8 Spooky Gaming Urban Legends That Will Give You Nightmares

2. Lavender Town Syndrome

Good luck getting that tune out of your head! The Pokemon franchise is having a renaissance recently, especially the original red and blue versions. However the original versions €“ Red and Green, released in Japan in 1996 €“ are said to hold a dark secret. We've all heard about the reported mass seizures from an episode of the Pokemon anime series, but we hardly hear of the problems the games may have caused. However, they most certainly have caused problems, like the one below. The 'creepypasta' fan fiction started when bloggers and forum posters found out the music from the original Japanese Red version of the game had been changed when released in the US and other territories. This led to stories of more than 100 children aged 10-15 committing suicide in Japan soon after game was released due to the high pitched tones in the original version of the music. As if this didn't make an already creepy part of the Pokemon world more haunting, different versions of the story speak of sprites of the 'white hand' one of which one of the in-game characters speak. Lavender Town is known as the 'graveyard town' of the original games, and the dark, disturbing words of the 'Chaneller' trainers (one says he wants to drink your blood) are pretty adult for a game which is usually so cute and fuzzy. Some versions of the tale even say the game's creator Satoshi Tajiri purposely put this in the original red version to annoy kids who chose the red version over the green. I guess you might ask why we've never heard of this before, but every version of the story claims Nintendo covered this up to protect the former innocence and warmth of the Pokemon franchise. Although Nintendo have said it was changed because the high pitched tones were a strain on the Game Boy's speakers, the original version of the music will give anyone bad dreams after reading this story. The reported 600 plus seizures from the 'Porygon' episode is absolutely true which makes the 'Lavender Town Conspiracy' seem more plausible. Although frankly, if I included all of the Pokemon-related urban legends, this list would be three times as long.
Contributor
Contributor

24, MA Journalism student and writer. I have had previous experience with FHM, ZOO Magazine, NE:MM, Elite Online and various websites as well as having articles printed in the Sunderland Echo. My main interests are film, TV, music and gaming.