The Legend of Sen Written by: TheGlitched64 based off the Vinesauce Corruption video by Vinny, with the same title
Here is the video for reference, go give it a watch, it's funny as fuck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu-hlvrtzOM
Despite being a huge fan of Nintendo, I was never a big Zelda fan. That is to say, the only Zelda game I liked was Wind Waker. My friend recommended “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the past,” a childhood favourite of his. I obliged, but I didn’t have the money for it. He told me not to worry and that he would find it cheap at cash converters or somewhere similar. I agreed, thinking that he would never find it. A week later however, I got a call from him.
“Hey, I was able to find that Zelda game for you, it’s $7, you want it?”
“$7? Yeah, of course, just bring it over and I’ll grab the money for you.” My friend also mentioned the game looked a bit scuffed but for $7, I didn’t mind, The SNES was my favourite console back in the day and the thought of even now uncovering an undiscovered gem (for me anyway) so many years later was enthralling to say the least.
He came over, game in hand and I gave him the money. I waited until he left however, I like playing new games on my own, unless it’s something like SSB or Mario Party. I loaded up the game and everything played as normal, I ran around as Link, chopping down grass with my sword and generally just having a great time of it. Around 2 or 3 hours in my dog and cat ran into the room, chasing each other. The clumsy bastards knocked the snes over and shook the cartridge loose a bit, causing the game to reset. “Well, fuck.” I thought to myself, wondering how much of the game I would need to play again, when my heart sank… There was no save file. The game didn’t save? I got so mad that I turned the game off and left it for a couple days, not removing the cartridge or unplugging the super Nintendo. Just letting it lay there, cartridge askew.
A couple of days later, I went to play the game again, my rage subsided. I looked at the bright side, those first two hours were really fun, so I should find enjoyment in it again, maybe find some secrets I missed first go around. “Nintendo presents” popped up, but, a split second before it went away, the Nintendo logo glitched, turning into some kind of sideways missingno. I was in a dark room, all I could see was Link, and “A à.” That’s when I first saw, what I will refer to as “sen.” Sen was quite literally the word sen, underneath some random pixels, taking up the space of a floor tile. I heard a beeping, like I was low on life. I was extremely confused at this, yet, curious, I decided to see if I could find out where the sen would go. He went down to the bottom of the screen, where the door would have been, and left the room.
I exited the room as well, and found myself in another completely dark room. I was running into invisible walls, but I found my way out easily enough, and moved to the left. Another pitch black room, no textures seemed to be loaded, and there was an invisible wall right in front of me. I moved up, to find the first sprite, apart from me. It was a random mesh of pixels, looking like randomly scattered floor tiles. One on the far left looked like gums with one sharp tooth left in it, but… It might have been something else. The imagination plays some strange tricks on us sometimes. As I entered the next room I was thrown to the top of the screen, Link flew backwards; falling into another group of messed up pixels. Link changed colour. He was corrupting as well. I moved up to the top of the next room and I nearly jumped out of my fucking skin. There was a weird sounding glitch; I swear it sounded like a laugh, as the whole screen turned into an extremely pixelly, test pattern looking monstrosity.
RESET.
I was now back in the pitch black corridors when I found sen again. He was shown moving up into the next room and I followed it without hesitation. I saw what looked like a silhouette of a bug, or fairy hovering over it, I went to touch it. Snap. The game froze.
RESET.
Now I was in a room filled with a bunch of random, miscoloured floor tiles, and as I moved up into the next room, I saw a sprite I had never seen before in the game. I had only played the game for a couple of hours, so I didn’t know if this sprite was actually in the game or not, but it creeped me the fuck out none the less. It looked like a rotting alien or something of the likes of that. I only saw it for a second though before “snap!” The game froze back in that technicolour test pattern crap that stopped my progress the first time. I didn’t know what to think at this point. Were these all coincidences, or was it something more? A message from someone, or something? A weird bit of unused code or data I had unwittingly unlocked? I couldn’t say for sure, all I could do was…
RESET.
