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AwesomeSaucez — SR: PokePastas #29 - PMD: Explorers of Death V2
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Published: 2023-08-04 19:04:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 10625; Favourites: 51; Downloads: 0
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Description
Note: Please do not harass the original author or anyone who makes content related to this pasta. This review was simply made for entertainment purposes only. This is all based on MY OPINION as well.WELCOME BACK TO SAUCEZ REVIEWZ: POKEPASTAS SERIES!!!
Before I get too deep into this, I just want to explain that this is another version that star-byte has made for the respective pasta and this one has a variety of similarities to the original version. So, a lot of my commentary for this review may just be me comparing this version and the original. I will say that I don't have much to say about this version especially since a good chunk of it is events sort of rephrased from the original. First thing, the prologue (I guess I could call it the pre-game section of the story) is nearly identical to the original with some minor changes here and there. The only notable difference I could find was the protagonist has a little Dachshund named Lilly, which will take part in a role for the pasta later on. So, to save time, I'm not going to cover the prologue since I already did for the original's review. Also, I'm going to link a source to the pasta I'm reviewing from now on since some pokepastas can have various versions of it and give credit. The reason why I didn't link the pastas beforehand was because I was concerned about the potential harassment if I give it the spoiled rating, but I make a clear disclaimer at the beginning of each of my reviews not to do any sort of harassment towards anyone who makes content related to the pastas. I will have the pokepastas linked next to the "Pasta Name" below from now on.
Pasta Name: PMD: Explorers of Death V2 by star-byte
Publish Date: February 22, 2011
Synopsis: After the protagonist forces her starter to be a Vulpix instead of a Squirtle and names her Myra, her Shinx partner she named Shadow tries to kill Myra to "make things right" for them.
Fun Fact: The protagonist’s personality is bold if she kept getting Squirtle as her starter.
Highlight: The suspense of the story.
Quote: “You should have just accepted who you are.”
Story:
To recap the prologue though, the protag wants to play as Vulpix, but kept getting Squirtle, so she kept resetting until she got Vulpix and she chose Shinx and named him Shadow as her partner. After that, this happens...
>Original: Split-second static
>V2: There was a black screen for a few minutes that the protagonist said "stupid, old DS, I'm going to have to get my dad to get me a new one soon, but it eventually loaded up.
Vulpix was shown laying on the beach during the sunset with blood puddles surrounding her. The protag was excited thinking Nintendo stepped up their game by adding blood into their Pokémon Games. Thinking it was a cutscene, she mashed "A" until Shadow appeared who was wondering what the sounds were and was shocked to see the Vulpix. A spark came from Shadow. "Kill her and make us right..." Shadow kept repeating. The protag was shocked about death being allowed in a Pokémon game and got excited because of the abnormality.
>Original: Shadow drags Vulpix to safety right away
>V2: Shadow tries to kill Vulpix right away
Shadow stopped charging his attack and shook his head. "No, I can't kill her... There has to be another way... Kill her and this will all be over with... But I can't... kill her..." He dragged Vulpix away off-screen, leaving a trail of blood behind as it faded to black. Vulpix was in a dark cave alone with a campfire in front of her, Vulpix slowly stood up and stretched but then winced in pain and fell back to the ground, shivering. Shadow walked into the room and was shocked to see Vulpix was awake. "Shadow: Lie down, don't move, don't speak, don't make any sound, breathe as quietly as possible, be absolutely still, or you and me will both regret it. I said stop moving." Vulpix stopped shivering. Protag thought Shadow was mean. "Shadow: I-I'm sorry... just please don't move... please... make us right..."
"Shadow: ...Tell me your name. Quietly whisper your name to me. Now. Please be someone else, be someone else, be someone else..." Protag typed out Myra once the name box popped up for the Vulpix. The screen faded black once the name was entered with static bursting out. Protag commented: "Yep, definitely getting a new DS." The static finally went away and opened back to the cave. Myra's sprite whispered to Shadow and then Shadow leaped back shocked. "Myr-" He shook his head and regained control. "I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up." His icon had a tear rolling down his face. He stood up and stared at Myra for a while. Myra opened her mouth as if she was about to speak, but Shadow slammed his paw down on her muzzle. "I told you don't talk." Myra started shivering as if she was about to cry. "Stop moving, please... she'll hear you... stop!" He shot a bolt of electricity but barely misses Myra. Myra became still as a stone.
