The Evil Cartridge-A Paper Mario Story
I had recently purchased a used copy of the Nintendo 64 RPG, Paper Mario. I know, people have told me. I should not trust used copies of games, as they might contain some nasty things. But who cares? Those were stories anyways. Nothing bad is going to happen to me or my sanity. Probably.
So, I inserted the cartridge into my aging N64 console. That thing has been sitting there collecting dust for ages. Any yet it still works. Some pieces of technology somehow is still functional to this day, despite being created decades ago.
I booted up Paper Mario and, upon loading the file select screen, noticed four files. Each of them seems to contain a single word. They seem to contain a sentence. "Don't choose these files." Curious, I selected and loaded the file labeled as "Don't".
Upon loading the file, I was treated to a picture of Bowser's Castle with Peach's Castle on top. Its spiked balls swing without a sign of stopping as the castle endlessly floats in...somewhere. I cannot do any inputs. Any buttons that I pressed does nothing. I was stuck there staring at Bowser's castle endlessly. But my curiosity would not end there, as I reset the console and selected a different file.
Loading the second files greets me in an icy castle with a large mirror in the background. At first glance, the file seems safe. That is, until I tried to go back, and was treated with a icy barrier. There seems to be an empty altar behind the ice wall. I've spent hours trying to get past this obstacle, but then I gave up and reset the console again.
The third file was the most cruel of the bunch. As soon as the game loads, Mario is dropped right on top of a spiked enemy. He first strike it, but the spiked enemy makes it so he loses his last sliver of health. And then Mario died. Over, and over, and over again. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't save poor Mario from this torture. So I reset the console yet again.
The fourth file seems fine. Mario appears in a snowy town with penguins. How cute. Mario is also joined by a grumpy old Goomba. That's quite strange. After a bit of exploration, I came to a broken lake with a key at the bottom. Curious, I opened up the partner menu. And then the game crashed. After reloading the game, I soon discovered that I was trapped in this city with no way of escaping. No matter which exit I take, the penguins are blocking my path. I couldn't find a way around this, so I save and quit the game.
After being soft-locked several times, I came to the conclusion that there is no escaping this madness unless I deleted a file. So I did just that. To every file. Everything is wiped clean. With at least one file open, I proceed to play Paper Mario normally.
From the Author:
Does anyone here recognized the softlocks featured in this story? No?
Well here's a tip: Go to YouTube and look up the name "Stryder7x" and look at his videos. I bet you can find one video that perfectly describes the events that happened in the story.
Hope you enjoy this one-shot story!
Paper Mario was developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo