This is another old one, and one you're likely familiar with if you've been reading creepypasta for a while. If you're a Pokémon fan, you can probably tell it's old from the title alone, as after this pasta was written a game titled Pokémon Black was actually released. Sometimes this story is referred to as "Pokémon Creepy Black" to distinguish it from the canon title (which, to be clear, it bears absolutely no relation to; this story is about a bootleg version of Pokémon Red). I've chosen to refer to it by its original title.
While it's unlikely that anyone reading this doesn't know anything about Pokémon, especially the first-generation games upon which this story is based, I'll try and make the review understandable for people who aren't too familiar with the games.
“Pokémon Black”
Plot Summary
Our narrator likes bootleg Pokémon games. Collects them, actually. They're crap usually, but that's the fun of them. Most of the ones the narrator has played can be found online, but there's one they played that they've never heard talked about, and unfortunately they lost their cartridge. (There's a picture included in case anyone reading recognizes it. It's just a plain black GameBoy cartridge bearing the Pokémon logo).
While they don't have screencaps, the narrator remembers the game pretty well, having played it through more than once, and describes it for us readers. As you would expect, description of the gameplay takes up the rest of the pasta.
The game, which calls itself "Pokémon Black Version" on the start screen, starts off essentially the same as Pokémon Red. The main difference appears to be that after choosing a starter Pokémon, the player has an additional Pokémon in their party: Ghost.
Now, I should clarify: the Pokémon games include many Pokémon of the Ghost type, but there isn't a canon Pokémon named "Ghost." In the gen I games, one area is filled with wild Pokémon that appear as generic ghosts (they look like this) before the player obtains an item that allows them to see the Pokémon for what they really are. It's impossible to catch an unidentified ghost Pokémon, and when battling them the player's Pokémon will be too scared to move.
This bootleg game, however, gives you a Pokémon simply called "Ghost," which uses the sprite I linked above. Ghost starts at level 1 (notably, in generation I there are no level 1 Pokémon; until gen IV, the lowest possible level was level 2, for complicated reasons having to do with how EXP was calculated) and has only one move, "Curse." There is a canon move by that name, but it was introduced in gen II.
As in gen I canon, defending Pokémon are too scared to attack Ghost. Curse, when used, isn't anything like the canon move by that name. Instead, when Ghost uses Curse, the screen cuts to black, the cry of the defending Pokémon is played distorted and pitched down, and then the battle screen reappears with the defending Pokémon absent. When facing a Trainer, one of their Pokéball icons simply disappears, implying the Pokémon died. Also when facing a Trainer, after defeating (or killing) their entire team, the battle commands appear again, enabling you to use Curse directly against the other Trainer. (You can also hit Run, which ends the battle normally.) If you use Curse on the opponent Trainer, after returning to the overworld their sprite is gone. When revisiting the area, the spot the Trainer formerly occupied is replaced by a tombstone.
Curse doesn't work against Ghost-type Pokémon (for reasons that are probably obvious), and isn't usable against recurring characters, like your rival or Giovanni (Team Rocket's leader), until your final battle with them. Still, Curse makes the game a cakewalk, and as such the narrator used it all throughout their first playthrough.
After defeating the Elite Four and the Champion (if you don't know, this is essentially how you win the game, although you can keep playing after; most players focus on completing their Pokédex at this point), the screen cuts to black, and text appears reading "Many years later..." before cutting to Lavender Tower (the area I mentioned before where you encounter the ghosts). The player character is now an old man, and moves at half the normal walking speed. He has no Pokémon with him, not even Ghost, who earlier on was impossible to remove from your party (you can't release Ghost or deposit it to the PC).
The overworld is now empty of people, although the tombstones from Trainers the player killed with Curse are still there. You're free to go wherever, although hindered by your lack of Pokémon (generally, Pokémon knowing specific moves are used to quickly travel between locations or to destroy obstacles) and your slow walking speed. Regardless of where you go, the background music is the Lavender Town theme, famous for being rather unsettling. After some exploration, the narrator discovered that they were able to return to Pallet Town, the starting location, due to the obstacles you'd generally have to use Cut on not being there anymore. Entering the player's house and returning to the exact tile where the game starts triggers a cut to black.
