Pocket Monsters Crystal Version

Pocket Monsters Crystal Version
Hack of	Pocket Monsters / Pokemon Crystal
Original developer	Game Freak / Nintendo
Console	Game Boy Color

Pocket Monsters Crystal Version (popularly known as Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal, as it was discovered in Vietnam, although it was most likely made in China or Taiwan) is a bootlegged version of Pokémon Crystal.

Having gone through a poor translation from Japanese to English (probably via Chinese), the dialogue in the game (now Engrish) is often nonsensical and unintentionally humorous.

All Pokémon, character and location names are similarly badly translated, often resembling romanizations of Chinese transliterations of the Japanese names. This particular hack was made popular by various "Let's Play" video series on YouTube, with the most notable being by DeliciousCinnamon, along with Vinesauce streamer Joel.

Translation Quirks

This game has some oddities in its story thanks to its poor translation, such as referencing that Professor Elm and Professor Oak is the same person.

Profanity is in this version of the game and the F-word appears frequently as it is used in the text when you collect items an example is "DRUG BAG   FUCK!"

Some items, moves and trainer class names have not been translated and instead are left blank; many others seem to refer to something completely different, for instance the item "OLD ROD" is called "CLOTHBAG" and the Pokémon move "WATER GUN" is called "FLAME". However many of these wrong names are actually reasonable translations of other existing items/moves/trainers from the game, which probably indicates a mistake in indexing at some point, causing all the names after that point to be shifted up or down by one.

Pokémon names are also subject to the 5 letter limit of the Japanese version rather than the 10 letter limit of international versions.

In battle, some moves have a nonsensical suffix attached to them. This is due to a function in the Japanese release that appends the proper grammatical suffix to move names when used in battle. This causes, for example, using the move LICK (translated to "AGAIN") to print "AGAIN AH".

Confuse Ray is ''HARD''

Examples of Poor Translation

• A ADAPT ARRANGING FOR MOTHER VOLCANO BAKEMEAT. ("Mom's specialty! CINNABAR VOLCANO BURGER!")
• I AM.. I AM A MONSTER COACH, THE FIRST OF ALL MANKIND IN THE WORLD (My name is ... I'm going to be the world's greatest Pokémon Trainer!)
• GO AHEAD! MOTHER STAND ON YOU!
• ITS NOT GOOD TO GET THE MONEY TO SAVE THE MONEY?
• STAY TEN YEARS COULD THE MONSTER FALL DOWN?
• ANYTHING BE BITTEN CAN'T ESCAPED.
• THE POCKET MONSTER CANN'T HIDE IN THE TREES. CAN IT USE THE TREE? (if no pokemon is triggered by headbut) NO.
• (Player)! SKIL MACHINE    FUCK (Player put the TM in the TMs/HMs pocket)
• YES IT'S I AM A STYLIST
• EATN THE LAUGHING MUSHROOM
• GO TO THE ELF'S WORLD WELCOME! EVERYONE CALL ME ELF MONSTER
• LITTLE STRAWBERRY ME BABY
• SEND MY FAVORITE POCKET MONSTER TO THE GIRL SIDEWARD
• WEI! YOU CAN'T THROW THE BUTT CASUALLY
• ATTACH HEALTH CHILD TO THE ELF
• SELECT THE HOLY FIGURE, OK?
• DO YOU EAT THE DELICIOUS TAIL?
• DO GOOG! BUT IT WILL NOT BE SO EASY NEXT TIME
• IT REAL THE MISSILE BOMB
• I AM DISGUSTED WITH THE TRASHY MAN

Quiz

In the Xiaojin Broadcasting Tower (aka Goldenrod Radio Tower) quiz you need to answer a series of questions correctly, which is made almost impossible by the poor translation:

• Question 1: IS IT THE MONSTER COMING ONLY IN THE MORNING THAT EXISITS?

• Question 2: CAN YOU BUY IT IN SHUDONG'S STORE?

• Question 3: MAY THE SECRET MACHINE BE NOT CONSULTED?

• Question 4: IS IT HEYADUO THAT CAN CONTROL THE BIRD MONSTER AND THE GYMNASIUM LEADER OF MUQIANG TOWN?

• Question 5: IS IT A PORTRAIT ON THE COIN OF THE GAME STORE IN XIAOJIN TOWN?

Answers are: Yes, Yes, No, Yes, No

Bugs

The game crashes 95% of the time when trying to take part in the "National Park Bug Catching Contest" north of Goldenrod City between Route 35 and 36. Saved data is not affected by this crash.

Occasionally players will be able to get through the guards dialogue but often one of three things will happen:

• The game will hang and does not recover
• The game soft resets and thinks it is being used in a monochrome Game Boy and gives a poorly translated version of the normal statement "This Game Pak is designed for Game Boy Color Only"
• The game will restart and the sprites will be stuck.

Bug in Pocket Monsters Crystal

Judging by the text string just before the crash it seems that the text is overflowing and causing the game to crash when the text box is filled with junk characters. This is, however, not surprising as it is assumed the translation was done by copying all the game's text out of the game, ran through a computer translator and dumped back without care for size of the text being put back in and data leaking into the text strings.

Other things that can cause the game to crash are interaction with the POINTUP, CUREINGI, and DRINKIN items (Elixir, Burn Heal, and Calcium); the use of the moves MIXING and CLIP (Rest and Spike Cannon; Hi Jump Kick is also translated as CLIP, but does not seem to be unstable); speaking to the Super Nerd closest to the Goldenrod Tunnel's north stairs after defeating him; and entering the Goldenrod City Pokémon Center.

Cartridge Hardware

File:Pkmnvcrystalinside.jpg

The cartridge itself has the silk screen "28f800" which is a 1MByte flash ROM and saves correctly however it does not support the "Real Time Clock"

The game never notices that its time is not running and is thought that the ROM has been customized more beyond its initial translation to ignore the fact the clock is not running correctly.

As with most pirate and unlicensed Game Boy cartridges, its battery is not the standard CR1616 employed commonly in licensed battery backed save games, but instead a CR2032 - a far more common 3V battery. It is also not soldered to the motherboard in the same way and is instead held in place with a cage system from which the CR2032 can be easily replaced by sliding the battery out of the top.

Screenshots

Links

• Delicious Cinnamon's Let's Play
• Bugged Sprites