Minor Nitpick: I'm pretty sure charging up electric would make more sounds than shivering on the ground.
>Original: Shadow brought Myra a berry
>V2: No berry
Shadow watched Myra closely and then sat down with his sprite looking like he was on the verge of crying. "Listen to me... if you want to live. Then listen... Make us right..." He suddenly stood up. "She heard." Shadow's icon looked worried, then changed to a relieved sigh. "She doesn't know you're here, but she's suspicious... stay here. I must talk to her." Shadow walked away and warned Myra not to move while he was gone and exited the cave. The protag left her character all alone. She was afraid to press any buttons. because Shadow seemed pretty serious. The protag got bored after a few minutes and they assumed they needed to do something without moving. They pulled up the start menu and searched through the items option to see what Myra has in her inventory. Myra had one item, "chains".
Info: "You found these chains wrapped tightly around your neck. You don't remember how you got them but you can't take them off." Nothing happened when interacting with them, so they exited it. There was nothing of interest in the rest of the start menu. Myra closed her eyes as of falling asleep. The screen slowly faded to black as the protag waited for something to happen. It took a while when various textboxes appeared. The textboxes had no icon next to them.
I know I've hardly made any comments here but I really don't have much to say because a lot of this is the same as the original but with various minor changes. But I would say there are more major changes in the second half of the pasta. And we're about to get to a major change for the next part here...
"???: Greetings, partner." The protag was confused by this. "???: H-Hey... Y-You seem to be in a g-good mood..." "???: Quite. And you know very well why." "???: ...!! I do?!" The protagonist assumed this was a conversation between two people, but was still confused.
"???: Don't be daft, you know very well why."
"???: N-No I don't-"
"???: She's here! Can't you sense her presence..?"
"???: O-Oh yeah! T-That... Yes, I've sensed her-"
"???: You have been active lately."
"???: Uhh... Yeah..."
"???: I'm waiting, partner."
"???: Uhm... I-I thought I had found her, bu-"
"???: She got away from you, didn't she?"
"???: ..?! Oh, uhm, yeah, I tried to chase her but she got away..."
"???: It's alright, at least we know she's around here somewhere."
"???: Yeah, I'll get her next time..."
"???: ...Something troubles you."
"???: What..? Why do you think that..?"
"???: It's alright that she got away, I'm honestly not mad. Just be sure to kill her soon. Slaughter her. Show that rat no mercy for stealing our life."
"???: I-I will... I will."
"???: This is just marvelous. We'll finally be able to live normally, like we were supposed to be..."
"???: Y-Yeah..."
"???: ...She's here."
"???: Huh? Yeah, we know she's here-"
"???: She's in the Dungeon."
"???: What?! ...S-She is... Th-that ignorant little-"
"???: P-Partner..."
"???: What is it?"
"???: D-Don't let her find me... K-Kill her... Please..."
"???: I will-"
"???: Kill her and make us right... Please..."
"???: ...I will. I promise."
"???: Thank you..."
"???: ..."
"???: ...Partner..."
"???: What?"
"???: Nothing, just thinking... I must go now..."
"???: Take care, don't get yourself murdered..."
"???: I won't..."
After the last textbox disappeared, it faded to Myra, except she was standing in the middle of a dungeon. She was standing up and moving around, nothing happened. "Alright, finally! I get to actually move!" Lilly yapped beside the protag at the sudden remark. Protag tried to calm her down. "It's alright, I'm getting to move! It's a miracle, isn't it?" Lilly barked once more and laid her head down, tired.
Myra walked around and noticed the odd atmosphere with no music playing, the walls were chalk white and faint pink, but she was able to find a staircase. Getting to the next floor, the pink tint became darker. She noticed a blood stain on the floor, next to a skull. "Yes!" The protagonist whispered, happy about the dark themes continuing. There were more blood and skulls. The pink hue was darker on the next floor with even more blood and skulls. A metal table was found with chains and handcuffs on it. Another room had torture equipment. Protag felt uneasy like it was too much for a Pokémon game, but continued to the next floor. On this floor, the pink was now a pinkish grey with more blood stains, skulls, and torture equipment.
