SuecrA

I've always been a bit of a fan of Pokemon, but when it comes to ROMs, man, I'll pay anything. So when I came across this ROM simply titled "Pokemon" with the cartridge style of Pokemon Platinum (But it only said Pokemon, no Platinum) on eBay, I immediately got it, apparently for free, due to the fact that no one else wanted to auction for it.

I loaded into the game, and it completely skipped the intro sequence and just went straight to the save menu. Seemed like the original seller of the game had already played this ROM themselves, as a save had already been made, but something was off: The player was male, and simply named "Player", the only Pokemon collected was a team of Turtwig, the time played was 00:00, no badges had been collected, it's like this was a test build of Platinum. And seeing as there was no "New Game" option, I selected the premade save.

I spawned in that cave part of Mt. Coronet that was just before Spear Pillar. I checked my bag, and I had no items. No Pokedex or anything. I checked my Pokemon, and they were all Lv. 0, with HP that read 0/0. They hadn't fainted or anything, that just seemed to be their base HP. And their only attacks were Tackle, all 4 moves, all at 0/0 PP (Again, base PP). What the hell was going on!? I tried exiting the cave, and I appeared at Spear Pillar as usual, but I got a text box that read "Player's NULL made a sound!", followed by "Would you like to blow into the NULL?" I said no, and went to check my bag, and suddenly I had an item named "NULL". I got the prompt again after closing my bag, and this time I said yes, and to my horror, it made a distorted version of the Azure Flute sound that sounded creepy as hell.

Afterwards, I got the Arceus stairway, but instead of the regular music after triggering the stairs, it was distorted, like the Flute sound. I walked up the stairs, but they were much taller than usual. And while I was walking, I kept getting text windows saying "Turtwig fainted!" 6 times while i was climbing. After the 6th time, I decided to check my Pokemon, and they had fainted, like the windows said, but they were photonegative, with scattered pixels at the legs. After closing my Pokemon window, I finished walking up the stairs, and I got the usual "!" popup, but when I walked up, I didn't see Arceus. I tried walking to the tile that it normally spawns at, and my game started bugging out, but shortly after, sent me to the battle scene.

There was no music, and instead of a trainer or something, a photonegative Arceus with pixels scattered at the legs appeared, and the battle intro text read "You are challenged by PKMN Trainer suecrA!" ...What the hell!? And then it sent out a distorted Turtwig like the ones I had, but it was named "giwtruT", and then I realized suecrA had 6 of them. And the text that appeared next was "Go! Player!" The Pokeball was thrown, but then Player came out instead of a Pokemon, and I realized I had no Pokemon. My only attack was Struggle, at 6/6 PP. I used it, but nothing happened to giwtruT 1, and I just took damage. But strangely, suecrA retreated giwtruT 1 and sent out the second one. I used Struggle again, to similar results. This repeated 6 times until suecrA retreated the 6th giwtruT, but to my suprise, sent itself out into the battle.

My PP for Struggle somehow hadn't run out yet, and when I selected it, I used struggle, same results as the giwtruT. suecrA used Gravity, and Player got lower to the ground. And I didn't need to select Struggle, because the game automatically used it again, and gravity was used again, forcing Player even closer to the ground. This kept repeating until I could barely see him. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA". That suddenly played through my speakers, not ending, meanwhile a text window appeared doing the same thing. Player was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear cracking sounds, getting more and more frequent. Then I realized two things: One, the laughing was coming from suecrA, and two, the cracking was Player's bones cracking apart due to the intense gravity, and suecrA was watching him suffer.

After that, the game crashed, and my DS just turned itself off. I reopened the game, but it crashed again and my DS was forced off again. I had nightmares the night after I played. It was playing out like the ROM, but I was Player. And it happened again the next night. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next, suecrA laughing at my suffering. Use caution when looking for Pokemon ROMs.