Pokémon I Think I Bricked My PMD Darkness Cartridge

[IFBench]

HEY SO WHAT THE FUCK???? Has anyone else encountered this, or is it just me? This is completely bizarre, and I can't find anything about it online.

I was playing my copy of PMD Explorers of Darkness. It's one of my favorite games, and this run I decided to go with Meowth and Totodile. Things went well, up until Dark Hill. See, I always have trouble with this dungeon. Gastly line is so annoying to deal with, especially as a normal-type.

Anyways, after one of my attempts, I decided to have my Meowth character just dance along to the music. It's something I often do when I'm bored in these games, have my character move in random directions in a free-roam area in time with the music.

Well, I got called away for something, so I shut my DS, and when I came back and opened it back up, my team was sinking in the small pool of water in the top of the area, using what I'm almost certain is the same animation used in Northern Desert.

This was a huge shock to me. In all my years of playing this, I'd never seen this before! Excited for new content in my favorite game, I eagerly awaited what would happen next.

Once my team had finished sinking, the screen went black, and a dungeon header showed up on screen: Murky River B1F.

The dungeon was mostly uneventful, but had a lot of water-type and ghost-type Pokemon. The graphics were similar to that of Stormy Sea in Rescue Team, but grayed out. Oddly, though, my team's hunger never got low. I checked the menu, and the hunger meters were completely gone!

After making it out of the dungeon, there was a free-roam area, covered in what looked like cracked ice. My partner began speaking, and I don't remember what exactly was said, but I'll try to paraphrase it.

Totodile: "Where are we? Where did you take us?"

Totodile: "Oh...you're right! Dusknoir won't find us here!"

Totodile: "Let's rest up here, then head back when we're ready. I'm sure I'll make it out of here with your help, Meowth."

I quickly headed onwards, eager to see what lie ahead. Another dungeon header showed up: Palace Ruins 1F.

It was a pretty difficult dungeon, and the graphics were similar to the free-roam area. Lots of greyed-out cracked ice. There wasn't any enemy Pokemon or items here, weirdly. It was completely barren, aside from my team.

Soon, I made it to the end of the dungeon. It was another free-roam area, though a small one. There was just an exit to the north, and a jumbled sprite in the corner. The game must have been starting to glitch out. There was only one line of dialogue here, and it actually came from the player character! They said "I have a bad feeling about this..." upon entering the area.

I pressed on ahead, and saw something absolutely crazy. I never played Gates, heard it was bad and not like Explorers, but I recognized the Bittercold. But it was here in Explorers! And it was absolutely massive, taking up most of the screen! What the fuck!

Just as weirdly, though, my Totodile partner disappeared. She was even gone from the top screen status.

The standard boss battle music began, and immediately, the Bittercold hit my Meowth character with something called "Desperation" for more damage than I remember, but more than enough for a one-hit KO. Even after their sprite disappeared, the message log didn't come up, though. I still had my turn! I tried to use Fury Swipes, and it did a good amount of damage.

Then, out of nowhere, Primal Dialga crashed down in front of the Bittercold, and the game started glitching like mad. Sprites were all jumbled up, the music turned to an awful, ear-grating blare, and the palette kept cycling. Trying to get the sound to stop, I turned the volume all the way down, but it still wouldn't stop. Even when I tried closing the DS it wouldn't stop.

When I opened it back up, the DS was on the home screen, but I couldn't launch Explorers back up, no matter what I did. I tried blowing the cartridge, restarting my DS, playing another game then trying to start back up Explorers, but nothing worked. Whatever this did seemed to irreparably brick my cartridge.

Anyone else seen anything like this in this game? Or at least an idea how to fix this? This game was my childhood, and I really don't want it to be broken. Explorers was the best game ever made.

 

[K_S]

Nice intro establishing this as a help request thread... I was kinda hoping to see some review feplies ect in the same style but ah well this chunks really good...

And the gripes... Yeah unless you hug onto bite ghastlys are going to be a pain unless you overtrain to shadow claw and i think thats a persian specific move now that i think about it.

Huh so you leave it alone for x amount of times after random direction inputting and the end of the world starts... Fun. Love how the symbolism seems to be skatting over the pov characters head things get steadily worse...