>Original: Myra fled from Shadow to encounter all of the torture equipment
>V2: Myra walks up the stairs alone to torture equipment and the section is a lot lengthier.
A white and dark grey Rattata appeared after they had taken only a few steps. Rattata looked like they were limping. They looked shocked once they noticed Myra and turned savage. It slowly walked towards her. The protag assumes since it's a Rattata and it's obviously hurt, it would be a one-hit KO. It was a major miscalculation as it took 13 hits for a KO. Myra was obviously hurt from the battle. There weren't many Pokémon to fight in the dungeon. The environment slowly became more gruesome as they proceeded. They found a table with internal organs on it and a knife stabbed into it. Protag stupidly stared at it for moments, struggling to believe what they are seeing.
"Whoa... I think they went too far with all of this..." The protag thought the blood and skulls were neat, but the organs were too much. Protag noticed they could hear a heart beating for the BGM. It was faint but there was a long pause between each beat. The protag didn't think much of it and mostly focused on the visuals. Walking the rest of the floors, each looked more painful to look at than the last. The walls were fully grey-pink and the heartbeats got louder and quicker. Pokémon corpses were littering the floors, skulls, and skeletons with bits of flesh clung onto them, and more torture equipment. A few more grey and white Pokémon challenged Myra, each more violent than the last.
A lot of this speaks for itself honestly. Having blood and gore there to be there to heavily rely on it as a creepy factor. Although, just like I said for the original, I still like the tension of Shadow protecting Myra from a certain "someone" and how it builds up with how much of a threat this particular "female" could be with all of the torture equipment and corpses they are witnessing. I'd argue all of that is used to build up and show what will happen to Myra and Shadow if they get caught or heard. I do think this version is better at the detail of Shadow catching up to Myra because it didn't make much sense why it took Shadow so long to catch up to Myra after all of the events and battles if he was chasing after her the whole time in the original. While in this version, Shadow is completely unaware she ran away from the cave.
The protag thought she was going to lose her last strand of sanity as she made it to the final floor. Static burst onto the screen before the place fully loaded in. Lilly yelped from the sudden noise, so the protagonist patted her head. The static lasted for a minute before going away. Suspicion rose, assuming her DS was going dead, but it wasn't. The floor loaded in and the walls and floors were crimson red as if drenched in blood.
The heartbeats stopped and there was no BGM playing. Myra slowly walked forward without the protagonist's control. A textbox appeared: "???: P-Partner, is t-that you...?" Myra walked a few more steps forwards, then leaped backward in shock as she saw something off-screen. The next thing the protagonist witnessed made her breath catch in her throat. It was a severely beaten up and bloodied Squirtle who was chained to the wall. Parts of its skin were ripped off, exposing muscle tissue. Its eyes were ripped out, only showing empty eye sockets. "???: S-Speak to me... P-Please, partner, s-say something..."
Myra backed up and quickly turned around to dash away until she crashed into Shadow. The two stared at each other.
"Shadow: ...M-Myra..." There was a long pause. "Shadow: You idiot!!" Shadow's icon looked furious like he wanted to tear Myra into shreds. "???: W-What?! S-She's here?! K-Kill her! Kill her now!!" Shadow began charging up an electric attack. Myra shivered and backed up a step. The light from the electricity slowly grew larger and brighter so much that it was painful to look at. Shadow suddenly stopped charging his attack. "???: ...P-Partner?! What are you doing...?! Kill her this instant!! Before she destroys us!!" "Shadow: I can't." Shadow's icon looked sad and defeated. "Shadow: I can't kill her." "???: W-Why not?! Why can't you kill her?! P-Partner, snap out of it, please!! Slaughter her, give us our life back, make us right-" "Shadow: No." "???: ....No?" "Shadow: We'll never be right!" "???: What are you talking about?! Just kill her, this will all be over, things will be perfectly normal-" "Shadow: I'm not your partner." "???: ...What-" "Shadow: I-I hate you!! Y-You sadistic monster!! W-We'll never be right... A-And... I want to be with Myra..." There was a long pause, the longest so far. Protag gawked at the screen uncertain what to expect next. Now several minutes have passed. That's some dedication right there, staring at the same thing for several minutes. It's like watching paint dry.
