Nintendogs: Pandora
I've always liked hand held games a little more than those like on the major consoles like the GameCube or the Xbox. I'm not sure why but I do, perhaps it's because they are easier to pack around and I could bring the game to work or on travel trips unlike other game consoles. Nevertheless I probably will always like handheld games more than major consoles. But almost four months ago I had something really strange happen to me...
I had been at GameStop during some sale for the holiday season buying a used game for my Nintendo 3DS when I found out that I could use a buy two get one free coupon that they had in the paper (You think I would have seen this ad on my way to the store seeing I was reading the paper on the way to the mall since I decided to ride the bus down instead of walking. However I guess I didn't make it to the ads or something). Not really sure of what to get since I had the two games I wanted from the 3DS section and none of the other games really appealed to me I ask if I could get a game from the DS section and if it would count (Not wanting to waste such a nice sale). They had to double check with the manager
(I'm guessing they were recently hired or just seasonal workers) and said yes it would work, so I grabbed a Nintendogs game that happen to be on the shelf (You know the one that sits under the boxed games because they were sold without the case? I believe it was the best friend copy seeing it was a tannish golden color with Best Friends in tiny print under the actual game name) seeing I had owned a copy of the game a while ago but gave it to a friend because I felt bad for the dog I owned (Zelda a golden retriever) because I had been too busy at the time to take care of it properly but my friend said she would. But now that I had a little more time since I'm no longer in college and my job was rather steady giving me two days off a week I figured I would try again.
When I got home I didn't play the game right away, I wanted to play the other games that I had intended to buy and also work on my Pokémon White 2 game. After a few hours I decided to pop in the Nintendogs game to see what kind of dog the previous owner of the game had. When I started up the game for some reason there was no barking in the beginning also there wasn't a dog in the room. I thought maybe all their dogs had been in placed into the Dog Hotel for one reason or another, when I checked they said there were no dogs in the hotel. Now I was confused thinking perhaps the dog had run away but why hadn't a message popped up saying it had or was there a message (I feel I should mention I only played the game for a total of two weeks before I gave it to my friend so I hadn't experienced the dog running away)? I decided maybe to go just to adopt a dog from the adoption shelter.
When I got to the shelter the game randomly frozen, I waited for three minutes before turning off my game and tossing it to one side shrugging it off thinking that it might just be acting up since it was an older game in a newer system (I had experienced this with Mario and Luigi Partners in Time that once I left a map and the screen went to black it would never move to the next screen for some reason). I went back to playing my other games for a while, about two days later I finally noticed something was off. I had been playing my Pokémon White 2 leveling up my team a bit before taking on the Elite Four when I noticed something odd.
Some of my Pokémon's moves were off; they weren't missing or anything or were creepy names that they shouldn't be. They just had moved a little; like someone used the select option you could in the other Pokémon games to move them to a different spot. It was odd but I shrugged thinking it was a joke from my friend who is addicted to CreepyPastas trying to scare me. A few days later again something weird happened to my game; this time some of the moves were missing. Like my Samurott no longer knew Surf and my Levanny didn't have X-Scissor or Leaf Blade.
I was confused by this knowing I hadn't gotten rid of them to replace them with better moves in preparation for the Elite Four and yet they were gone, it hadn't been that hard to get the moves back but it was weird. Later that same night I had just gotten out of the shower, gotten to my sleep wear, and was just going to bed when I noticed my Nintendo 3DS was on. I didn't remember turning on the game system but I opened it to turn it off. I was shocked to see the Nintendogs game had turned on.
I had popped in the game earlier that day to see if the glitch with the adoption shelter happened again but I didn't get around to doing it seeing I had to go to work after someone got sick at work and I was asked to fill in. So I tapped the screen curiously when I spotted a dog, I hadn't heard the bark purely because I had turned off the sound while training my Pokémon because as much as I love Pokémon music it tends to hurt my ears after a certain amount of time. The dog was filthy, starved, parched, and it laid on its side like it was just falling asleep or something. According to the dog information the dog's name was Pandora.