Little wonder the place is crawling with ghost and water types. Though if they were (as i suspected passing into the underworld of sorts) its a surprise the partner made it...

And the fact the pc broke character kinda a stapple of the creepy genre to show how bad things are getting. The glitching/apocolyptic appearence of the villian from a different game kinda point this being bigger then a bug... And i am curious how this would roll from the pov of the mon but thatd be a different tale indeed.

Laughsa of course dialga pulling a act of mon divine intervention would crash a system.. Zeros and ones would fail to encapsalate it...

Huh wonder if the whole blowing would work i know its an old nes and snes trick but the games are so dinky youd probably make a hardware problem worse. Still its not a total loss as the system at least is working.

Thenloss of nostalgia game though is a shame...

Yeah i would say its beyond bricked and it staying dead is probably the best outcome really because portal to an alt dark version of your games likely the next step in the breakdown...

Well that was a fun read. a tamer variation of pkmn haunted silver. Bloody red. So on and so forth. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

A creepypasta, huh? Well that’s certainly different. Though hey, I was in the mood for some bite-sized reading tonight, and this story crossed my radar back in W2 though I ran out of time to get to it, so now sounds like as good a time as any to fix that:

Spoiler: Line-by-Line

HEY SO WHAT THE FUCK???? Has anyone else encountered this, or is it just me? This is completely bizarre, and I can't find anything about it online.

Oh, so is this meant to give off like a GameFAQs forum post sort of vibe? If so, I kinda wonder if it might have made sense to lean into it harder with formatting meant to mimic the layout or the like.

I was playing my copy of PMD Explorers of Darkness. It's one of my favorite games, and this run I decided to go with Meowth and Totodile. Things went well, up until Dark Hill. See, I always have trouble with this dungeon. Gastly line is so annoying to deal with, especially as a normal-type.

… Wait, what is Meowth’s moveset anyways in the Explorers games? Since I could’ve sworn that Meowth learn Bite early on via level-up, and you’d think that that would at least make dealing with Ghostmons manageable.

Anyways, after one of my attempts, I decided to have my Meowth character just dance along to the music. It's something I often do when I'm bored in these games, have my character move in random directions in a free-roam area in time with the music.

… That actually happens if you leave your character to idle in the DS games? Or is that “dance along to the music” meant to be the idle animation?

Well, I got called away for something, so I shut my DS, and when I came back and opened it back up, my team was sinking in the small pool of water in the top of the area, using what I'm almost certain is the same animation used in Northern Desert.

Which is sign number one that something was seriously fishy, since DSes and 3DSes literally use built-in magnets to detect when the system is closed and to put games into sleep mode.

This was a huge shock to me. In all my years of playing this, I'd never seen this before! Excited for new content in my favorite game, I eagerly awaited what would happen next.

I was about to call out the protagonist for not realizing that this shouldn’t be possible when playing a DS game, but I presume that s/he’s meant to be like 12, so s/he probably wouldn’t realize how this shouldn’t be possible at the moment.

Once my team had finished sinking, the screen went black, and a dungeon header showed up on screen: Murky River B1F.

I actually went to look and see whether or not this was a thing, and it is indeed not. So I guess the GameFAQs player here indeed got fresh content.

The dungeon was mostly uneventful, but had a lot of water-type and ghost-type Pokemon. The graphics were similar to that of Stormy Sea in Rescue Team, but grayed out. Oddly, though, my team's hunger never got low. I checked the menu, and the hunger meters were completely gone!

Translation: The player’s party drowned and are already dead.

After making it out of the dungeon, there was a free-roam area, covered in what looked like cracked ice. My partner began speaking, and I don't remember what exactly was said, but I'll try to paraphrase it.

… Wait, what on earth does “free roam” even look like in the context of an isometric 2D game? Is this meant to be like how Treasure Town is? If so, it might make sense to add that as an explicit point of comparison, since I admittedly thought of the Galar games’ Wild Area when I read this term at first.

Totodile: "Where are we? Where did you take us?"

Totodile: "Oh...you're right! Dusknoir won't find us here!"