Nothing happened after pressing buttons, thinking this was a cutscene. The static suddenly burst onto the screen except it would flicker for a brief moment then it went to the dungeon. "Shadow: N-No!! Kill her before she-" Shadow's dialogue was barely readable from all of the static and it then cut to black. Another small pause and then a loud cracking noise burst out from the speakers that sounded like glass breaking. It caught the protag and her dog off-guard. Protag once again strokes Lilly's head to calm her down. The protag commented how this is becoming an emotionally, nerving-wracking game. The static slowly faded in with a text popping out randomly. The protag braced themselves and eventually left out a slight scream of sheer terror. The Squirtle appeared in the middle of the screen amidst that parts, exposing internal organs and bones. Blood poured out of its gashes with a cracked open shell, bubbling green goo oozing out. Small, red eyes and eye sockets were wide open. Sharp razor teeth, its grin stretching off the edges of its face. The tail itself was long and torn curling a sharp, bloody dagger. The knife made the protag scream, having a fear of knives. It looked like a Zombie. It eventually faded into darkness. Lilly leaped on top of the protagonist, licked her face, and yapped at her. The protag resumed showing affection towards her Dachshund who has the innocent puppy eyes glaring at her to cheer the protag up. It made the protag feel better.
I like the tension between the Shadow going back and forth to be the partner of Squirtle or Myra. If it wasn't obvious, the Squirtle was the mysterious being talking.
Returning to the game, it wasn't a black screen. Myra was inside a dark, grey cave with Pokémon corpses. It was nothing but shades of black, grey, and white except for the blood stains and Myra.
The protag was getting sick of this. "I don't have to deal with this crap!" The protag attempted to press the power button but the game wouldn't turn off. Unexplainable, scientifically impossible reason for the game not turning off.
"???: I'm not finished with you yet." Protag freaked out in shock. They wanted to throw the DS away, but something urged her to keep playing. And that "something" is what? Myra took a step forward, and one of the dead Pokémon corpses shook and rose. There was a zombie Marill, a zombie Poochyena, and others swarming around Myra. "???: That should keep you busy for a while." And it did. Myra may have done all one-hit KOs toward the zombies, but it was still difficult to keep them at bay. Myra's HP was nearly at zero. Myra ran out of there before the zombies rose up again. On the next floor, the screen went to black and many textboxes appeared.
"Shadow: W-Why are you doing this?!
???: I could ask you the same thing... partner.
Shadow: What did I do?! Myra did nothing to deserve this-
???: She stole my life, my destiny, she replaced me, then stole you from me... She deserves every last bit of this torture.
Shadow: ...M-Maybe, our destinies have changed-
???: No. They didn't change. They were corrupted. I was going to be the hero, you my partner, but then she came and massacred it all...
Shadow: Maybe she was supposed to be the hero after all, and you-
???: I was supposed to be the hero!! I was supposed to go on adventures with you!! But then she stole it all... But I wasn't going to give up that easily... You weren't supposed to give up that easily...
Shadow: ...I-
???: You were supposed to kill her and set everything back on course. Everything would have been peaceful and normal... We would have been right-
Shadow: We would never be right! I hate you, but I want to be with Myra-
???: You want something that doesn't even exist!! She isn't supposed to be here, she isn't supposed to be real, she isn't real-
Shadow: I-
???: S-She's everything I'm not... Everything I wanted to be... A collection of unrealistic dreams that could never come true and never will be..."
"Shadow: ...
???: But you couldn't accept me for who I was. I wasn't good enough for you. I was the real one, the one in need who was crying out to you for help... But you succumbed to your greed and left me for her...
"Shadow: ...
???: Now I've turned into this... thing. I'm my own nightmare. I didn't want to be this. You turned me into this horrid creature, and now nothing can be undone...
Shadow: ...
???: Well, what do you have to say for yourself..?
Shadow: ...I'm sorry.
???: Sorry, huh? Well-
Shadow: But I still want to be with Myra.
???: ...
Shadow: ...I-
???: I can't believe you. You greedy, self-centered demon."
Shadow: I'm not the demon here-
???: Yes you are. You can't look past my flaws and just accept who I truly am, so you desert me for someone who I'm not.
