User blog:Sandbags17/Pokemon Diamond: No Escape

The summer started as usual, I wanted a nostalgia trip after watching gameplay footage of old Pokémon games. Unfortunately, the oldest Pokémon games my local GameStop had were diamond pearl and platinum. Before I got rid of it, I had Pokémon pearl, so I decided to pick up a copy of Pokémon diamond. I used to like buying old Pokémon games from GameStop and stores like that because they had old save files on them, and I liked to check out the previous player’s progress. After what I witnessed from this previous save file though….I will never buy a used video game as long as I live.

I got home and my parents were not home so I thought this was the perfect time to just relax and play my new game and lull myself into the land of nostalgia. I popped the cartridge into my DS and as I presumed, a prior save file was present. I was a tad excited to check it out before I started a new journey of my own on the cartridge. There wasn’t much time played on the file, only a couple hours at the most. Guess the player just couldn’t really get into the game. I noticed something odd after looking at the game play clock. The trainers name was “Alone”. I squinted my eyes to investigate what I had seen. My eyes were not playing tricks on me; the name did read “Alone”. Immediately I thought of all the creepypastas I have read in my day and I gulped and let out a nervous giggle. Surely this was just the prior player trying to play a joke of sorts on the new owner of the game after giving it to GameStop. Nothing more.

I reluctantly clicked the A button to start my game. “This has to be a silly trick” I tried to persuade myself. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I looked down at my DS screen to see where I was in the game, and of course I was staring at the last place I wanted to be near with the prerequisite of the creepy trainer name. I was in front of the Old Chateau in Eterna Forest. “At least it isn’t Lavender Town…” I whispered to myself half joking half serious. I checked my party and the only Pokémon I had in my party was a Gastly. The Gastly was level 20 and again a startling revelation struck my eyes, The Gastly’s name was “NO ESCAPE” and the only move it had was ‘Curse’. My heartbeat started to pick up, I just kept trying to convince myself this was an elaborate joke.

Now that I realized that this all was building up I was just praying there was no creepy climax awaiting me. I knew I should avoid the Old Chateau at all costs so I turned back and tried to head back into Eterna Forest. My heart dropped when the little tree was in my way. You needed the HM move ‘Cut’ to get rid of the tree blocking your way, but the only Pokémon in my party was the Gastly which cannot learn the move ‘Cut’.? Then I realized how the name “NO ESCAPE” came into play, without being able to use the move ‘Cut’ I was forced to go into the Old Chateau. There was no escape. This was my destiny. Although I could just erase the save file and start anew, my brain wouldn’t let me do so. I had to know what this creepy mansion had in store for me. And you know what they always say; Curiosity killed the cat…

I ventured into the Old Chateau expecting the worst, but nothing was amiss just yet. I took a few steps into the building so that I stood in front of the Pokémon statue. I pressed A to talk to it. “It’s eyes seem empty.” I couldn’t recall if this was the text that was supposed to appear or not so I was beginning to think that the joke ended after the “NO ESCAPE” Gastly. I walked into the dining hall of the mansion, and the ghost of the old man had appeared as usual but this time the ghost of the little girl that is usual up stairs was walking in front of him. This was strange as the cutscene played out normally as it would except with the little girl just one pace ahead of the old man as they went of screen. I got the chills because I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was going on.

I made my way to the second floor of the Old Chateau. Over the music I could hear the faint cries of Gastlys in the background. This wasn’t too frightening but it did certainly help add to the overall tone of what was happening.

I walked into the room next to where you see the ghost of the child walk out of her room. Again though, this time the old man was in the room with her again. The two ghosts were obviously connected to one another somehow. I did not know how, until a dialogue box came up that made me cringe. The old man shouted “Be quiet!” then the sprite of the old man forced the sprite of the little girl into the corner of the room. The dialogue boxed popped up again; “You’re my property now, if you ever try and leave here, you will die. There is no escape. “The old man left the room and the sprite of the little girl just walked around and then stopped and a dialogue boxed popped up yet again; “What can I do? I either stay here and be tortured, or try and escape and die…” The little girl’s sprite faded away. What in the name of all that is good is happening right now. Clearly a story was playing out, an extremely disturbing one at that. I had to press on and get to the bottom of this story.