Bold of you to assume that when, A: I’m pretty sure you’re dead right now, B: Dusknoir’s dex lore explicitly mentions it guiding departed souls.

Totodile: "Let's rest up here, then head back when we're ready. I'm sure I'll make it out of here with your help, Meowth."

Narrator + PC:

I quickly headed onwards, eager to see what lie ahead. Another dungeon header showed up: Palace Ruins 1F.

Oh, so another new dungeon, though I wonder if there was any design process in particular for picking out these names, or if they were chosen just because.

It was a pretty difficult dungeon, and the graphics were similar to the free-roam area. Lots of greyed-out cracked ice. There weren't any enemy Pokemon or items here, weirdly. It was completely barren, aside from my team.

Totally a promising sign there. /s

Soon, I made it to the end of the dungeon. It was another free-roam area, though a small one. There was just an exit to the north, and a jumbled sprite in the corner. The game must have been starting to glitch out. There was only one line of dialogue here, and it actually came from the player character! They said "I have a bad feeling about this..." upon entering the area.

You could’ve reset your game here given that there was no mention of save points, but I suppose you had to brick your game one way or another, narrator.

I pressed on ahead, and saw something absolutely crazy. I never played Gates, heard it was bad and not like Explorers, but I recognized the Bittercold. But it was here in Explorers! And it was absolutely massive, taking up most of the screen! What the fuck!

Wait, but if the player never played Gates because “it’s bad and not like Explorers”, how does the player recognize Bittercold when Bittercold is a plot point that comes up within like the last 3 hours of the main campaign?

Like it might have leaned in harder with “lol, I didn’t play Gates since I heard it sucked” if the player said something like “I saw this giant snowflake thing with a red core, apparently Bulbapedia says it’s the boss of Gates called ‘Bittercold’” might have leaned into it harder.

Just as weirdly, though, my Totodile partner disappeared. She was even gone from the top screen status.

The standard boss battle music began, and immediately, the Bittercold hit my Meowth character with something called "Desperation" for more damage than I remember, but more than enough for a one-hit KO. Even after their sprite disappeared, the message log didn't come up, though. I still had my turn! I tried to use Fury Swipes, and it did a good amount of damage.

Protag: “And, you know, I thought that was kinda weird, but hey. I wasn’t about to complain about a glitch working in my favor.”

Then, out of nowhere, Primal Dialga crashed down in front of the Bittercold, and the game started glitching like mad. Sprites were all jumbled up, the music turned to an awful, ear-grating blare, and the palette kept cycling. I tried to get the sound to stop and turned the volume all the way down, but it still wouldn't stop. Even when I tried closing the DS it wouldn't stop.

I’m surprised the player didn’t just power off the DS immediately there since my assumption as a player would’ve been “oh, it’s Glitch City all over again, time to just hard-reset and things will go back to normal” and not bothered with things past the volume slider stage.

When I opened it back up, the DS was on the home screen, but I couldn't launch Explorers back up, no matter what I did. I tried blowing the cartridge, restarting my DS, playing another game then trying to start back up Explorers, but nothing worked. Whatever this did seemed to irreparably brick my cartridge.

Hon, considering how your DS was doing things that shouldn’t have been physically possible for its hardware before you closed app, you should just count yourself lucky you didn’t permanently damage your console in the process as well.

Anyone else seen anything like this in this game? Or at least an idea how to fix this? This game was my childhood, and I really don't want it to be broken. Explorers was the best game ever made.

Next Reply: “Cool story, bro. Should’ve played Sky instead.”

Since the internet’s kinda dickish like that sometimes.

Though I thought that the creepypasta overall was done pretty well, and it definitely feels more “believable” than some other creepypastas that float around out there. I do wonder if this would’ve benefited more as a story from more explicit “forum post framing”, and I feel that the narrator breaks character a little when things take their turn towards involving Bittercold, since the knowledge the narrator displays doesn’t quite feel in line with “stopped playing after the DS games since I heard the new games suck”, but eh. Your creepypasta, your rules, and beyond some nitpicks here and there, I think the story as a whole generally works.

Hope the feedback was helpful @IFBench , and best of luck with Review Blitz.