Shadow: I-
???: I've had enough of this. I'm done trying to reason with you. She's corrupted your thoughts beyond repair.
"Shadow: Wh-What?!-
???: If I have to take you back by force, then I will. I will slit her throat and tear her apart limb by limb. Once you see she's truly nothing, then you'll come back to me, and we'll be right...
Shadow: No, don't you dare-
???: We'll be right... We'll be right... It will all be right...
Shadow: No!-"
Shadow's a brave lad and Squirtle keeps interrupting him. This conversation shows the desperation between Squirtle trying to convince Shadow to be with her over Myra and Shadow desperately trying to protect Myra's wellbeing. Squirtle informs Shadow that Myra replaced her, which is a callback to the beginning of the pasta where the protag kept denying playing as a Squirtle and preferred to play as Vulpix (Myra) instead.
There was static for a few seconds, then it disappeared, once it had left, instead of the screen being black, it actually went straight to Myra standing on what appeared to be a large, solid white platform with a black background. There was no audio. No matter what buttons were pressed, nothing happened for several minutes. Protag put her DS down with it still open. The protag accidentally interrupted Lilly's slumber, she patted her head and thought of what to do next. She was about ready to get up from her bed when a sudden loud beeping came from her DS' speakers. Trying to move Myra to make the beeping occur again, but nothing happened. The beeping sounded a third time.
The protag noticed Shadow was actually standing in front of Myra. He blended in so well with everything else, it was difficult to notice him at first. "Shadow: It's no use..." Shadow looked defeated in his icon. Electricity began to spark from his paws. Myra backed up a step. "Shadow: Please stay still..." The electricity grew even larger, covering almost half the screen. The protag's hair spiked up, like when you're about to get hit by a lightning bolt. "Shadow: This should be enough to kill both of u-" The electricity suddenly went away. Shadow shivered, then he collapsed onto the ground as blood started to pool around him. Myra looked shocked and ran towards his side, giving the protag a better view. The protag gasped at the site, Shadow was sliced in half. The scene stayed the same for a few moments until Shadow raised his head and spoke, "Shadow: H-Ha... L-Looks like I... failed..." He fell to the ground and stopped moving afterward.
>Original: Shadow sacrificed himself in attempting to save Myra.
>V2: Shadow tries to kill himself and Myra, but gets killed in the process.
I personally prefer the original's interpretation of this part because it really felt heroic for the story and did some good for Shadow's character. But, let Shadow said in this version: he failed, which I guess you can say is horrifying if you look at it from the protagonist's perspective.
"???: Such a waste, isn't it?" Yeah, it was a bit of a wasted opportunity to build up Shadow's character a little more, which I think this version did fairly decently and arguably better than the original, but I still feel like it wasn't quite enough for a completed character arc.
Myra looked shocked and jumped up, looking around. "???: If only he could have looked past his greed, then none of this would have happened, and you could have peacefully died... but's done is done, I suppose." There was yet another long pause. What's with all of the long pauses? Seriously, this protag has quite the patience.
"???: Ready to join him?" Myra's sprite shivered. Various flashes were shown on the screen. Myra was forced backward each flash until she collapsed onto the ground. There were cuts with crimson-red blood gushing from her wounds. I know I should be commentating on how ridiculous it would look to have all of these wounds considering how small the overworld sprites can be in the PMD games, but I don't want to jinx myself because we're covering sparklingdemon's remake of this pasta and it has full-on sprite work and images for the whole entire pasta. Maybe their remake will make the bloodied sprites work...
Myra was heavily breathing and struggled, but was able to start rising again. Didn't she have nearly 1 HP earlier? There was another flash once she stood up and a knife was embedded in her forehead. Ohh, so that's where the whole knife in the forehead thing came from? Myra staggered and fell over to her side, unmoving. "???: You should have just accepted who you are."
>Original: The protag somehow physically took damage as Myra did for some odd reason.
>V2: The protag isn't affected physically whenever Myra takes damage.
Yet another long pause before the DS battery light went red, but before yet again... another long pause happened. The screen went black as a white text appeared: "You aren't dead yet. You never will be." What kind of threat is that? You're saying they'll live forever. I will pay good money (NOT REALLY) for anyone to tell me why Squirtle would make such a threat like that. Unless, she means the protagonist's true inner self will never die off, that being Squirtle going by the personality quiz at the beginning, but that's a stretch.
