Beta GS Protagonist

It was 2007 and I was in high school when this happened so forgive me if anything seems messy as my memory is a bit foggy. But I had been really excited about announced release of the new games Diamond & Pearl which would be the beginning of the mainline games for the fourth generation of Pokémon.

Of course the release was still a few months away so I had decided to replay some older games as a way to hype myself for what was to come later in the year. I had a few games such as Stadium, Pokemon Sapphire, Pokemon Yellow as well as a copy of FireRed which I began replaying but honestly I missed having the Gen 2 Games.

I decided to search online for a used copy of either Pokémon Gold or Pokémon Silver to play on my Game Boy Color which had gone unused aside from playing my Yellow Version on it. I ended up being in luck and found a few copies of Gold for sale but what really caught my eye was on of them said it had a beta feature still on it which was a playable female character.

According to what I remembered the first time you had a female playable trainer in the games was in Crystal and so I was really curious and even if it was a lie I would still play the game anyway, so as you can tell I bought it.

It only took 3 weeks of waiting before I finally got it in the mail and I was excited to play Gen 2 again. I even tripped going up the stairs because I was in a rush to get the game into my Game Boy Color.

Once I got it in and started it up I intently watched the opening before moving into the Main Menu and selecting the new game option the usual cutscene played out and then I couldn’t believe my eyes when the option came up to select Boy or Girl for the player character.

I quickly selected girl and there upon the screen showed a character I had never seen before which was a female trainer with a hoodie and shoes similar to Gold’s but with what appeared to be sweatpants and additionally gloves and a forward facing ballcap. Her expression was also different from Gold’s looking quite focused and serious instead of looking confident or smug.

I was so excited to be able to play as this character and even if it wasn’t going to make much of a difference in the game it once again was still exciting to see a feature I never knew existed in the games.

I immediately began going through the beginning prologue with getting the egg for Elm and such, I chose Cyndaquil since it was my favorite. From there out everything played quite normal but later on after I had gotten around past beating Whitney I began to think back on some unusual dialogue that popped up when first speaking to Elm in New Bark Town and I really didn’t think anything of it when it first happened but now I realized how odd it was.

Elm saying

'''Oh! BRONZE! I’m glad to see you I was worried something might’ve happened to you.'''

I continued on with nothing else odd happening and all the while steadily built up quite the impressive team by the time I reached victory road being Typhlosion, Ho-Oh, Togetic, Scizor, Umbreon & Pidgeot.

I eventually got through victory road and made it through the E4 and Lance after replacing Pidgeot with a Dragonite and Umbreon with a Blastoise both of which were traded over from my Yellow Version. I continued on to the post game but grew bored and decided to put the game down and playing something else for a while.

It was only a few months later did I have any interaction with that copy of Gold again and by then I had acquired a copy of Crystal and had made decent progress in it. This is where things really started to take a turn for the worst as when I loaded up the Gold version I was immediately brought into the game without even pressing a button and not even getting to the opening cutscene.

Why had I opened up Gold again? Well, I had gotten both my Gold & Crystal versions out to do some trading between both versions but not without checking on my Gold save file after not playing it for a bit. Wanting to see what Pokémon I had as I didn’t remember all of them.

Anyhow. When the game had forced itself straight past the opening scene and main menu I was brought to where I last saved and that was New Bark Town but it was strangely empty and devoid of all outside NPCS. I also found myself struggling to control Bronze as whenever I tried to open the menu it closed out so trying to fly out of New Bark Town wasn’t an option.

Then whenever I tried to go to the water’s edge to surf or head out onto the route next to Elm’s lab Bronze turned back without me even touching the controls to try and do so and I was also presented with a text box stating.

Where is she?

This confused me. Where was who? What was going on and why couldn’t I even move the character on my own. That would be answered soon as Bronze began to walk automatically like when certain NPCs would occasionally lead you around in the game.

She entered the player’s house. Another box of text popped up.

'''No one else is in town. It is just us.'''

She began moving towards the stairs and went up them leading to the player’s room and right in the middle of it was the overworld sprite of Kris. The female protagonist of Crystal and it was only now did I begin to put together what Bronze meant.

'''They forgot about me because of you. They erased me for you.'''

'''You stole everything from me. My mom. My rival. My Pokémon. My adventure.'''

I felt unable to move or even speak as fear and morbid curiosity of what was happening and what would happen next began to wash over me.

Kris didn’t reply at all to Bronze’s accusations and stood still as Bronze approached her then ensued a battle but with some sort of distorted music? If I had to describe it then I’d say it sounded like the G/S/C trainer theme reversed but with a few different tone changes as well.

It was then I noticed I was in the perspective of Kris even though just seconds earlier I had been ‘playing’ as bronze. Both girls faced each other but with the lack of the usual pokeballs to signify how many Pokémon a trainer had.

Bronze wants to finish this.

I could see Bronze had some sort of animation as when the battle began she pulled her hat down over her face then brought it back up with a look of what i could only say was anger upon her face. As angry as a pixelated character could look.

Kris’ sprite was also different and she no longer clutched a pokeball in her hand like usual when battles began when playing as her, instead her arms appeared to be down by her sides and instead of being ‘faceless’ she had a noticeable frown but no visible eyes.

I tried selecting run the moment I realized I could move around on the menu again but I felt awful when it said.

Kris is too scared to run.

Bronze spoke again.

'''I’m not going to drag this out. I’m not going to make this longer than it has to be. I’m going to make sure that if I couldn’t have my story then yours won’t ever continue.'''

BRONZE USED CURSE.

But the Gen 2 curse animation did not play, no, instead something much more brutal happened as what appeared to be a red chain wrapped around Bronze’s throat and slit it. I helplessly watched as the character I had enjoyed playing as so much took her own life and then took Kris’.

It was inevitable and I knew it the moment this ‘Curse’ animation started and so I helplessly watched as the red chain connected to Bronze’s now bleeding throat slowly inched it’s way across the screen and wrapped around Kris’ throat before cutting her as well.

BRONZE HAS…

KRIS HAS…

The screen cut to black after that and no longer wanting to see any more of this I slammed my Game Boy Color down on my desk and sat down only now realizing how heavily I was breathing.

Later on did I come to some sort of conclusion that Bronze was meant to be the original female trainer to be playable but was scrapped and replaced by Kris. Whom she sought revenge after and that revenge came in the form of ensuring neither her nor her replacement were ever seen again.

''After all didnt you ever wonder why Kris wasn’t in HGSS? Someone had to fill the now open role…''