I made my way into the room that the scene with the little girl and the old man had just unfolded. The room had a malevolent feel. Something terrible had happened for certain. There was a bed in the room that seemed normal, until I clicked the A button to investigate. A text box appeared; “There is a knife under the pillow. There is dried blood at the tip of the blade trickling all the way down to the handle; this was used for something horrible.” This was starting to get gruesome, but there weren’t enough pieces of the puzzle to connect everything yet.

Pacing around the mansion, I entered the room that usually had the dread plate, but assuming everything that had happened in the game so far it probably wasn’t there, but to my surprise it was still there as I picked up the poke ball in the room and it said “Dread Plate Obtained!” but then once it said; “There is text engraved on the back…” I swallowed hard. The plate read “Now that I am alone, I can do whatever I please. No one to impress. No one to disappoint. No one to crush my dreams. No one to deny my love. All there is now is me and my thoughts of hatred of have for those who ruined my life. He stole everything I had and made it his own. I am nothing but a husk now. Nothing to live for, which is why I do the things I do. To everyone who blames me for their tragedy, they can also blame him for driving me to this extreme.” This would make no sense unless you read the last line like I did that made my jaw drop the floor and my eyes widen; “Yours Truly- Blue.” This chateau was Blue’s from Pokémon Red and Blue. What I could put together from this is that after Red took over as champion of the Pokémon League and after Blue’s tenure as Viridian City gym leader he moved to this mansion, depressed after losing his grandfather’s love and having Red always be better than him. But what were these tragedies he spoke of on the dread plate text?

Walking around the chateau looking for more answers I entered the room with the bookcases. Curiously, I searched the books in the bookcases and the titles of the books were haunting; “Murder; The Key to Success”, “Suicide: The Only Way Out”, “Revenge: Ruin those who Ruined You”. All the books in the book case were written by Blue himself. It seems Blue has been driven mad after his accomplishments had been stripped from him.

The trash can next to the bookcase was the thing that put this whole event over the top and made me want to vomit as I read the text after interacting with the trash can. “The can contains the severed limbs of many small children. They are not messy; they are not covered in blood. They are clean, severed limbs and even heads. “

After that text appeared I had had enough of this game. It told a story of a man driven to insanity by the hands of his childhood rival and he had believed he had nothing left to live for so he did the unthinkable; Murder.” As I was about to soft reset my game the old man sprite came into the room I was in and by now I knew this old man was Blue which made me quiver with fear. This was the first time I had seen him since I found out his horrible truth. Blue walked back and forth extremely slowly until she had something to say.

“Haven’t you realized by now, there is no escape. ? You’ve found all the clues I set up for you to find and now you know the truth. I am dead now from that one little girl who was bold enough to try and escape. Although she stopped me from hurting anyone else, she went down in the process. Poor girl thought she could out muscle this old coot…Ha…ha..ha.? But nevertheless, now you know why this place has stood abandoned for all these years. Because I revenge driven psychopath murdered countless children here, all because of that bastard Red. You can also blame him because now that you know what happened here, you can’t leave either. Welcome: To my chateau good sir, your still will be very gruesome.”

The sprite of the old man drifted towards my player and he pinned my player against the wall. I was getting beyond scared, my palms were sweaty and I was tearing up. What sick bastard would try and scare someone like this? The Old man Blue jumped at my sprite until my player fell to the ground and his hat fell off. The Old man straddled my player and a dialogue box came up; “The very knife you found in that poor girl’s room that ended the lives of so many will also end your own life, Good-Bye and welcome to the realm of loneliness and no escape!”

The screen went black. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was sad from the story, but scared at the same time. I knew I had to show this game to someone so I didn’t sound crazy and fucked in the head like I had made it up myself. I put the game on my kitchen table and went to go watch television to try and forget the absolutely disgusting and horrible events I had just witnessed. I dozed off as I was watching t.v and I ran upstairs to get the game after my friend has just texted me telling me to come to his house. I had to expose this game’s malevolence to the public. I searched everywhere on the table for the game. My mother was home now I asked her if she did something with the game cart. She said she thought it was trash since it had no label and she had thrown it out. I searched through the garbage for hours but there was no trace of the game from hell. I’ll never be able to show anyone this abomination of a game cart. All I can do is pass down the story to everyone and hope they believe me, and this my friends, is where the urban legend of the game “Pokémon: No Escape” begins.