One final textbox read off, "Have pleasant dreams." Then, the DS battery died. Relief washed over the protagonist once their DS died. She sighed and laid back on the bed, making Lilly grunt in annoyance from accidentally bumping her and waking her from her slumber again. The protag raffled her fur and kissed her forehead and pulled the blanket over them due to her exhaustion and needing a nap, so the protag went into a slumber herself.
Eventually, she woke up in the middle of the night, screeching her lungs out for a minute. Breathing heavily and shaking violently, with sweat pouring down her forehead as she never had such fear before, gasping for air and slowly calming herself down. It took a few minutes to collect herself, breathe normally, and stop sweating. She was eventually done shivering. The fear never went away though. They had a nightmare but she couldn't remember what happened though and thought it was best to forget.
The protag hoped the unreasonable horror to go away. It wouldn't stop pestering her no matter how many times she told herself it was a bad dream and everything was going to be okay. Trying to lay back, closed her eyes, and waited for the dream world to come rushing back to her, and before she would know it, she would be back with her parents, and before she would know it, she would be waking up to the smell of breakfast, sunlight would be pouring in through her window and everything would be all right. That was said in the actual story and some of the emphasis was well-done in this pasta. It really shows her desperation in wanting all of this madness to be all over with.
She couldn't go back to sleep as her sense of fear was growing larger. The nagging horror was making her stay in her room. She had to fight it and overcome the obstacle. "This is just stupid... Everything is all right..." She shouted and walked out of her room, heading towards the kitchen, not sure what to do. Her parents weren't home yet and Lilly was missing. They would've heard her screaming and everything was darker than normal. The protag made it to the kitchen and felt light-headed. Her steps were uneven about to collapse and breathing irregularly, with a dose of dizziness, vision getting blurry, and she shook her head to clear it away, but all methods failed. The details expressed make this seem like a demonic possession. Also, what happened to the iconic moment of the protagonist getting the brownie from the kitchen that was in the original? That was gold. I'm just trying (and failing) to be funny here. xD
Drip. Drop. Her thoughts cleared up instantly and was able to stand up straight with her vision still blurry. She stood in front of the sink. It took some time to collect her thoughts as she closed her eyes, she felt like she wasn't alone and sensed a presence with her. When she opened her eyes, she immediately screamed.
I hate this next part being an animal lover and all. Lilly was hanging over the edge of the sink, her throat slit open, blood dripping from her neck. Her side had been cut open with muscle tissue and bones having been torn out. Her arms and legs were ripped off and put together as an "X" with her heart on top of it. The whole sink was a bloody mess. I'm honestly on the fence about how I would react to this part. Looking at it from the protagonist's perspective, this would be a very terrifying and distressing sight to witness as it's even built up to Lilly meaning a lot to the protagonist, which is something I do appreciate. However, I find the display a little on the cheesy side. I mean, the "monster" pretty much decorated the sink area with her limbs and placed her heart on top like a cherry on top of a sundae to give the protag like an early Christmas surprise. Speaking of surprises...
The protagonist's scream was cut short as something pierced her back. She stood there frozen and eventually, she fell down onto her knees as the dagger on her back slowly slipped out. She clutched her flesh wound as blood oozed out and onto her hands. Before having to react, she continuously got stabbed again and again. Lay it off, Spy! The protag was on the floor crying and pleading for her attacker to stop. The stabbing did halt for a moment. The protag assumed they were given mercy and tried standing up. Before recovering, a piercing pain came upon her head. She fell over to her side and slowly lost consciousness and could faintly hear, "You should have just accepted who you are."
This makes a little more sense compared to the original. The original was confusing on whether it was supposed to be Shadow or Squirtle attacking her in real life. But, just like the same critique I had with the original, this is very cheesy to have the "monster" coming out of the game to attack the protagonist in real life. Plus, I think would've been a little more clever if they had Lilly cut in half to go with the who thing about Shadow getting cut in half as Shadow is Myra's partner while you could say Lilly is the protagonist's partner, especially since Myra is supposed to be the protagonist (or at least who the protagonist WANTS to be). So, I feel like an opportunity was kind of missed here.
