Pokémon Quartz

Another hack of Pokémon Ruby, released by the author as a patch file intended to be played by VisualBoyAdvance users who already owned the Ruby cartridge and dumped its ROM image.

The game has a great number of spelling and grammatical errors, which mostly result from the hack being translated from Spanish, although the grammar improves throughout the game. The game also contains profanity and adult themes, which are absent from all official Pokemon games. Pokemon Quartz replaced all names and graphics of traditional Pokemon with new characters and creatures, although some of the changes were only cosmetic and did not change learnsets or types. The game takes place in a region known as "Corna", a heavily edited version of Hoenn, and requires the player to navigate a very different series of paths during gameplay.

While the best-known bootleg cartridge as played on the actual GBA contains serious glitches and errors, the current patch file release works well with VBA when the patch is applied to a clean image of an authentic Ruby cartridge.

This hack was brought out of obscurity mainly by the hilarious Let's Play by Zorak, done in a style similar to (and assisted by) Let's Play/Chorocojo, the other famous Pokemon LPer. The archived version can (and should) be read here. Quartz is now rather infamous and has a cult following because it may be considered The Room of ROM hacks. Just when you think it can't get any stranger... it does.

A Sequel was in development called Pokemon Marble, but it hasn't been updated since 2008. In 2010 he released the most recent build of the hack before he quit in the thread for an LP of Quartz.

Tropes used in Pokémon Quartz include:

• Author Avatar: And it's bizarre even by the standards of this Trope.
• Badass: Foxy from Zorak's LP, and therefore to some extent Zorak himself, taking the Elite Four down wile being twenty levels lower.
• Blind Idiot Translation: The Spanglish.
• Blondes Are Evil: Amber, the head of Team Ambar. The female protagonist could count From a Certain Point of View if you play as the male.
• Big No
• Bilingual Bonus: For ANYTHING Baro says about the sever, really.
• Bonus Boss: Arturo, leader of the (unofficial) ninth gym.
• Character Filibuster: Several characters in Pinkranite go out of their way to rant about how bad the school system is and about the dangers of drugs. FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.
  • Misaimed Fandom: One girl says she wants to be a "Drug Trafficant, Prostitute, Sexy Assasin..." That last one sounds awesome.
• Cluster F-Bomb
• Cool Shades: Joseph Akira. Too bad he doesn't have the personality to match.
• Disproportionate Retribution: A Band Ambar Admin says that "I will beat you, I'll punish you, and them I will kill you, asshole kid!" all just because the player insists in thwarting Ambar's moronic schemes.
• Everything's Better with Dinosaurs / Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Averted. The game does feature enough Dragon-types, but they're just as weird and/or ugly as most other Mons. Tyradino may or may not be a borderline case, though. While it is pretty screwed up and (as Zorak noted) an abomination of biology, it still seems to be pretty useful and is also still a bloodthirsty T-Rex, how the hell do you screw that up? In any case, it did become an integral part of Foxy Team Foxy eventually.
• Everything's Worse with Bears: Babos and Osoe, who will try to seduce their opponent, despite being ugly as hell. At least Ursaring would only deliver beat-downs.
  • Thing is, Ursaring is not butt-ugly and could pull off Attract if it learned it.
• Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Check out the new sprite for the "Beauty" trainer type. *cough**cough*
• Freud Was Right: Some of the Pokémon invoke this in players.
• Fridge Logic: The evil team plans to make Electric Pokemon stronger by inflating the sun. Wait, what?
  • With a broken ghost detector at that.
  • Doubly funny if you consider the move Sunny Day actually makes the move Thunder less accurate.
• Gonk: The new Pokemon designs could be described as this...except maybe Plug-oink, which is friggin' adorable.

Zorak: OH MY GOD THAT IS THE CUTEST UGLY THING I'VE EVER SEEN

• Heroic Mime: Averted. Sometimes "(Player Name):" appears in the text box to show that the Player Character is the one doing the talking.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Team Ambar. It's a combination of "Amber", the leader's name, and "Baro".
  • Ambar is also Spanish for Amber.
• Kubrick Stare: Jonic
• Les Yay In the Let's Play Foxy had this to say:

Foxy: Roxy once told me secretly that her friend Misty wasn't a very nice person. I dunno about that though... I think she's kind of cute!