The game then begins showing the sprites of all the Pokémon the player used Curse on, in order, before showing the sprites of all the Trainers the player used Curse on. The Lavender Town theme continues playing during this, but slowly decreasing in pitch throughout. After the last Trainer is shown, there's another cut to black, then the battle screen appears. Your opponent is Ghost. Attempting to run doesn't work, and, as you have no Pokémon, your only option is to Struggle, which doesn't affect Ghost but does chip away at your own HP.
For the first several turns, Ghost doesn't attack. Once the player's health is in the red, Ghost uses Curse, and the screen cuts to black for a final time. You're then stuck with this black screen until you turn off the GameBoy; on reboot, your only option is "New Game," as your old save file has apparently been erased.
The narrator says they've played through this bootleg game many times, and there's no way to avoid the ending. Even if you don't use Ghost at all, essentially playing the game as if it's a standard copy of Pokémon Red, the only change is that the game cuts straight to the battle with Ghost at the end without showing any Pokémon or Trainers.
Narrator isn't sure what the creator of this hacked game intended. It apparently wasn't widely distributed, and for a bootleg it was quite well-done. Maybe it was intended as a statement on the inevitability of death, or maybe it was just morbid for the sake of being morbid, but regardless, as the narrator puts it, "this children’s game has made me think, and it has made me cry."
Closing Thoughts
So many video game creepypastas, especially the ones focusing on Nintendo products from the 90s, are about apparently haunted or otherwise supernatural copies of games familiar to the narrator. While there are a handful of good stories about haunted games, that particular trope is extremely tired by now, to the point where I expect every video game creepypasta I read to be a haunted game story. It's nice to see one that isn't that.
When it comes to stories about ROM hacks, the plausibility angle is always important; a "hacked game" story that changes the game in ways not possible for the software or hardware tends to read as though it's actually a haunted game story. I'm not an expert, but the hack being described here sounds as though it'd be completely possible to make. Ghost uses an art asset that was already in the game, there are no new characters or new music coded in, and even the most complex part of the hack — the sequence at the end — could conceivably have been pulled off, although it would take a while.
As this story's narrator tells us, bootleg Pokémon games aren't generally like this. One of the most famous real-life Pokémon bootlegs, which is usually referred to as "Vietnamese Crystal," appears to be Pokémon Crystal badly translated from Vietnamese to English, leading to unintentionally hilarious dialogue. ROM hacks that change the game mechanics and/or the story aren't as common, and many of them are badly done or outright unplayable. This one can not only be played through to the end without issues, it has replay value, and in fact seems to encourage players to do what the narrator did and play it through again to try and find some way of avoiding its morbid ending.
I'm not sure if anyone has attempted to create a playable version of the hack described here, but I wouldn't be surprised. It does seem feasible, and other pastas about hacked games have inspired the creation of actual hacks ("Lost Silver" is a good example of this).
There are a lot of ways one could potentially hack a game to make it morbid or disturbing, but the one described here is actually pretty clever. Using Ghost is completely optional, but it does make the game way easier, so the option is tempting despite disturbing implications that you're killing Pokémon and trainers rather than simply defeating them. At the end, the game makes you face the consequences of your actions by having Ghost show up to battle you. It's reminiscent of games like Undertale (to be clear, this pasta predates Undertale by many years), where killing random encounters / bosses is possible but totally optional, and there are major consequences for doing so. The main difference is that this hack always ends in the same manner regardless of whether or not you used Ghost, which in itself could be part of the hack's message — you can take advantage of the power to kill your enemies or not, but either way, in the end, you die.
I wouldn't count this among my favorite creepypastas, not by a long shot, but if you were to ask me for good creepypastas about Pokémon I'd have to mention this one, and not just because Pokémon creepypastas on the whole tend to be pretty bad. This is a solidly written story that fully explores its own premise; for what it is, it's good.