I was hurled straight into the game, not even the opening of the game appeared this time. I was face to face with that alien character. I ran away from it this time, having seen enough of him, and wanting to find sen yet again. In hindsight, maybe this apparition was sen? All I know is, that alien was following me. I moved into the next room, invisible walls on all sides, I had to turn back into the previous room. Shit, there he was again! An instruction came up on screen, to the top left, Aà. I ran down into the next room, I kept running until… The sound of someone falling down a cliff, followed by what I can only describe as the sound of a machine powering down. A beeping could be heard as whatever made the noise had powered down completely. This time, the game reset on its own.
RESET.
A dark room. More beeping. Link was on low health as I led him to the next room. It was outside. I had escaped! The celebration was short lived as I saw now that link was a dark silhouette, a shadow. The sky pixelated and blinking white. Rain and thunder maybe? I jumped down the ledge wanting to explore. I moved to the bottom of the screen, but my character froze on the tile he was standing on. Link looked at the two guards, the colour was different, they were blue. This wasn’t the worst part though. Instead of a shield, they held up my [Link’s] Uncle’s head. From here I was warped to another place outside, with copious amounts of grass. A bright light soon flashed and I was wearing the bunny hood in the dark world. “What the fuck!?” I proclaimed. I hadn’t played far enough to get to the dark world yet, so at the time, I barely knew it was a game feature, so this creeped me out further. The beeping continued, my life was low again. I tried moving, jumping down into a small ditch, and just like that, the screen faded to red, and Link did his dying animation. “Game Over.”
RESET.
Now I was further in the game, in a dungeon, still in the dark world it seemed. There was no collision detection on the walls, so I walked into the room adjacent, only to clip something on the left, and die. Like I just got hit by a ghost, warping in pacman. “Game over.” Another weird screech like noise.
RESET.
I was now in a room with about 4 or 5 sen’s clumped together. They started moving around, the music and sound disappeared with this. As I ran around them I was teleported, right in the middle of the room. Now it made sense. There was a recolour of the alien from before, with sen written under him. He was only visible for a second before I was transported to a dungeon, again, with no collision detection; in fact, I was underneath the dungeon itself. Is this where I was the whole time I was lost in pitch blackness, under the dungeon? As I was walking I ended up hitting the only solid object. It looked like just another random floor time but as soon as I hit I was sent to a game over screen. No death animation, nothing.
RESET.
Sen took the place of my Uncle, he soon turned into a hooded man and—
RESET.
The Game… looked normal, all for the text, which was spamming HHHHHHHH over and over again on the bottom of the screen. Maybe this time the textures could—
RESET.
I was outside. I decided to check what items I had. Bad idea. AS soon as I did the screen turned brown and played a horrible corruption noise, I had to cover my ears, crawl to the Super Nintendo, and…
RESET.
I was taken to a room I hadn’t seen before. I was stuck on the spot and sen was in the middle of the room, facing the shadow of the bug/fairy I had seen before. Except that a weird buzzing was heard before.
RESET.
I was getting pretty tired of the game resetting itself by now. What was worse was that now, the screen was so pixelated I couldn’t see anything. The only thing that was visible was A à. Link woke up, and immediately transported. I couldn’t see Link. Well, not my Link anyway, just a recoloured Link with the bunny mask on, unmoving, next to a creepy balding man I hadn’t seen before. It zoomed in on this Link before going straight to a game over screen, glitching out again.
RESET.
Nothing happened.
RESET.
It was useless, the game wouldn’t work anymore.
RESET.
I knew it was busted but I needed to see it again, I needed answers!
RESET.
C’mon you fucking game! Tell me what I need to know!
RESET.
Please! Please! I need closure!
RESET.
I’m begging you!
RESET.
I’m… just so… scared.
RESET.
RESET.
RESET.
RESET.
Author’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGlitched64Reads2