I've been watching lets plays of Pokemon Stadium on youtube recently, and They have brought back some great old memories, specifically the mini games. Me and my Brother used to get in to some very heated mini game duels and such, just like any other siblings. To the point of staying up many nights just hammering away on those A and B buttons. These times were great and I love them, but I want to tell you a story.
I swore never to tell anyone about this but here I am, typing this up. I was perusing around the internet recently for an N64 emulator. One that worked well and could run most games. I came across an emulator called Project 64. I found it easy to use and very convenient. I went crazy over the thought of how many old games I could now play again. DK 64, Mario Kart 64, some of the Mario Partys, and most of all, my beloved stadium. I found roms of all of the games I wanted and put them in a folder on my desktop. All of the games came in ZIP folders which I found pretty common on the internet and when you unzip them you usually get a READ THIS file and the rom.
"I was ready to play Pokemon Stadium again"...I regret every word of that last sentence. After unzipping that file The contents of that folder were a bit strange. The usual READ ME file name was changed to DON'T READ THIS. I thought it was some joke the uploader was pulling. I decided not to tempt fate and just started the game up. The game file was called Stadium.n64 a common thing in emulation and roms to see. Upon the game starting up, the normal Pikachu cry you hear at the nintendo logo was not to be heard, but then the cut scene happend.
You remember that cut scene don't you? The Pokemon showing off in 3D and all, none of that was to be found in what I was playing. All I heard was a low pitched version of the music that plays during the cut scene. It was very unsettling at first but I was not prepared for what came next. When the title screen appeared the only thing there was the title it self. No Pokemon in the background, no music, nothing.
I thought, "OK this guy is messing with me." I pressed the A button and It went straight to the mode select screen. It skipped the screen where it showed what controllers were connected. Upon looking at the menu more I could see the sky was a dark red color. Kinda like the night sky for the round two part of the game. The Magneton curser was still there but They had no magnets around them, just the circle part of them was there. I saw what appeared to be a really depressed Charmander walking around the menu and I said "Well... that's new..." I moved the cursor over the mini games and was ready to play when the Charmander stopped the magenton in its path. All Charmander did was, held out his arm and then looked at me and shook his head in a disagreeing motion.
I thought "perhaps now wouldn't be a good time for mini games huh?" Charmander just kept looking at me with a really sad look in his eyes and then pointed towards the free battle stadium. I remembered what it looked like in my old game, it had two pokemon standing across from each other, but now it just had two sad looking ghastlys looking at me. Charmander pointed towards the gym leader castle. Which was nothing... It had been reduced to nothing but rubble. Charmander urged me to pick the gym leader castle.
When I did finally pick it, The music was a low demonic rumble of what had appeared to be the music that normally plays on that select screen. I went ahead and moved the magneton cursor over the remains of what what appeared to be Brock's castle. The image that appeared in the little box was one I never hope to see again. The image showed Brock with one eye missing and blood coming out of the other one. Again with a very solemn look on his face. Charmander then appeared out of the corner and shook his head. A text box appeared over charmander and it said "WHO DID THIS? WHAT DID HE DO TO DESERVE THIS?" The cursor then moved up to Mistys rubble of castle. She appeared to have no hair and a part of her brain could be seen coming out of her head in the picture, and like everything before she had a very, very sad look on her face. I couldn't take much more of this when charmader's text box appeared once again. This time it said "WHY DO WE ALL HAVE TO SUFFER LIKE THIS? WHO MADE US DO THIS?" Not wanting to go further up in the rubble I frantically pressed the B button. I then was back at the mode select screen. Charmander soon appeared, He then pointed to the stadium. I never thought a choice box would appeared, but one did. It asked, "Would you like to visit the stadium?" "YES" "NO" Thinking to myself "I really don't want to hurt charmander's feelings" I went ahead and selected yes. Once inside, the stadium modes appeared normal, but in the pictures again had pokemon with very sad looks on their faces. Some missing body parts, eyes, even some weith stitched up mouths. Charmander appeared again, shaking his head like normal, then his text box appeared. "ALL WE WANTED TO DO IS PLAY." "WHY DID SHE HAVE TO HURT US LIKE THIS?" Not knowing who this "she" was, I just shook my head. Charmander then took me over to professor oaks lab.
Oak then appeared, He was missing an eye, and he had a stitched up mouth. All it said in the green text box was "...w-why?..." Charmader then took me to the trophy hall. Apparently all of trophies had been unlocked and then Charmander started to take me down that long painful hall. Most of the trophies of the smaller pokemon had been crying tears of blood and all of the trophies of the bigger pokemon had, stitched up mouths and missing body parts. Some of their eyes seem to have been getting bigger when we went farther down the hall. At the end of the long walk. We then reached charmanders trophy plate. He put his head down and started to cry...
When he looked back at me he was missing an eye and was crying tears of blood, but this time had a very angry look on his face. He took me to the mini game plaza, Nothing was there. Everything was ablaze. My childhood had been crushed. Charmader then appeared then a text box saying "DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH ME?" "YES" "NO" I quickly picked yes. Charmander then started up the Run Rattatata Run minigame. But It had no rattatas. Just charmader, I had to play with him. The normal walls that you had to jump over were now spike plates. I missed one and the game was over. Charmander then appeared, he had three puncture holes in his stomach. He then said "LETS PLAY MORE" He then took me to the Clafairy says mini game. Which had been replaced with Gengar as the teacher. This Gengar had the worst stitched up mouth I had seen that night. The game then started. "ATTENTION!" "REMEMBER THIS!" <- -> <- -> . One ghastly and charmander had got it wrong. The hammer came out. SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! Charmander had lost his left harm. The ghastly had been reduced to a pool of purple blood....The game ended. Charmander then said "MORE FUN. COME ON LETS PLAY MORE." He then took me to the Rock Harden mini game. Charmander was the only one on the playing field. 3! 2! 1! GO! I then thought to my self..."Oh no! Charmander can't use harden!" BONK! BONK! BONK! Charmander had then lost his tail. The game ended. Charmander then said "One...more...just play one more with me..." He then took me Thundering Dynamo. I thought "No way in hell this could be good" The game started 3! 2! 1! GO! Almost immediately the thunder was unleashed, ZAP! ZAP! BEZZZZERRRT! ZAP!. Charmanders body had been reduced to ash...The screen cut to black. Text then appeared "What has happened here tonight must never been spoken of. You must not re-tell this story in anyway, or YOU will be next." Guess I'm next huh?
I still wonder why Charmander wanted to go through all of that pain. I never did boot that rom up ever again. The .txt file called "DO NOT READ THIS" Is still untouched. I have never been able to look at Pokemon Stadium the same way ever again.