? The dog looked up when I tapped the screen and it stood up slowly walking over, once the interaction screen popped up (The screen where you can pet the dog or teach it tricks. I don't believe that's what it's actually called but that's what I always called it so I shall refer to it as such). The dog looked at me and put its front paws on the screen and sniffed the screen, a text box popped up reading 'Pandora doesn't know who you are...but she thinks you smell nice.' I blinked thinking that was a really odd text to put in the game but Pandora barked (Or that's what I guess she did seeing I hadn't bothered to turn on the sound) 'Pandora...likes you.' So for the next hour or so I fed, cleaned, and gave the dog some much needed tender love and care. After a while Pandora curled up going to sleep, I saved and turned off the game going to sleep as well not even bothering to wonder where on earth Pandora had come from.
For a week or two things went on like that with me and Pandora. One day I decided to take Pandora for a walk around town, right when I started to make the path I heard barking and a text box popped up 'Pandora wants to go somewhere. Will you let her guide you?' then the yes or no option I said yes curious and the path she drew lead me to the agility trail training area. I let her go there (picking up the poop or keeping her out of garbage when need be getting an occasional gift from her) and when we arrived there was another dog. I had seen a few parts of the game during my two week play before and I know you never seen the other dogs at the training area. You could hear them in the background usually along with the various people in the area apparently so I was surprised to see a German Shepard that was pitch black, Pandora barked and seemed excited to see the dog. After a few moments of barking a new text box appeared reading 'Pandora has found Prome! Prome's owner left him behind and hasn't returned.' I tapped the message to move it off my screen, Prome wandered over to me and the interaction screen came up. Surprised Prome did the same that Pandora had done when I had first met her, he sniffed the screen and the game stated that I smelled nice. The game then asked did I want to keep Prome. I decided to keep the dog seeing one it was a free dog and two I felt bad for him. Once I said yes Prome barked excitedly and a new text box popped up saying he would wait at the house.
After that the training area returned to normal, when I got back to the house Prome was indeed waiting for me. After some tender loving care he was just like Pandora which was nice. Two more weeks later I was taking Pandora for yet another walk when the message that she wanted to go somewhere popped up. Again I let her guide me, this time we went to a store. Upon arrival we stood what kind of looked like what was supposed to be the front of the store instead of going straight inside like normal (it reminded me of the Café you can see when you walk around town and yet you can never go in). This time a Miniature Dachshund that was pure white was sitting in front of the store. Pandora barked excitedly and like with Prome a message came up saying this dog (the game called it Hope) had been abandoned and eventually the game asked did I want to keep her. I again said yes and she came home with me. For a while the three of us lived happily.
However shortly after getting Hope I didn't play for two weeks, my work had me putting in a lot of hours since someone went on maternity leave for a few months. When I finally got a break I was so relieved to see that the dogs were okay besides being hungry, dirty, and parched. Once they were all fixed up and back to normal I took Prome for a walk, I brought him to the park hoping to teach him to fetch so I could put in the disc catching contest. When we got there I set down the game for a moment to use the bathroom. When I returned Prome was laying on his side breathing heavily, which was odd seeing that he had been running around happily just moments before. Worried I tapped him twice, when I saw Prome I screamed dropping the system. Prome had blood all over his under belly and feathers were scattered around him he was whining ever so softly.
Scooping up the system I stared in horror at the sight. A text box appeared reading 'Prome needs to see a doctor! Send him to a hospital?' I frantically hit yes and the screen turned white I could hear a siren in the background and also some sort of constant beeping, eventually the screen faded back to my house and the beeping sound stopped. A new text box appeared reading 'Despite your efforts Prome has passed on.' I was beginning to cry at that never hearing of something like that happening before 'Make a grave for Prome?' I hit yes and we were brought to the park where now a tombstone reading 'Prome' on it stood. The music was really slow and depressing and Pandora and Hope looked sad and were whining softly. I stayed on longer than normal to pet the both of them once we returned home.
