The Cave of Bad Dreams (Version 2)
- See also: The Cave of Bad Dreams
It has been a whole year since my brother gave me his old Nintendo 64 and all the games that belonged to it. He had 3 boxes full of games, and I were more than happy for it. I still couldn't get over the fact that he gave me his N64, because he always played it as a kid. There were even 2 or 3 of the same game, like 2 Ocarina of Time cartridges. All of the games didn't work though, which is too bad, since it's very hard to find Nintendo 64 games nowadays outside the internet, and I don't have a Paypal account.
After playing a few days I decided to search for "Rayman 2: The Great Escape" in one of the boxes. I knew he had the game, since we used to play it years ago. After looking for a while I finally found it. The cartridge was in bad shape and it kept lagging and freezing during gameplay, and it was really old. I told my brother about the game. This made him a little sad because the game meant so much to him. It was the game that brought back so many childhood memories.
The following day I went for a walk when I saw a flea market on the edge of the road. There were some teenagers running the store. They didn't really care for the customers. I looked around a bit. There were a whole lot of weird stuff, like a broken skateboard, and an iPod that I'm pretty sure didn't work. So I left the store because I didn't think I'd find anything. I decided to go back home and see if there were any other games my brother had.
On my way home I saw smoke coming from the forest nearby. The whole town came to check it out as the firemen exited the forest.
"The situation is under control. No need to worry!" said one of them.
"There's nothing to worry about, you can go now!"
They did as the firemen said and minded their own business, but I stayed. Something still dragged me into the forest, so I went to check it out.
It was getting dark outside, and I were completely lost in the forest. It was really cold and I were getting really hungry. Suddenly, I heard a voice from far away. I looked to my left and saw an old lady next to a small house nearby the road. She asked me if I were lost and i said yes, so she let me stay the night.
The following day she drove me to town in her really really old car. When I arrived at home i started up the N64. After playing for a while my brother entered the room.
"Where have you been?" he asked.
"You disappeared last night, did you crash at Steven's place again?"
"Yeah." I said.
"It was late and all and..."
"Yeah." he said.
"Uh, hey, did you find that game you were looking for?"
"Rayman 2? No, I'll have to try again some time." I said.
"Then what game is that?" he said and pointed towards my bag.
"I haven't bought any games.....have I?" I said. I was really confused.
I checked in the bag, and i found something in there. It was a game for the N64, and not just any game. It was THE game I was looking for. I was very confused, but very excited that I had found one of my favourite N64 titles. I plugged the game in as soon as I entered my room. It was a little buggy, but nowhere as buggy as the other one.
The music would randomly stop or change track in-game. NPCs would also say things they aren't supposed to say, which I thought was pretty funny sometimes. When I got halfway through the Menhir Hills i met Clark, the guy who tells you to go to the Cave of Bad Dreams. The cutscene was different though, as Rayman automatically gave the elixir that you obtain in TCOBD to Clark, which means that i could finish the game without having to deal with that creepy stage.
A couple of days later I finally defeated the final boss of the game. I had so much fun playing, and I didn't want to stop, so I decided to 100 percent the game (collect all the lums), but that meant that I had to visit the Cave of Bad Dreams. I went to the Marshes of Awakening and searched for the place, since I knew where the place was. I used to be scared as a kid, and that brought back some really bad memories.
When I got there the guard to the cave would say what he usually did if the player didn't know the name of the place, in which he didn't let me in. So I left the place..or not? Rayman dropped through the floor and respawned on solid ground. I thought that it was just a glitch. I tried to talk to the guard, but he was nowhere to be found. So i stepped forward and i saw a portal (a.k.a door, i refer to them as portals, because that's what they are). Upon entering the portal the game crashed, likely due to the portal not being connected to anything.
I reset the game, but it wouldn't start up. I tried everything to make the game work again, but it simply didn't want to start. I tried starting it one final time before I eventually gave up on it. As I was about to take out the cartridge i heard a textbox sound.
I looked up at the TV screen and it said, "I can read your mind! You know the name of this place! Then i shall let you pass..." It was certain that the game was modified because the original dialog is different.
I was spawned to the place the guard usually spawns you, except there were no music, only ambience. The acid underneath wasn't there, and as I fell down, nothing happened at all. No objects were present, except for Rayman. Not a single enemy, no lums. I couldn't pause the game either, which means I couldn't exit the stage unless I reset the console, but I was still pretty curious.
Textures started disappearing, and enemies started appearing, but they did not belong to this stage. There were Zombie Chickens and spiders everywhere, but they didn't attack me. Instead, they ran away from me in fear. Things started to get really creepy. Rayman started to do weird stuff like his head started spinning vertically. I couldn't control Rayman at all. He would just walk around whenever he felt like it.
After a while I could finally control Rayman. However, the controls seemed delayed. At last, I finally managed to get to the slide where the guard chases you, except that he didn't appear. There were no crystals on the slide either and all textures except the ground were missing. I then finally arrived at the end of the slide when you usually get to fight him, and, guess what? He's gone! When you fight the guard here he usually creates floating platforms that you use to get over the pits. But because he was not there I couldn't advance any further. Eventually I'd screw everything up and fall down towards the acid. I quickly reacted and grabbed onto a climbable wall nearby, and when i got back up i arrived at the final platform where the exit were, which was odd, because the exit was at the very end of the room.
When all that was over I arrived at the end of the stage. The room was full of gold and diamonds, like usual. The guard appeared, and he offered me all the gold like usual. I had an option of keeping the gold for myself or not, but the other option was grayed out, so I chose to keep it. Rayman flipped the coin in the air like he normally does. When the screen fades to white here a cutscene usually plays and repeats until you choose not to keep the gold, except this time Rayman was sent somewhere else.
Rayman was now standing on a seemingly endless field of grass. Rayman was colored gray, and you could see through him like if he was dead. Everything was on fire and very silent music could be heard, but it didn't seem to belong to this game. I walked forward for a bit, and started to notice tombstones everywhere. One of them read "Globox" and a couple of Baby Globox could be seen next to it.
When I came near them they said, "Where's daddy Globox?" as if they didn't really understand what happened to him.
Uglette could be seen crying in the background, and upon talking to her she said, "They are the only ones left after what happened... I could only save some of them before it happened..."
The screen faded to black one more time, and Rayman appeared in a black void. He appeared in front of Polokus, the spirit of the world. He was standing on top of the stone he always stands on, with the 4 masks on the sides of it. The eyes of the masks sparkled, and Rayman fell through the "floor". A cutscene then played where Rayman's spirit was laying on the ground in the black void, slowly zooming out...
The game then locked up forever, never to be played again.....
Credited to CutterKirby
Originally uploaded on April 7, 2013
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