My Gamestop Pokemon Battle Revolution tournament was extremely enjoyable this past Saturday! I attended the Gamestop in Whittier, California.
When we arrived at the store, the guy-in-charge of the tournament had not yet arrived, so we just stood around and talked to the locals. In the time we were getting acquainted with the "friendly" participants, many of them were more than happy to share their Action Replaying experiences. I had several DS's with Arceus and Shaymin shoved into my face (like I did not know what they were), and it seemed as if only five out of the fifteen or so participants in the store were not users of Action Replays (my brother, myself, and three other teens/kids we got to know). I distanced myself from the discussion group on Action Replay. :)
When the guy finally arrived, he announced they would be checking everyone's bags for any duplicate items (explaining that if you had more than 3 Master Balls, many duplicate items, many shinies, etc., you might be DQ'd). He then proceeded to work behind the sales counter for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, many of the participants were getting acquainted with their DS's and the door, mysteriously vanishing for 15 to 20 minutes. You can tell where this is going. I walked outside, only to find them deleting their duplicate items, their boxes of Arceus and Darkrai, etc. Could the guy behind the counter have been anymore... sorry to say, STUPID?! You don't give them a chance to delete their items... you announce it, and then you CHECK their games IMMEDIATELY.
Anyways, due to the amount of complaints about people wanting and not wanting to use legendaries, everyone was split into two groups accordingly (which turned out to be pretty even). More kids had arrived by then, and it seemed that the group that had been cheating, which, by the way, had all come together, was the group using the legendaries, while everyone else was not. The Wii display could also not be opened, so we were forced to play on our DS's (with some people not having a fair chance, since their Pokemon were below level 100). The non-legendary group had only one of the cheating group's members in it.
Even longer story short (missing a lot of angry details), I made it all the way to the finals of my group, and I already had been hearing about how the guy who I was about to face was cheating somehow. Of course, there was no concrete proof - people were just complaining about how his Pokemon were 1HKOing their Pokemon, but that can happen sometimes if you match your attacks to other Pokemon�s weaknesses correctly. He had come from the cheating group who had been outside deleting their items, Arceus, Darkrai, and Shaymin, so I was almost expecting him to have cheated (and he was one of the people talking about their Action Replays).
I send out Dragonite and Gyarados, he sends out Starmie and Gengar. Starmie is exerting its Pressure. WHAT?!? Starmie CANNOT have the Pressure ability - it can only know Natural Cure and Illuminate (I would know - I have one on my team!). I immediately announce to the guy-in-charge that this teen has hacked Pokemon, that this whole tournament is illegitimate, and that I refuse to play him (and no, it was just not based on this Pressure Starmie). I pretty much created a whole fiasco in the room. ^_^; Other players were saying that he needs to be disqualified, while his posse came to defend him, saying he did not cheat. I, with my loud mouth, told the people around me that this was the group outside deleting their items and Pokemon (which other people saw, too) and talking about their Action Replays. I had already hovered over to the employees earlier, telling them about what they were doing outside, but they did not care.
Did I mention that the guy-in-charge never actually checked players' bags, boxes, or Pokemon?
So anyways, since the employees chose not to believe me and everyone else telling them Starmie cannot have Pressure, they pull out a D/P guide and confirm it (the guy-in-charge seemed a little angry at this, for some reason). Another employee tells the cheater that he has been caught cheating before at other Gamestop tournaments for other games, and that this does not look good for him. However, the G.I.C. (guy-in-charge) decides to basically state that if I do not play him, I will not continue in the tournament, to which the posse gives us smirks about (us being the other people in the room who wanted the cheater kicked out).
Okay, television episodes always have people beating cheaters, with the cheaters learning their lesson, or at least being embarrassed... or something. I think it was in an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh, at least, so maybe the same will happen here? The guy decides he'll take out his Starmie "to be fair," but I tell him to keep it, since he already saw my Dragonite and Gyarados. He still decides to take it out for Electivire before our battle, and proceeds to waste my team when we finally start our battle (My Starmie got in one Psychic, due to its high speed, but Gengar was barely damaged). I especially loved his Gengar's Wonder Guard. Anyways, he 1HKOs everything, even with attacks that aren't very effective.
