Mario 3
I've had an interest in retro gaming ever since I got a Wii in 2006, with the virtual console and all. One of my favorites, of course, was Super Mario Bros. 3. In the following years, I'd done all sorts of things to further explore retro gaming. Of course, there was emulation, but I figured that nothing beats playing the actual cartridge on an actual console.
So I went on eBay and bought a cheap copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 (hooray for doing exactly what hundreds of creepypastas warned me not to!). Bizarrely, the game that arrived a week or so later wasn't the NES game, but a game for the SNES. This was slightly odd, because while there was Super Mario All-Stars, I don't think there was ever a standalone Mario 3 for the SNES, unless it was made by hackers.
The cart itself actually looked really good, with a proper looking label and everything. The only oddity about the label is that it just said "Mario 3" instead of the full title. Also, the words "Mystery, Sjas the great" were crudely written on the back with a blue pen. Being the curious fellow that I am, I popped the game in and turned it on.
The "Nintendo Presents" screen looked normal, aside from a small error with the graphics during the transition to the title screen. The title screen itself also just said "Mario 3" instead of the full title. When I started the game, I was surprised to see that the map was completely different.
It looked like a hybrid between worlds 3 and 1. The game also contained about 30 new levels in place of the old ones, with elements from future Mario games as well as some new ones. As far as I'm aware, this was a port of some exclusive levels previously accessible only in Japan, with a GBA used in conjunction with an e-reader and cards. I was really enjoying this. Not only for the fun factor, but also because I thought this cart would sell for a fortune.
I made it to the final battle with Bowser, but that's when things started getting extremely creepy.
The battle mechanics were different, with Bowser stomping around the stage, throwing several hammers and summoning enemies. Bowser had no clear weakness, so I just kept jumping around the arena looking for some sort of weapon, or something.
Eventually, I accidentally ran straight into Bowser. That was a huge mistake. Bowser raised a claw, and took a fast swipe at Mario, knocking several pixels out of his sprite, which proceeded to fly across the screen, turn red, and disappear. At this point, Mario's pupils rolled up in his head, leaving nothing but white in his eyes.
Bowser didn't stop there, either. He kept attacking Mario, tearing him to bloody bits. Mario never turned towards the player and fell off the screen, like he was supposed to. At this point, I was starting to see why the previous owner pawned this cartridge off as being the original game. After about 30 more seconds of watching in terror, the screen cut abruptly to black. There was a strange humming noise coming from the TV, and after a few more seconds, it slowly faded back in.
The sky looked like nuclear fallout, Mario was swinging from a rope nailed to a dead tree, and he was bleeding through his eye sockets. The music playing now started out as a creepy tune, but then just degenerated into random notes. For whatever reason, I never turned the game off. I just sat there with my jaw hanging open.
A little while later, the screen cut to a 16-bit representation of Shigeru Miyamoto's face in front of that nuclear fallout-looking sky above what looked like off-color blood, with his eyes recolored completely black. The background music sounded like the World 8 theme, but much lower pitched. Below him, some plain white text faded in. It was as follows:
Mario is dead.
You could not save him.
You're next.
The hell awaits you.
At this point, I finally got too scared to continue and shut the game off. This game was pretty much single-handedly responsible for giving me a moderate case of insomnia. A week later, I decided to open the game up and take a look at the PCB board. I did this in a parking lot across the street from my house, since frankly I was scared of what would happen if I opened it in my house.
The cartridge was sealed unusually tight, but when I eventually opened it, I didn't even get a chance to look at the board, due to an insane amount of noxious black smoke flowing out of the casing. Once I saw that, I just ran. I ran until I was outside the city limits, at which point I just sat down next to the freeway, and stayed there for several hours, staring off the overpass.
Credited to MagmaMan4488
Originally uploaded on September 25, 2012
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