By the fourth gym, the game stopped pretending. The music was a single, sustained note of static. The gym leader was a black rectangle with the word “[NULL]” floating above it. It sent out a Pokémon named “MissingNo.’s Ghost.” Its type was “???”. Its ability was “Cascade.” It used “TM41” as an attack.
The first sign was the Pidgey. It wasn’t a Pidgey. It was a shape, a collection of polygons that resembled a Magikarp’s stiff face glued onto a Rhydon’s torso, colored like a shiny Ditto that had a stroke. Its cry was the sound of a dial-up modem falling down stairs. You tried to run, but the game’s logic had been inverted: running opened the menu, and walking triggered wild battles. pre randomized pokemon rom
You were the randomization.
The starter Pokémon were three: a Bulbasaur that knew “Guillotine” (now a Water-type move that healed the target), a Charmander whose ability was “Wonder Guard” (but whose typing was Ice/Rock, giving it seven weaknesses), and a Squirtle with base 255 Speed and a move called “Tackle” which, when analyzed, deleted the target’s sprite from the game’s memory. You chose Squirtle, because you wanted to survive. By the fourth gym, the game stopped pretending
The game paused. The static stopped. For one perfect second, there was silence. Then, a text box appeared, not in the usual font, but in a thin, handwritten script: It sent out a Pokémon named “MissingNo