“ | You're here...I'm trapped...and I'm lonely...So very lonely...Won't you join me? | „ |
~ Buried Alive when greeting the player before the battle begins. |
The Buried Alive Model — often referred to as the Buryman script or Buried Alive — was to be found on the final story of the Pokémon Tower, in what has now been replaced with the Marowak ghost. According to the scripts assigned to it, the Buried Alive model was intended to be the "boss" of the tower.
Appearance
Buried Alive appears to be a rotting corpse of a person of unidentifiable gender and age. They crawl from the depths of the ground with sharp nails, painfully thin in physique. There doesn't seem to be any pupils on the sprite either. Instead, Buried Alive has pure whites for their eyes. Their mouth is also open in what could be described as a permanent scream.
Personality
It's not known if Buried Alive is truly evil or just a cursed human to become the first instance of "immortality" within the game of Pokemon. As suggested by the dialogue before the battle begins, they seem almost desperate in speech when confronting the player. However, when the battle ends, their true goal is discovered, leading many to assume that Buried Alive is merely a husk/zombie wanting a new victim to feast on. This would explain their sprite greatly if that is the case.
Story
According to the scripts assigned to it, the Buried Alive model was intended to be the "boss" of the tower. Once reaching the top floor, the following conversation would have taken place.
Buried Alive: "You're here. I'm trapped...and I'm lonely...So very lonely...Won't you join me?"
After this, the battle would have been initiated. Once in "battle view", the Buried Alive model appears to be a decaying human corpse attempting to crawl out of the ground. It has been programmed to have two White Hands, a Gengar, and a Muk.
Strangely enough, a protocol for the Buried Alive's actions after it was defeated were not written.
In the case of the player defeating him, the game would freeze. However, a specific ending was written by an unknown programmer upon losing the battle. In this ending, the Buried Alive was to have stated, "Finally, fresh meat!" followed by several lines of gibberish.
He was to have then dragged the player character into the ground surrounding him. The scene would finish with a typical "Game Over" screen; however, in the background, an image of the Buried Alive character devouring the player was to have been shown.
Especially strange are the protocols for after this scene. The cartridge was to download this image to the small internal memory contained in the Game Boy, overwriting the title screen that normally accompanied a Game Boy turning on. Instead, whenever it was started, the player would view this image as the sound file staticmesh.wav was played.
The intended purpose for this effect, unlike many of the other factors leading towards Lavender Town Syndrome, is unknown.
Trivia
- More information can be found here.
- The "White Hand" Pokemon Buried Alive summons are usually ranged in levels depending on the player's current Pokemon. But, most images depict them to be at least level 70 or more, making it more difficult to win the battle.
- Despite this, you can supposedly defeat them leading to the game crashing.
- You first encounter Buried Alive when interacting with one of the gravestones in the Pokemon Tower.