — your trainer sprite was now that of an old man, the same one as the one who teaches you how to catch Pokémon in Viridian City.
Ghost appeared on the other side, along with the words “GHOST wants to fight!”.
You couldn’t use items, and you had no Pokémon. If you tried to run, you couldn’t escape. The only option was “FIGHT”.
Using fight would immediately cause you to use Struggle, which didn’t affect Ghost but did chip off a bit of your own HP. When it was Ghost’s turn to attack, it would simply say “…” Eventually, when your HP reached a critical point, Ghost would finally use Curse.
The screen cut to black a final time.
Regardless of the buttons you pressed, you were permanently stuck in this black screen. At this point, the only thing you could do was turn the Game Boy off. When you played again, “NEW GAME” was the only option — the game had erased the file.
I played through this hacked game many, many times, and every time the game ended with this sequence. Several times I didn’t use Ghost at all, though he was impossible to remove from the party. In these cases, it did not show any Pokémon or trainers and simply cut to the climactic “battle with Ghost.
I’m not sure what the motives were behind the creator of this hack. It wasn’t widely distributed, so it was presumably not for monetary gain. It was very well done for a bootleg.
It seems he was trying to convey a message; though it seems I am the sole receiver of this message. I’m not entirely sure what it was — the inevitability of death? The pointlessness of it? Perhaps he was simply trying to morbidly inject death and darkness into a children’s game. Regardless, this children’s game has made me think, and it has made me cry.
I’m what you could call a collector of bootleg Pokémon games. Pokémon Diamond & Jade, Chaos Black, etc. It’s amazing the frequency with which you can find them at pawnshops, Goodwill, flea markets, and such.
They’re generally fun; even if they are unplayable (which they often are), the mistranslations and poor quality make them unintentionally humorous.
I’ve been able to find most of the ones that I’ve played online, but there’s one that I haven’t seen any mention of. I bought it at a flea market about five years ago.
Here’s a picture of the cartridge, in case anyone recognizes it. Unfortunately, when I moved two years ago, I lost the game, so I can’t provide you with screencaps. Sorry.
The game started with the familiar Nidorino and Gengar intro of Red and Blue version. However, the “press start” screen had been altered. Red was there, but the Pokémon did not cycle through. It also said “Black Version” under the Pokémon logo.
Upon selecting “New Game”, the game started the Professor Oak speech, and it quickly became evident that the game was essentially Pokémon Red Version.
After selecting your starter, if you looked at your Pokémon, you had in addition to Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle another Pokémon — “GHOST”.
The Pokémon was level 1. It had the sprite of the Ghosts that are encountered in Lavender Tower before obtaining the Sliph Scope. It had one attack — “Curse”. I know that there is a real move named curse, but the attack did not exist in Generation 1, so it appears it was hacked in.
Defending Pokémon were unable to attack Ghost — it would only say they were too scared to move. When the move “Curse” was used in battle, the screen would cut to black. The cry of the defending Pokémon would be heard, but it was distorted, played at a much lower pitch than normal. The battle screen would then reappear, and the defending Pokémon would be gone. If used in a battle against a trainer, when the Pokéballs representing their Pokemon would appear in the corner, they would have one fewer Pokéball.
The implication was that the Pokémon died.
What’s even stranger is that after defeating a trainer and seeing “Red received $200 for winning!”, the battle commands would appear again. If you selected “Run”, the battle would end as it normally does. You could also select Curse. If you did, upon returning to the overworld, the trainer’s sprite would be gone. After leaving and reentering the area, the spot [where] the trainer had been would be replaced with a tombstone like the ones at Lavender Tower.
The move “Curse” was not usable in all instances. It would fail against Ghost Pokémon. It would also fail if it was used against trainers that you would have to face again, such as your Rival or Giovanni. It was usable in your final battle against them, however.
I figured this was the gimmick of the game, allowing you to use the previously uncapturable Ghosts. And because Curse made the game so easy, I essentially used it throughout the whole adventure.
The game changed quite a bit after defeating the Elite Four. After viewing the Hall of Fame, which consisted of Ghost and a couple of very under leveled Pokémon, the screen cut to black. A box appeared with the words “Many years later…” It then cut to Lavender Tower. An old man was standing, looking at tombstones. You then realized this man was your character.
The man moved at only half of your normal walking speed. You no longer had any Pokémon with you, not even Ghost, who up to this point had been impossible to remove from your party through depositing in the PC. The overworld was entirely empty — there were no people at all. There were still the tombstones of the trainers that you used Curse on, however.
