The Cursed Hydlide Rom

I like old games, a lot actually. I like the nostalgia feeling of re-playing the games you used to play as a kid. I sold my old consoles (NES,snes,master system), now the only way I can play old games is by emulating them on the computer.I know a lot of sites where I can find "roms". I have a lot fun and nostalgic times with those games, I never felt so childish since then.

I was looking on YouTube for some cool game reviews, when I stumbled across ProJared's Hydlide review. I found the video very funny, I also found the game very bad and ugly. But, as a RPG lover I am, I felt like playing it. Strangely enough, I couldn't find the rom in any of the sites I searched. "Well, it must be an unknown game,so I gotta google it then" I thought. I googled for Hydlide roms. And then I found a link with the name: "Hydlide rom [broken]". I clicked the link, which redirected me to a white screen, with no url, not even "about:blank" showing up.

I found this strange, but quickly the page changed to a message which read: "Please put an end to this My Hydlide rom is cursed you gotta stop this Im having nightmares Please" Besides the lack of dots and comas, I didn't find that odd or strange, I even thought that that was joke, saying that the game was so bad that it gave him nightmares. But what I found odd was that, without even telling me, the game was already downloaded. The File was called: "Sorrow" and it contained a readme note and an executable called Hydlide.exe.I clicked the readme file and it contained a text that read: "You will regret". From that point on I started to get scared. I then clicked the executable file. And,strangely enough, nothing happened.

I waited a while, and still nothing turned up. My mom called me for dinner and I left the room, leaving the pc on. After dinner, I came back and turned on the pc monitor.

When the monitor turned on, Hydlide was finally running, but it was different than what I've seen on videos. The starting screen showed the name "HYDLIDE" in a red color, and below it was written: "End game" instead of "Start game". Nevertheless I got a little bit excited and thought it was just a glitch or something. But the most odd part is that there wasn't any background music, not even that annoying jingle that replays every 15 seconds. I pressed A to "start" the game. That's when things start to get creepy, well, more than it already was. The game started with the initial "cutscene" in which showed up the princess and Jim, the protagonist. Jim walks into the princess and stabs her. His eyes were red, and the stabbing noise was actually very realistic. The princess fell to the ground and shook in pain until she bled to death. Then the games changes to the gameplay, but it was different. The annoying jingle was very slow and sad, and there wasn't any enemy, any chest, anything. From that point on I thought this was a hacked version of the game and the creator was trying to pull a prank on me.

But it gets worse, I walked around on the map that almost looked like a wasteland, and I felt like I was being watched, like I wasn't alone. I walked for great 10 minutes looking for someone or something, I entered all the caves and castles but there was nobody there. After a while I felt like it was worthless to keep on and tried to exit the game. I pressed "Esc" and nothing happended, usually, by pressing "Esc" the emulator stops or just exits fullscreen mode. "It's an executable, not an emulator, you idiot!" I thought to myself. Then I pressed "Alt+F4" and still, nothing happens. I tried "Alt+Tab" and "Ctrl+Alt+Delete" but the game just stood still. I was worried, what have the game done to my pc?Then I came up with the most obvious idea, why don't I enter the menu screen and select the "Exit" option. I pressed "Enter" and a box came up, but the only option availabe was "Give Up".

"I know what the creator is trying to do! He's taunting me telling that if I exit the game, I would giving up of such challenge!" I thought. I selected the option anyway, and for my own surprise, the game didn't stop. The screen changed instead. It was another cutscene, this time it was only Jim in a pitch-black room. He's holding a sword in his hand. His eyes were red again. The music was very eletronic and high pitched, my ears were hurting for listening to that. It was headache inducing. Jim then stabs himself, kneeling on the floor, the screen was shaking a that moment and I could see another person in the room, as it was in the shadows, I could barely recognize him. i was pretty scared, but I could see that it was a person, it seemed very happy, with a mad smile, looking at Jim in such a way that it felt like it was pleased. The music slowed down as the screen faded out. Another message showed up saying: "You chose this. You are next." I almost passed out in fear.

The game finally closed and a new file was readme file was added. Something told me to click it. The readme file was entitled: "It's not over" and inside it was written: "It never was.". I shut down my pc and went to bed, I was too tired. That night and the next nights I had nightmares with that smily face. I'm posting this here in case something happens to me. I searched for more information about this hack, but I couldn't find anything about it. I tried to find that page again, but it seems like it was deleted, or even never existed. i haven't slept for days.

Comments • 1

Loading comments...