Two days later when I decided to check in on them Hope was missing randomly, there was no message reading that she had run off and that didn't make sense for her to since I had showered both with love and affection since Prome's death. A text box appeared reading 'Hope's owner has returned! He claimed his dog back. They left you a present.' A gift box was on the floor so I tapped it open inside was a music box. I clicked on it curious and it played a soft almost lullaby like melody. Suddenly Pandora grabbed the music box and threw it against the ground, I thought she was just being playful seeing I had seen her do this before with various other items when I had pulled them out to see what they looked like. But she kept picking it up then throwing it back down, harder each time eventually the box broke. I was surprised by Pandora's sudden attitude towards a little box, she growled at it looking at the screen.
She marched right up to the screen putting her paws on the lower screen, when I tried to pet her she made a biting motion at the cursor 'How dare you!' read a text box with red letters 'Pandora loves you! Do you love Pandora?' then a yes or no option I hit yes because I did love her 'Pandora doesn't believe you, the moment those two showed up you paid her less attention!' I was getting scared a little bit because of the red text and the constant growling sound Pandora made. I tried to turn the game off but a new message appeared 'Don't try and run from Pandora!' it read. The screen faded to black and suddenly the only thing I could see was Pandora but she had red eyes now and constantly growled 'Ever since you first showed up Pandora gave you endless love. She sees her mistake in letting you bring home those two other dogs! Have you stopped loving Pandora?' the game gave me a yes or no option.
I kept pushing the power button until the game shut down; I pulled the thing out of the system and threw it at the floor. I popped in Pokémon White 2 wanting to forget what had just happened, but when the continue file popped up it wanted to bring me to somewhere called 'Unknown' upon clicking it I was brought to a completely black void with no music what so ever. Suddenly a growl emitted from the system's speakers and a sprite that looked like a Growlithe only recolored the colors of Pandora appeared snarling 'You still love Pandora right?' red text read that was against what I only could assume was a wall or something. I turned off the game again and picked up another game the same thing happening, every game I put in the save file would be in some weird black void and a sprite that represented Pandora appeared along with text reading 'You still love Pandora right?'. I finally grabbed the Nintendogs game and found the best knife I had in the kitchen stabbing the thing repeatedly; once it was filled with holes I placed the game into my garbage disposal. I did get into trouble for doing this with my apartment owner when we had to fix it but what if that game had fallen in the hands of a child? I refused to let that happened.
It's been about four months like I stated earlier since, after the first two weeks the games returned to normal and no longer brought me to the void where Pandora would confront me (Though admittedly I didn't play for two weeks a little afraid of Pandora reappearing). I never figured out why the game did what it did but when I was reading a Greek mythology book looking for an interesting name for a character I was designing for a comic when I stumbled upon the story of Pandora's box. I was shocked to read it and I think I understand it now: Prome was supposed to be Prometheus, a god who stole fire and gave it to man and his punishment from Zeus was to be a living statue that an eagle would come by and eat his liver every day since the liver always grew back (Which explained the feathers around Prome when he died), Pandora was the first woman on earth and that makes sense since she was the first dog in that game I meant, and in the bottom of a box Pandora opened was ? Elpis the spirit of hope. Hope had been the last dog and the smallest out of the three dogs. This could also explain why Pandora attacked the music box when I got it, since Pandora's actions were caused by her opening the box given to her. I feel somewhat bad now for what I did but I suppose I did it out of fear I also found out that the owner of my apartment complex used to have a golden retriever but when he moved from his hometown the dog had been left behind with a friend since he wasn't able to continue to take care of it. I wonder...was Pandora the spirit of the owner's dog trying to reach to the owner or was it Pandora from the story?
Credited to Kidariko
Originally uploaded on November 24, 2012
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