Congratulations! You made it to the finals, where you will battle the legendary winner's team! I, at this point, was almost yelling at the employee and the cheater, but nothing was done. Some of the teens from the cheating group even came up to me, telling me how I was smart for catching the Pressure ability on Starmie (they were trying to butter me into shutting up). I, however, embarrassed them in front of everyone by saying �You were cheating too, so don�t pretend you weren�t!� One of the guys even told me �I�m going to steal your laptop (I bring it everywhere).� Try it, bubba.
The employees finally got the Wii case opened, and they put in Battle Revolution for the final match. Convenient timing. The G.I.C. goes into "DS Battle Mode," and the "Select your Pokemon" screen pops up. What's this?
Only two of the four cheater's Pokemon appear on the screen, with the other two being listed as "Bad Eggs." Ignorant cheaters tend to give Pokemon moves/abilities/high stats they cannot normally get, and Battle Revolution can detect this. If it detects you have a cheated Pokemon, they appear as "Bad Eggs." I quickly announce this, again, to everyone around me, but of course, the Gamestop employee (the guy-in-charge) does not care (a few other people look at him like he is nuts). The guy with legendaries battling him was a bit nervous, and I would be, too, if I were against a cheater. In response to my outburst, the cheater decides to tell his opponent, "At least it will be fair if only two of mine are up against four of yours." The other guy's Mewtwo is destroyed by one Thunder Punch, his Torterra goes down with two Fire Punches, and whatever the opponent�s two other Pokemon were also die in one hit (I was so mad I could hardly focus on the match). The cheater wins, and is awarded his copy of Pokemon Battle Revolution by the guy-in-charge.
At this point, my brother and I are fed up, and leave the store (of course, not without remaining silent to the G.I.C.). My mom gets their just in time, and we leave for Target, telling her what occurred, and why, along with everyone else, we lost (she says, "Why do you always lose at Pokemon?!?! First the TCG, and now this?"). Of course, I just laugh to myself. My mom says she is going to go kill the employees, but I tell her to forget about it, since the guy obviously did not care. Usually, I would have been more aggressive toward an experience such as the one above, but I was just not in the mood (4 hours of sleep, unfinished website content, scholarships to do, driver's license to get, etc.).
Anyways, we spend over an hour at Target, and the incident has almost completely blown over for me (A bundle pack of 6 printer ink cartridges for $20 that are normally $20 each? Awesome!), until the same cheater teens come into the store, see my younger brother, and basically call him not-so-pretty names (they were doing this earlier, too, but the Gamestop employees did nothing to stop them - I had to). I basically pretend to get ready to attack them (I wasn't really going to), but they just turn around and leave the store. My mom is so mad at this point that she rushes out of the store (we were checking out when the teens came by), drives to Gamestop, goes in, and passive-aggressively destroys the guy-in-charge. One of the kids who was not cheating from earlier even joins in, and says that the teen was cheating, and the guy did nothing to stop it (to him). One of the women behind the counter does not say a word as my mom is thrashing the guy, because she knew he was wrong. The last bit of my mom's speech, which was really awesome, was "Is this what you are trying to teach kids? That blatant cheaters are allowed to win? You are supposed to be teaching kids morals, not teaching them that it is okay to cheat. You were in charge of this tournament, and it was your job to make it fair for everyone." When my mom was done attacking the employee, the woman employee even gave her the area manager's phone number. She then stormed out of the store, with the guy sarcastically telling her �Have a nice day,� to which she replied, �Good luck with what�s left of yours.�
Tomorrow, we are calling the area manager, on suspicion that the guy-in-charge wanted the cheater to win. Earlier, he had been calling the cheater by his name, and even knew his friends by their name. Thus, we suspect it was planned this way.
If you experienced a similar injustice at Gamestop, post in this forum thread.