I thankfully haven't seen anything with this video game character on, so I guess it is better.
There are tons of stories out there about hacked Pokémon games. Some of them really quite neat such as the one about a version where you get a ghost as a starter.
Some are ridiculous, silly stories about individuals dying after playing a game, or the game talking to them. God, don't these writers know less is more when it comes to these stories? Ah well, I digress.
I grew interested in these hacked games that are apparently in any thrift store, on eBay, or handed out by homeless people to random passersby.
I didn't have the pleasure of meeting these creepy people, I merely found this particular cartridge in a trash bin when the garbage truck backed into my neighbor's dumpster.
I noticed the game and asked the trash man if I could take it, and he didn't seem to mind. It was thrown away after all. I of course checked with my neighbor to confirm if they actually didn't want it, though they seemed perplexed, as if they'd never seen it in their life.
Their son made a grab for it, a little boy who saw the charizard on the cover, crying out "Pokémon! I want mommy!", but his mother told him no, seeing as I found it. He didn't even have a game boy anyway, he just liked Pokémon.
Thinking nothing more, I simply went home, looking at the cartridge's sticker on the way. Just a plain old Red Version, the sticker torn slightly across the Charizard's neck, but that was expected with such an old game. I had Blue Version as a kid, so I was a bit eager to see the, albeit minimal, differences Red Version had. I was rather disappointed by what I saw when the title screen showed up.
"Pokémon: Strangled Red Version."
Well damn it, it was a hack. Hacks were neat and all, but they had zero monetary value, the originals quite valuable by now, and I wanted to play Red anyway, not this crap. Oh well, it was free, might as well try it.
The name was odd however, Strangled Red? That made no sense, not even in a morbid description of someone being asphyxiated, as people turn blue when choking, not red. Who knows, maybe there was a pair of these hacks and I just got the red one.
The more I thought about this though, the more interested I became. My initial disappointment turned into curiosity, I wanted to know what the creator had made, and I was going to note everything I saw. The first oddity I noticed was the start screen had a Charizard next to the trainer instead of a Charmander, also, the Pokémon never cycled through like the original versions did, it just stayed Charizard, even after five minutes of waiting.
Shrugging, I hit start, noticing there was no Charizard cry as I did, like there was supposed to be.
I saw there was a "Continue" option, so I figured I'd do what everyone did with used games and see what the previous owner had done.
"… No…"
I blinked in surprise. No? What do you mean no? The game wouldn't let me continue no matter what, though on the fourth attempt, I heard the Charizard cry, quiet and barely audible, but there. Shrugging it off, I decided to just hit New Game, like I would have done after checking the old file anyway.
The screen cut to black for a while, no Prof. Oak, no starting theme, just nothing at all. Eventually, the screen came back, showing a bedroom, two beds, two TVs, and a computer in the corner. My trainer sprite was the usual one, consistent with the original Red Version. I was curious as to why it didn't ask my name, though that was answered as I opened the pause menu, noticing my Trainer was named "Steven". No, this isn't my real name or some stupid crap like that, this game isn't self-aware or haunted, at least not that I know of, it just had a name chosen already.
