Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35722173-20180531125838

This Pasta was apparently deleted due to it not satisfying the quality standards. Also, probably because of the topic not being different enough to not be considered a spin-pasta. I'd like to repost it here at the moment and have enough feedback to be able to post it at least on the Spinpasta wiki.

Have you ever been to Naples? Probably one of the most interesting cities in Italy, and maybe in the entire world. Full of ups and downs. Degradation and dignity meet in this place. One of the reasons I go to Italy every summer is certainly to visit this place. And one of the reasons I keep going here is the not quite legal videogame stands. Neapolitans are known for being well-versed in the "art of fending for themselves". To live in Naples, you have to be smart. One of their popular sayings is "here nobody is stupid". And one of the many ways of "fending for themselves" is stands where all kind of pirated goods are sold. Sometimes you get scammed, but sometimes you can find hidden gems, like modded games. And this is the case for the game I'm talking about.

It was a summer like many. Like always, I went to the videogame stand, and bought a bunch of games. One of the games I bought was "Crash Bandicoot Warped". I always loved that game. I consider it to be the best game in the franchise. Of course, when you buy these games there, you need to be careful, because there is always a chance that they either sold you a completely different game, or even an empty disk. So, when I went home, I immediately put the game in my modded PS1, and turned it on. I sighed with relief when I saw the familiar PS1 logo appear on the screen.

For the first five levels, everything seemed normal. I was a little bit rusty, but it was fun to finally play my childhood game again. Then things started to get sideways at the first boss, Tiny Tiger. Not the boss battle itself, but what happened after it. Tiny, instead of falling over after the last hit, just stood still, keeping himself up through his trident. Then the screen showed two options: "kill" and "spare". I wasn't that surprised, since it wasn't the first time I had bought a modded game during my trips to Naples. In fact, I was excited to see that new mechanic in my favorite childhood game. And since I always choose the evil side when given a chance in videogames, I chose "kill". What happened next really creeped me out. Crash looked at the camera, but the look on his face was really off. It wasn't his usual smug look that he gives when he hijacks the boar in Crash 1 or Polar in Crash 2. It was a malicious, evil look. He then took Tiny's trident, and stabbed him with it, going pretty deep, and some blood started flowing. Not in a cartoonish way, like in the usual Crash Bandicoot slapstick humor, or even in a "Happy Tree Friends" or "Mortal Kombat" kind of exaggerated gore. His blood was flowing pretty quietly, at least until Crash took the trident out of him. Meanwhile, when he got stabbed, Tiny screamed in pain. It was oddly realistic, at least for PS1 standards. What was unsettling wasn't the image itself, after all it was still PS1 graphics, but the fact that it was present in a game like Crash Bandicoot. I also saw that Cortex looked utterly horrified at what Crash, at what I had done. Then I took the power-up that comes with Tiny's defeat (the Super Belly Flop), and entered the time traveling portal that would take me to the Warp Room.

While I was going through the portal, another anomaly happened. Between the boss fight and the Warp Room, a cutscene was triggered, and Aku-Aku appeared as usual. However, instead of congratulating me for beating Tiny, he looked at me with a disappointed expression. He then said, "How could you do that? Why did you kill Tiny? That level of violence was not necessary. Please, don't do that ever again". Then he disappeared, and the game continued.

The second stage started, and things went back to normal. Or, better, almost normal. After a while, I noticed that, whenever I broke an Aku-Aku crate, Aku-Aku would never stop staring at Crash, as if he couldn't believe that this Crash was the same Crash he had known for all these years. Even the cutscenes with Dingodile were off. Instead of threatening me as usual, he instead vowed to avenge his poor friend Tiny Tiger. He had a painful and angry look on his face. I noticed that both this cutscenes' and Aku-Aku's one's voices weren't exactly the same as the original, but the impression was spot on. The hacker had done an amazing job!

At the Dingodile boss fight, I noticed that the cutscene with Dingodile and Penta Penguin was skipped, but otherwise the boss fight was normal. Until the end, when again, instead of having Dingodile's fuel tank explode for the third time, the game showed the options "kill" and "spare", while Dingodile was laying on the snow. For an instant, I thought of choosing "spare". But I was curious to see what animation the hacker had come up with. So I chose "kill". Again, Crash looked at the camera with that evil look in his eyes. Then he took Dingodile's flame thrower and pulled the trigger. The flame instantly killed Dingodile. Instead of having the classic cartoonish "dust face" or comically running around while on fire, Dingodile screamed in pain, before being propelled for several feet. I could see he now looked completely hairless, and his naked skin was red in various parts, and even black in others, as it would look if somebody actually set him on fire with a flame thrower. The most unsettling thing was his eyes. His now completely dead, soulless eyes, wide open. I was unsettled, but also a part of me felt weirdly satisfied. I then grabbed the Double Jump power-up, as I normally would, and entered the portal. Once again, Aku-Aku appeared in the space tunnel, and that was weird, since he wasn't supposed to be there. Aku-Aku looked really sad, and begged me to stop, before it was too late.