They saw a bright white light. The protag reached out and called for it. The light grew bigger and brighter, but it slowly faded away. Tears rolled down her face and she failed to reach the light. It got further away. She was swallowed by the darkness. The protagonist reached out, hoping it would return, but it never returned. What is even happening?
The protag woke up in the middle of the night, screeching at the top of their lungs with her thoughts scattered everywhere. A wild sense of fear was filled throughout the protag, breathing heavily and sweating. She started to calm herself down once again after a couple of minutes but was still struggling to focus. Assuming it was a nightmare, and they couldn't remember what happened in the dream that they were thinking it was so horrid to cause her to wake up screaming. So, she tried to forget about the bad dream. Are we going into a whole dream looping sequence where it's a dream within a dream within a dream and it goes on?
Eventually, she stopped sweating and her breathing went back to normal. She was able to stop shivering too. But that awful sense of horror wouldn't leave. Eh, I guess we are going into a dream-looping sequence, which would make no sense because it doesn't really have to do with anything for the rest of the story. I don't know. And that's how the story ends too.
Actually, after much thinking, could the whole looping thing be a callback to the threat Squirtle made about how the protagonist will never be dead and she'll just be respawning back in her bed screaming like a video game character or the protagonist from Happy Death Day? That's actually terrifying to think about. You will never not be dead no matter how hard you try to get yourself killed.
Further Thoughts:
I’m going to be completely honest. I’m not necessarily positive about this version. It has some things that I think it did improve on a bunch of things from the original, but at the same time, I think it took things that I honestly liked in the original. For example, I really adored Shadow’s heroic sacrifice in the original. But, it got some things right by making the real-life deaths a little less cheesy and almost fixed the whole "monster" in-game that comes in real life to kill the protagonist trope. Also, the idea of Shadow having a connection with Squirtle was an improvement and an interesting idea. And the addition of the dog was nice for the protagonist to build up to the climax. I really don't have much else to say. It's okay, I guess. It's a DRIED PASTA, that's all I can say about it really. It is an improvement from the original, but not by that much though. The story is decent and the tension and interactions between the characters are very well-done.
My rankings for the reviewed PokéPastas so far (from best to worst, top to bottom):
1. Prevention of Evolution (2020) - Fresh
2. Easter Egg - Snow on Mt. Silver – Fresh
3. Forever Mine (Remake) - Fresh
4. Absol (Reaper) - Fresh
5. La Condena de Milotic – Fresh
6. Hypno's Lullaby – Fresh
7. Forever Mine (Original) - Fresh
8. Disabled - Fresh
9. Top Percentage - Fresh
10. Strangled Red – Dried
11. Zombreon - Dried
12. Lost Silver – Dried
13. PMD: Explorers of Death V2 - Dried
14. PMD: Explorers of Death (Original) - Dried
15. White Hand and Buried Alive - Dried
16. Pokémon Violet - Dried
17. Lavender Town Syndrome - Dried
18. Creepy Black – Dried
19. The Umbreon - Dried
20. Abandon Lonliness - Spoiled
21. Nunca Ignores Su Llamado - Spoiled
22. Pokémon Dead Channel – Spoiled
23. Pokémon Dead Channel 2 - Spoiled
24. Prevention of Evolution (Original) - Spoiled
25. Depressing Insanity - Spoiled
26. Milotic's Revenge – Spoiled
27. Glitchy Red - Spoiled
28. Nurse Joy - Spoiled
29. Leaf Green Beta Scene - Spoiled
9 Fresh Pastas | 10 Dried Pastas | 10 Spoiled Pastas
Oh, come on! If the sparklingdemon's remake of the pasta gets the Fresh rating, we would be back to having even numbers again, and the funny thing is seeing sparklingdemon's work and how they remade certain pokepastas with all of their sprite work and retellings and all, it's likely going to get the Fresh Pasta rating, but we will just have to see. Hopefully, this trio of Myra, Shadow, and Squirtle can finally have a chance to shine by having one of their stories labeled with the Fresh Pasta rating. We'll have to see for next time. So, stay tuned! Sweet dreams and don't forget, never play with knives or daggers, they are pointy and very dangerous to be playing with!
Click here to view the full list of every PokéPasta review so far
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