Someone posting to 4chan’s /x/ board (its paranormal forum) has concocted a whale of creepy urban myths that lacks only a campfire, torches under the face and someone’s cousin’s best friend’s stepbrother. It is long, but the gist of it is that the teller encounters a creepy old man, who gives him a strange, blank Nintendo 64 cartridge with “MAJORA” sharpied on it. He takes it home, plays it and deletes a gamesave marked BEN.
Very strange, very threatening things then start happening, and while I think it’s nothing more than a ghost story, it’s very, very well written. It’ll have you on the edge of your seat, grabbing your monitor and screaming “JUST TURN THE GODDAMN N64 OFF!!!!” And it even comes with three videos, attached below.
The entire story may be read here (via Joystiq). I expect to see some expert damn mythbusting in our comments – or maybe, maybe the haunting is real …
Haunted Majora’s Mask Cartridge [Zelda Informer]
ripperhugme
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 8:32 AMThe fact that the 2d happy mask shop is in the third video makes this a total fake.
Matt Roe
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 10:25 AMNot everything, there’s plenty that couldn’t have been faked, like Link bursting into flames or the statues appearing everywhere.
Fake, but still pretty scary. Scariest part of the story is that Ben was the owner of the game who was killed in an accident… supposedly.
Finlay Downes
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 4:11 PMC’mon, where’s your sense of adventure? ;)
It’s a good story, and that’s what really matters. I love finding things like this on the net. Marble Hornets is still the best I’ve seen so far.
Ryan Thomas
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 8:33 AMThe “drowned.wmv” contains both OOT and Majora’s…. its a stunt. Probably to get youtube hits. Works but
brent3000
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 3:17 PMYep i saw that and was like “he was going soooo well” untill that….
Whats the go with the little Link statues though? Is that in the game somewhere?
Mr Explody
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 10:49 AMI don’t care that it’s fake, that freaked me out still.
The last one ruined it.
Karl
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 11:08 AMI’ve actually seen a lot of stuff similar to the first two videos. You can achieve that sort of thing with a Gameshark/Action Reply and some beta quest codes.
Obviously, the last video (at least) is a fake due to the areas from Ocarina of Time… but it was entertaining nonetheless.
Luke
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 11:13 AMNot only a stunt but this also looks to be running on an emulator rather than an original. Looks way to clean and crisp compared to when I just checked my orginal on an actual n64.
Naytan
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 12:27 PMThat was freaking awesome.
Very creepy.
I don’t believe it for a second (I’m extremely skeptical in general) but dayum, that still freaked me out.
Joshy206
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 12:40 PMDoes it matter whether or not it’s fake? It’s a nice story! :D
But freaky.
Rayray
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 1:54 PMTo be fair, N64 cartridges do some trippy shit when they glitch.
I remember one time my copy of OoT was a little dusty. I started playing it like normal, went to load up my file and tripped the fuck out when my adult link could use deku nuts. The music was pretty messed up as well.
Either way, a few blows on the cartridge fixed it right up but it still was pretty awesome at the time.
Korwin
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 4:19 PMHacked ROM running off an EMU, nothing to see here. The resolution of the game is a dead give away (much higher than the n64′s native res).
AngryFran
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 7:42 PMi remember once on my Ocarina original cartridge, when I booted up there were no NPCs anywhere at all. It was nice though cos I could just run around everywhere. But when I’d go into a shop and back out, they’d re-appear, but then when i’d leave the town itself they’d disappear.
Good times. After a while though they loaded properly.
Steve0410
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 9:07 PMHave to call bullshit here, it’s just gameshark/hacked ROM running on an emulator.
Sorry guys, it’s no creepy The Ring-N64 cartridge that kills people it’s passed onto (though that would be awesome)
Milly
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 10:21 PMWoahhhh, freaking scary, OOT slipup aside. Majora’s Mask is already pretty scary, and this played it up very well. I hated those Link statues in the game already, this is just making everything worse :O
LinkageAX
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 10:54 PMThat was… AWESOME! And a little creepy, I mean some parts in Majora were already pretty scary to begin with. Man, hopefully the author releases the hacked ROM eventually.
Adam Steel
Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 11:09 PMI’m fairly sure it’s a hacked ROM. Others have pointed out that it seems to be running at a higher resolution than normal, as well as the fact that it seems to have different animations that aren’t in the game – it’d be alot easier to hack a ROM than an actual cartridge.
My guess is:
- Guy messed around with hacking 64 ROMs until it does a few cool things.
- Realizes it’d be better to come up with a creepy backstory than to just admit it’s a ROM hack (nothing wrong with a bit of showmanship)
- Does so with decent writing but clichéd plot
- Profit (internet cool points)
Mitch
Monday, September 13, 2010 at 3:19 PMNot gonna lie, the end of that second video scared the shit out of me.
Arch
Monday, September 13, 2010 at 7:21 PMThought you guys would like to know that parts of OoT were accessible in the Majora’s Mask debug version.
As was stated in the back story the cartridge looked like a pirated copy. Therefore opening the possibility of this cartridge being one of those debug builds.