• • Foxy also refers to a number of other female trainers as "cute" during her travels, the comment being accompanied by a "lovestruck" emoticon each time. Given both this and her "no wonder I like girls more than guys" comment after J. Akira forces her to kiss him, Foxy seems to be a Lipstick Lesbian, which is hardly surprising given Akira's unwanted advances and her penchant for interpreting virtually EVERY male around her as a creepy potential rapist.
  • At one point she encounters this female trainer and says:

Foxy: Your legs... they're like Salami. It might sound wierd but... I really want to make a sandwhich out of your legs right now.

• • Another thing she says also firmly cements it:

Foxy: Well, the beach has alot of people so I suppose the spa. Just a bunch of girls and stuff. (followed by this image)

• • More quoteage:

Foxy: Danny is in fact a hot girl. I sure hope this battle goes well!

• Let's Mock the Monsters The whole game is one big invitation.
• Mind Rape- The Let's Play of this game reveals that it was Foxy's mental breakdown, thanks to being the guinea pig in Misty's attempt to teach her Ludicolo Dream Eater.
• Nightmare Valley: Most of the monsters are terribly drawn, which doesn't help the freakish designs. There's a few that aren't too bad, though, like Plug-oink.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Move Tutor's name is Dany Warhole, and instead of Heart Scales you give him Campbell Cans.
• No Fourth Wall
• Obligatory Swearing: "!PUTAS DE SEVER!"
  • "You won't have a chance against our BOSS, you cocksucker kid!"
• Old Shame: Thankfully the creator seems to agree on how bad the game is, and he's improved since then. The game even gets better towards the end...relatively.
• Shout-Out: One of the trainers you battle is named Travis, and says "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket" and "All the Small Things".
  • There's also a Rocker named Anthony, who only quotes Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics.
  • There's also a Shout-Out to Majoras Mask in the graveyard area. One of the ninjas there says "Master, you called! ... ... What are you?!" when he challenges you; his name is Garo; and after you defeat him and talk again, he says "To die without leaving a corpse... That is the way of us Garo." He doesn't actually disappear, though.
  • In the area that clearly isn't a hacked version of the route near Meteor Falls, there is a hiker, completely dressed in green, who claims to be an ogre. His name is Shrek. But wait- aren't trolls supposed to be the ones extracting tolls from bridges?
  • There's also a rather clever one referring to the Mew truck rumor.
  • A swimmer refers to a "nice turtle rock dungeon".
• Stalker with a Crush: The rival.
• Subterranean Jews: The molemen appear to display all the negative stereotypes of Jews.
• Take That: Baro, the creator, is an atheist. Not just any atheist, either, but a textbook Hollywood Atheist full of sense of superiority with deep hatred for any kind of religion. His constant AHAHAHAHA STUPID RELIGIOUS PEOPLE YOU BELIEVE IN SHIT remarks even made it into the readme.
  • A NPC in Seablue wonders how evil is the person who created Pokémon Contests. "Attack to... the air? Show... cuteness? What about PKMN battles?"
• Too Dumb to Live: Band Ambar's plot has a few holes in it.

Ambar: YOU MEAN INFLATING THE SUN MAKES IT HOT OUTSIDE!? AND PEOPLE CAN'T LIVE SO WELL WHEN ITS REALLY HOT OUT AND THERE'S A DROUGHT?!?!
Foxy: ... yes. That's... about right.

• Violation of Common Sense: Frequently.
• What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: Death! Chaos!
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Foxy daydreams that she's stuck in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon instead of Corna. In the Tiny Woods, she runs across a room where the grass spells "BARO" and she's snapped back into cold reality.
  • It was probably just as well, since Chikorita!Foxy's partner was an Ax Crazy Totodile named Gatorface who would've probably eaten her.
    • Eaten?
      • From Let's Play/Chorocojo's Crystal Let's Play. Her "starter", which she ditched ASAP, was a Totodile named Gatorface who ate other Pokémon and people.
• You Keep Using That Word: Kacho and Vin keep using "paranoia" to apparently mean "circumstance" or "coincidence" or something.