You could go pretty much anywhere in the overworld at this point, though your movement was limited by the fact that you had no Pokémon to use HMs. And regardless of where you went, the music of Lavender Town continued on an infinite loop. After wandering for a while, I found that if you go through Diglett’s Cave, one of the cuttable bushes that normally blocks the path on the other side is no longer there, allowing you to advance and return to Pallet Town.
Upon entering your house and going to the exact tile where you start the game, the screen would cut to black.
Then a sprite of a Caterpie appeared. It was the replaced by a Weedle, and then a Pidgey. I soon realized, as the Pokémon progressed from Rattata to Blastoise, that these were all of the Pokémon that I had used Curse on.
After the end of my Rival’s team, a Youngster appeared, and then a Bug Catcher. These were the trainers I had Cursed.
Throughout the sequence, the Lavender Town music was playing, but it was slowly decreasing in pitch. By the time your Rival appeared on screen, it was little more than a demonic rumble.
Another cut to black. A few moments later, the battle screen suddenly appeared — your trainer sprite was now that of an old man, the same one as the one who teaches you how to catch Pokémon in Viridian City.
Ghost appeared on the other side, along with the words “GHOST wants to fight!”.
You couldn’t use items, and you had no Pokémon. If you tried to run, you couldn’t escape. The only option was “FIGHT”.
Using fight would immediately cause you to use Struggle, which didn’t affect Ghost but did chip off a bit of your own HP. When it was Ghost’s turn to attack, it would simply say “…” Eventually, when your HP reached a critical point, Ghost would finally use Curse.
The screen cut to black a final time.
Regardless of the buttons you pressed, you were permanently stuck in this black screen. At this point, the only thing you could do was turn the Game Boy off. When you played again, “NEW GAME” was the only option — the game had erased the file.
I played through this hacked game many, many times, and every time the game ended with this sequence. Several times I didn’t use Ghost at all, though he was impossible to remove from the party. In these cases, it did not show any Pokémon or trainers and simply cut to the climactic “battle with Ghost.
I’m not sure what the motives were behind the creator of this hack. It wasn’t widely distributed, so it was presumably not for monetary gain. It was very well done for a bootleg.
It seems he was trying to convey a message; though it seems I am the sole receiver of this message. I’m not entirely sure what it was — the inevitability of death? The pointlessness of it? Perhaps he was simply trying to morbidly inject death and darkness into a children’s game. Regardless, this children’s game has made me think, and it has made me cry.
This one isn't all that scary. It's just a little freaky. I would definitely go mad if I found something like that at a flea market.
I don't think this one is true though. Cause we haven't heard about this anywhere else. But thanks to the temp there are a group of guys working on a game based on that story. I don't like the story though. It's so sad. And the whole death idea. One of the reasons why I liked Pokemon was because of the brightness and positivity in it.
Now there's one here:
I met my best friend in elementary school. We had both brought our Gameboys to school one day and sat together at lunch once we realized what we had in common. I had Blue version and a Venausaur, he had Red version and a Charizard. He and I battled whenever we could and became great pals. As the years went on, we continued playing Pokemon, even through high school. Throughout all of the Pokemon generations and versions we went though, the battles never became dull.
As we approached college, we had to go separate ways. We didn't speak much after that; we had such busy lives to follow in college. I didn't think we would ever regain the friendship we once had. Then, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were released in 2007 and we once again enjoyed our common interest in the series. We battled and talked over Wi-Fi nearly every day for a few weeks after its release.
My friend told me that he planned to play through his old Red version again. Since it had been about three months after the release of Diamond and Pearl, we didn't play them as much as before. I asked him why he wanted to play that dusty old cartridge, and he responded, "I don't know, maybe I'll find something that no one has found before."
Despite my unwillingness to run through my Blue version with him, he played his Red version anyway. After he started his journey, I never talked to him again. About three weeks later, I received a call from my friend's parents.
Even though he never had any similar problems before, he died from what was speculated to be an intense seizure. He was alone in his dorm room until a roommate, who was unfortunately too late, found him lying on the ground, lifeless, and strangely wearing his favorite headphones. I flew out as soon as I could to attend his funeral. His roommate, who was going to attend as well, informed me that just days before the incident my friend was becoming obsessed with Lavender Town and its music. My friend had aspired to become a sound engineer after graduating and had a wide range of audio skills at his disposal. He could always hear quiet sounds vividly while I failed to even recognize them at all.
