Eroded Colosseum

Pokemon Colosseum.

One of my more favorite spin-off pokemon games besides PMD, Ranger, Snap, etc etc. Maybe it was because of the whole “Shadow Pokemon” and the slightly darker storyline the series took, even if the game hadn’t..aged well in recent years and now just looked not as good as it once did.

But still, I sometimes get a little sting of nostalgia whenever I see old merch for it, which led to me surfing the web for any copies. Which..was where I found one going for a cheap price (which was a shock, all the stuff I saw for it were quite high price range.), the seller just wrote “Old copy I uSed tO have aS a kid!” and..nothing else.

Which was oddly suspicious, but who is ‘gonna turn down an old pokemon game going for $5?

So, I hit the order button, and started to wait.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited…

Until the damn thing finally arrived, all neatly wrapped up in a small box. The guy who wrapped it must’ve been having a bad day, because it was tough to open said box. When I finally opened it, that's when I noticed something..odd with the game case.

The covering was all black, with little nicks and such at the edges, and in the middle was POKEMON COLOSSEUM written in an old-ish (think 1942 Report Font) font, nothing else. There wasn’t anything on the back either, it was just..all black, the edges slightly damaged, and the “title”, if you can even call it that.

I opened it up, and the disc..was the same too, all black, though this time there was slightly rusted color here and there in the darkness.

If anything, this should’ve turned most people off at this point. Unfortunately, I have all the curiosity of a fly, and went to grab my gamecube and a TV. After some shenanigans with having to figure out which goes which, I put the disc in, started up the console, and booted up the game.

There was no intro, no Genius Sonority intro, nor a Gamefreak one, just..silence. Until I realized the game just put me right back into a session, but it was so dark I couldn’t see anything, until after a bit of trial and error and moving around alot, the screen finally lightened. I was playing as Rui, the main character’s sidekick, or..

At least it looked like it.

This..version of Rui seemed somewhat disheveled, her hair no-longer in twintails, longer, and messy, which also covered somewhat of her face. The clothes she was wearing seemed to be a lot darker in color as well, with a dark blue jacket. I was finally able to open the menu, and after deciding what to do for a moment, I checked out the menu. I was surprised to see a shiny (although its colors looked dull) Celebi, although its eyes looked glitched, random textures strewed about, and it remained that way as I opened up its stats menu to take a closer look.

It was apparently met in a..place with a bunch of gibberish, so much I am not gonna bother putting it in text, its nature was RASH, and it had a nickname that was ERRATUM. It's only movepool was Perish Song, Heal Bell, Ancient Power, and..a glitched move. Wonderful way to start off, a glitched celebi and a weird Rui in some..unknown place. After some more wandering around, I finally reached an area with light and I very much quickly realized where I was.

It was the Cipher Key Lair.

If I remembered correctly, the Cipher Key Lair was something that was..only in the sequel, Gale of Darkness, so why was it here? Upon closer inspection, it looked as if it had grown..older? The place was empty, there was no music and it looked like dust was covering the place. Once I got control again, I pushed onwards, finally finding the exit.

It seemed to be night-time when I finally got out, a slightly distorted, and static underlaid Celebi cry played, and after a flash of white, the glitched Erratum was out.

[  .flesti emit htiw pu hctac ot sliaf syawla tsap eht ekil smeeS ?ti t'nsah ,yawa dedore ]

Ok, now the textbox was acting funky, why the backwards text?

[ .em rof gnitiaw llits seh fi mih dnif ot deen i .etiryp ot og ot deen i kniht i .etiryp ]

There wasn’t any celebi cry during that, so it was Rui saying that, the textbox automatically closed, and Erratum went back into its pokeball, and I regained movement. The water around the Key Lair seemed dried up too. I managed to find a small motorcycle that looked like Wes’ somewhere in front of the Key Lair, and it too looked like it was getting old, rust covering some of the metal places and such.

[ This is still functional, hopefully. I don’t want to make any pit stops if this thing breaks down. ]

I interacted with it, and was greeted with a map, there was only one location other than Key Lair that could be selected.

Pyrite town.

I pressed it, and was treated to a cutscene of Rui driving the vehicle, her eyes seemed to be just as glitchy as Erratum’s, with her eyes being fully bright blue with cyan outlines serving as an eye glow. The screen went black and after a few moments, came back to Pyrite. Nobody was out there, except..for one person.

I moved closer, and recognized it as..well, Michael. Protagonist of Gale of darkness, with his colors being dulled too, alongside a rusted, beaten Snag Machine resting on his character and he himself sporting a few..rusted parts too, mostly on his neck and a few spots on his face.

He turned around, an exclamation point appearing above his head, and Rui started to speak.

[ .em rof gnitiaw llits saw eh thguoht i dna mih dnif ot mees t'nac i ?elag ,si eh erehw wonk uoy od ]

After I finally decided to get off my butt and pull up a backwards text translator, I found out that Michael was named..Gale, here. Seems like it’ll be easier to name him after the name of the game he's in.

His sprite nodded yes, I guess he didn’t have any dialogue put in yet.

[ .hturt eht ekil ton thgim uoY ?iuR ,rebmemer ton uoy od ]

A celebi cry played, meaning it was Erratum saying that..but what did it mean by Rui not remembering?

Gale went up to the vehicle Rui was currently in possession of, hopping in and motioning her to come along. I gained control for a short moment before I interacted with the vehicle once more, and the map opened again.

This time, a new area that I hadn’t seen before had opened up.

[ ˙ʇsǝɹ oʇ ʇnd ǝɹɐ sǝuo pǝʌol ǝɹǝɥM ]

..The hell?

I clicked on it, and the cutscene showed that it was starting to rain, a patch of rust covered a part of Gale’s face where one of his eyes were. Said eyes were..entirely black, sunken in a bit. The cutscene ended once more and I was treated to a black screen that went on a bit longer than the other one, and finally..

I found myself in what looked to be the front gate of a cemetery.

It..didn’t take long for me to unfortunately put the pieces together.

Gale motioned for me to enter, and I did. The place was darkened, maybe due to the night and the sudden rain. Me and him slowly walked down a small path that ran down many graves, before we came to a big one that was in the shape of a Umbreon and Espeon sitting with their backs together.

I interacted with it.

[ HERE LIES WES “SETH” SNARITE ]

[ ???? - 2005 ]

The game ended on a picture of what looked to be a devastated Rui, with Gale putting his arm around her and Erratum peeking out from beyond her shoulder.

There was nothing after the screen went black, nothing else, except for one message that appeared.

Thank you.

I nervously checked the seller's account, and..it was gone, I remembered the name having been something along the lines of ERODEDrusted