The third stage went as usual, and even this time the boss, this time Dr. N. Tropy, had a different line of dialogue, promising to avenge Tiny and Dingodile and kill me. Also, even this time Aku-Aku kept looking at Crash the whole time. N. Tropy's boss battle was really tricky. Apart from changing the opening cutscene's lines from "give me the crystals" to "you must die". Also, every time he killed me, instead of laughing as he usually does in the game, he just stood there, looking kind of empty. I soon managed to defeat him. Again, instead of disappearing and leaving his armor on the ground, he stood there, grabbing his clock hand-like staff, and again, the game showed "kill" and "spare". I hesitated more than last time. Somewhere in my heart, I knew that this was the point of non return. In spite of my hesitation, in the end, the curiosity prevailed, and I chose "kill". After his evil eyes, Crash broke the clock on N. Tropy's chest, and the scientist screamed in agony, as his body turned to dust. Deep inside, I felt again that weird sense of evil satisfaction. I took the Death Tornado Spin power-up and went into the portal. Again, Aku-Aku appeared, looking even sadder and more disappointed. "What is wrong with you?" he asked, "Why are you behaving like this?".

Then we went back to the warp room, and I started the stage. This time, Aku-Aku, when I broke his crate, would completely look away from Crash, as if he was ashamed of him. I felt a bit sorry for him, but another part of me was just annoyed by that. It was now time for boss 4, N. Gin, who, as I expected, was furious about the deaths of Tiny, Dingodile and N. Tropy, and vowed to destroy me with his robot. This time the weirdness with the boss presented itself before the battle even started. Coco was supposed to enter the stage instead of Crash, but Crash hit her with his Spin Attack and entered the portal instead. The boss battle went on quite a while. N. Gin isn't an easy boss. However, after losing a few lives, I beat him, too. Again, instead of the usual animation where N. Gin gets ejected by the robot suit, this time the robot remained intact. Again, "kill" or "spare". With little hesitation, I chose "kill". I was liking the death animations more and more. This time I was a bit disappointed (Crash just blew up the mecha, and N. Gin flew away), even though the animation made it look like N. Gin was suffocating. I took the bazooka and went into the portal. Aku-Aku appeared again, begging me to stop, saying that I could still save myself, that I could still redeem my action. I started to get really annoyed.

The last stage was ahead. Even this time, almost everything went as usual, with only the boss's cutscenes (with Cortex promise of revenge) and Aku-Aku's reactions (this time it kept looking at the camera, as if he really wanted me to stop the violence, not the character Crash, but the player) different than usual. I then went to the final boss. The cutscene was different. Instead of Uka-Uka possessing Cortex and telling me to give him the crystals, there was Aku-Aku saying: "I will help you one last time. Just please, do the right thing". The boss was easier than N. Gin, and after only a few deaths, I beat him. Again, the ending was different. In the original, I was supposed to throw Cortex down the pit three times. But in this hack, the third time I hit him after his shield went off, the boss fight stopped, and again, I saw the usual two choices, "kill" and "spare". A part of me wanted to spare him. Just him. A part of me felt really sorry for Aku-Aku. But now it was only a very small part of me. With a weird joy, I chose "kill" one more time. Cue Crash's evil look, and then he hit Cortex with his Spin Attack, sending him into the pit. After a while, I heard a weird noise, like the noise of a human body hitting the ground after a twenty-foot fall. I couldn't wait for the ending...

As I could expect, even the ending was changed. But I didn't like what I saw. Aku-Aku said: "That's enough! I can't let you continue to go down this route! This was your last chance! Now you will pay for what you did!". Then he used a weird ray, and Crash disappeared. The next scene, there was a really horrifying looking crash in a gloomy area, that looked a lot like hell. He was chained to the floor, on fire, and his body was horrifyingly burned because of that. He was screaming in pain. His screams were really disturbing. I waited for the credits to roll, but they never did. The game was stuck in this loop, with Crash in Hell, and I couldn't skip the cutscene. The only thing I could do was turn the PS1 off.

From that day, I couldn't sleep anymore. I keep having nightmares and visions about the bodies of Tiny, Dingodile, N. Tropy, N. Gin and Cortex. I can barely feel good again. Why won't they leave me alone? 