As soon as he rediscovered Lavender Town, he ripped its audio to his computer and began experimenting with it. Interestingly, he bragged about finding a rare rip of the music from the first distributed batch of the Japanese-exclusive Green version. Not specifically referring to the special Japanese version, he had told the roommate that, "The frequencies in this song are different; they blend together in a special way. But there's something missing. I think something was meant to be mixed in, but it never could have worked on the Gameboy. It was so limited in terms of sound bandwidth." I had the chance to go through his laptop one last time, so I visited his Recent Items list. At the very top read "lavender.wav". Along with a few photos of us together, I copied this to my flash drive. Caught in my sadness over my best friend's death, I ignored the audio file until a few weeks before writing this. I somehow recently decided that I needed to retrace what had happened.
Driven by my desire to know what caused his untimely death, I opened the properties dialog box for the audio file, without opening the file to listen to it. Within the comments section of the metadata, he had written, "binaural tones, i added the necessary frequencies, i know why lavender town sounds so sad, and i know the part that was missing". Even eerier, I looked in his default audio program (still without listening to the file) and found the playcount for this file. One. I chatted with a sound enthusiast online in hope to decipher these cryptic comments. He gave me some special software which would analyze the audio in real time and said that was the most that could be done. This video is a screen recording of me running the aforementioned software with the original audio file. To this day I have not listened to the actual audio, as I am too emotionally disturbed by my best friend, Anthony's, death.
As we approached college, we had to go separate ways. We didn't speak much after that; we had such busy lives to follow in college. I didn't think we would ever regain the friendship we once had. Then, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were released in 2007 and we once again enjoyed our common interest in the series. We battled and talked over Wi-Fi nearly every day for a few weeks after its release.
My friend told me that he planned to play through his old Red version again. Since it had been about three months after the release of Diamond and Pearl, we didn't play them as much as before. I asked him why he wanted to play that dusty old cartridge, and he responded, "I don't know, maybe I'll find something that no one has found before."
Despite my unwillingness to run through my Blue version with him, he played his Red version anyway. After he started his journey, I never talked to him again. About three weeks later, I received a call from my friend's parents.
Even though he never had any similar problems before, he died from what was speculated to be an intense seizure. He was alone in his dorm room until a roommate, who was unfortunately too late, found him lying on the ground, lifeless, and strangely wearing his favorite headphones. I flew out as soon as I could to attend his funeral. His roommate, who was going to attend as well, informed me that just days before the incident my friend was becoming obsessed with Lavender Town and its music. My friend had aspired to become a sound engineer after graduating and had a wide range of audio skills at his disposal. He could always hear quiet sounds vividly while I failed to even recognize them at all.
As soon as he rediscovered Lavender Town, he ripped its audio to his computer and began experimenting with it. Interestingly, he bragged about finding a rare rip of the music from the first distributed batch of the Japanese-exclusive Green version. Not specifically referring to the special Japanese version, he had told the roommate that, "The frequencies in this song are different; they blend together in a special way. But there's something missing. I think something was meant to be mixed in, but it never could have worked on the Gameboy. It was so limited in terms of sound bandwidth." I had the chance to go through his laptop one last time, so I visited his Recent Items list. At the very top read "lavender.wav". Along with a few photos of us together, I copied this to my flash drive. Caught in my sadness over my best friend's death, I ignored the audio file until a few weeks before writing this. I somehow recently decided that I needed to retrace what had happened.
Driven by my desire to know what caused his untimely death, I opened the properties dialog box for the audio file, without opening the file to listen to it. Within the comments section of the metadata, he had written, "binaural tones, i added the necessary frequencies, i know why lavender town sounds so sad, and i know the part that was missing". Even eerier, I looked in his default audio program (still without listening to the file) and found the playcount for this file. One. I chatted with a sound enthusiast online in hope to decipher these cryptic comments. He gave me some special software which would analyze the audio in real time and said that was the most that could be done. This video is a screen recording of me running the aforementioned software with the original audio file. To this day I have not listened to the actual audio, as I am too emotionally disturbed by my best friend, Anthony's, death.
Now this one got me wondering. Can someone really inject harmful music into a very famous game just like that? Or perhaps it wasn't studied enough and happened by mistake? I can't believe I read something like this. The story itself is maddening.
I don't know what the whole fuss is about Pokemon these days on the temp. I wanna go back to just remembering Pokemon as a cool fun game with out all those stories. I'm sure the biggest gaming company wouldn't put all that in their games. Why must someone make such stupid rumors to freak people out. I'm trying to stick to forgetting about all this nonsense and thinking it's just lies.
Well, I felt like putting this all in one thread to clean things up a bit.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks for reading.
