Well it’s summertime, so you know what that means? You’ll be seeing more reviews being written and published by me. Mwah. A guy who has never shown his face to his readers and feels too shy to go and do so. Just completed my junior year a few weeks ago, got to say goodbye to some really good friends, and now I get to sit back and worry about the future. Stuff like signing up for colleges, getting a job, practicing for my driver’s test, getting my license, wondering if I’ll get my license, wondering if I’ll drive fine in the streets, etc. A lot of these have to deal with driving? Why am I more worried about driving rather than college? I guess those are questions you’ll have to figure out.
Anyways, recently I’ve been going through my collection of games to see what I have not reviewed and have discovered there is a sh*t ton of them. One of these games being Cave Story which I have completely forgotten that I played, so guess that’s what we’re reviewing today because I beat the entire game within the span of two days. I don’t have that much going on in my life folks, so you now know what the last two days have been devoted towards. Cave Story was developed and published by Daisuke Amaya who worked on the game as a side hobby. Development began when he was in college, but the process of making Cave Story was very slow since he was busy with schooling much like every average college student. Once he finished college, got a degree, and became a software developer Amaya was then able to focus more on his little side project. Cave Story went through five years of development and almost every aspect of the game was made by Amaya himself. The graphics, art design, gameplay, level design, enemy variety, soundtrack, control, and many other features. Daisuke Amaya is what we consider an independent developer, something we see a lot of today.
The game took heavy inspiration from the Metroid series, but it was more focused on it’s world and characters. Hence the title of the game, Cave Story. The game released for free to download on PC in late 2004 and it was thanks to how it was free that people were able to get easy accessibility to Cave Story. You can probably still find the website to download the game for free, so free game for everyone I guess. I don’t think Amaya was expecting Cave Story to blow up since it was smaller in scope than most games at the time and it was, afterall, a side project outside of his main job as a software developer. Well turns out that Cave Story shot out the roof and became a little gem among the game industry. The passion and love that surrounded the project made it resemble the retro titles a lot of gamers grew up with. Cave Story was then ported to the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Playstation Portable, and Steam marketplace which allowed the game to earn some revenue and make Amaya sa household name.
Cave Story was one of the first independent games to come into existence and without it we probably wouldn’t see a lot of indie dev titles. Braid, Spelunky, Super Meat Boy, Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight, Return of The Obra Dinn, Dead Cells, Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium, Hades, Omori, and many more. Well I don’t know if it would be entirely true that indie games wouldn’t have existed without Cave Story, but whatever the case Cave Story is a very influential game. The main question now is if Cave Story still holds up today? There have been updates to the game that added new graphics, soundtrack, challenges, and features. However, does the game still hold up? Especially since we’ve received a lot of independently made metroidvanias which pack more heat, innovation, and content than a game that was published more than seventeen years ago? Well that’s why we’re here today. I want to see what made Cave Story so special and if it holds up today. It’s not my favorite indie game out there, but it’s a title we must pay our respects to. Let’s see if Cave Story still holds up. Let’s prepare our polar star, put on a hat that makes us look like a Pokemon cosplayer, and tell a story about a cave.
Story
We play as an unnamed robot wearing a red cap, red shorts, and what I assume to be a black workout shirt. He finds himself deep within a dark cave filled with monsters and he quickly picks up a gun seconds later to blast his way out. Suddenly, he falls into a village populated with what seems to be bunny people. These furry creatures are known as the Mimiga, a race of anthropomorphic bunnies who live deep within a sprawling cave system. A mad scientist known as the Doctor came to the Mimiga Village awhile back and began capturing each villager one by one. The population of the village is dwindling and everyone is scared of what will happen next.
The Doctor possesses an artifact known as the Demon Crown, which grants control over some of the monsters within the cave and dark magical abilities. He also has two powerful assistants, Misery and Balrog. Misery being a witch that shifts in and out of reality, and Balrog being a dumb rock that can break through walls. They serve anyone who wears the Demon Crown, and that person just so happens to the Doctor. The unnamed robot explores more of the village until it is visited by Misery and Balrog. The two of them are in search of a Mimiga girl named Sue, and they end up kidnapping another Mimiga girl who isn’t her. King, who is the leader of the Mimiga Village, tasks you with finding Sue before they do terrible things to the little Mimiga girl who just got kidnapped, Toroko. The unnamed robot finds a room filled with lab equipment, possibly belonging to humans, and from there they use a teleporter to then track down Sue.
The player finds a mutated Mimiga, extremely buff and prowling around like a demon. The robot fights the monstrous beast and they save Sue. Once they return back to the village, Sue then tasks the robot with finding a scientist named Kazuma and afterwards you learn what is really going on. The player isn’t stuck inside a cave, they are in a cave within an ancient floating island. Scientists came to the island to research some of the anomalies the island contained and a few months back a war broke out. Robots were sent to fight in the war and you just so happen to be one of them. However, you have completely lost your memory and voice meaning you have no recollection of what your mission is. The leader of the group of scientists just so happened to stumble upon the Demon Crown and red flowers capable of mutating creatures into horrifying monsters. The Doctor, who was once the leader, has been kidnapping Mimiga to turn them into an unstoppable army. He also plans to use the power of the flowers and the Demon Crown to take over the world. As with all video game scientists who are the antagonists. It’s up to our little robot to fight his way through the island, grow stronger over time, and stop the Doctor before it is too late.
Gameplay
Cave Story is mostly derived as a metroidvania which I think is mostly true. I say “mostly”, because the game feels like one but it doesn’t play like one. Once you are dumped into the Mimiga Village you can then teleport to new areas and venture through them in a linear fashion. Imagine the second half of Dark Souls 1 where you have four paths and you can go through any of them in any order. Now imagine only having one path available at a time. So yeah, it’s a very linear game.
You teleport into an area and you navigate your way to whatever goal you have assigned at the time being. There are enemies scattered about who will try to kill you and they come in a variety of forms. Some of them fly around, some of them home in on you, some shoot projectiles, and some of them go berserk for some reason. You have a nice selection of guns to defend yourself and they are all easy to understand and wield.
The Polar Star fires fast projectiles with each button press. The Missile Launcher has a limited supply of ammunition, but packs a ton of damage. The Fireball has a trajectory and can only shoot two projectiles at a time, but these flaming balls of fire are powerful and are good against grounded foes. Later in the game you can exchange your Polar Star for a Machine Gun which fires rapidly, but when out of ammo needs to be cooled down before firing again. What’s neat about Cave Story's combat is that enemies will drop shiny triangles that allow you to level up your guns. There are a total of three levels and each one increases your gun's damage output changes and how they function. The Missile Launcher will have two missiles with one button press when at level two, or three missiles when at level three or maxed out. The Machine Gun’s projectiles will allow you to fly through the air when at level three or above. There’s even a joke weapon which is powerful on the lowest level, but weak when maxed.
Touching or getting hit by enemies aren’t the only ways to die while exploring areas. You can drown in bodies of water and spike pits will kill you instantaneously. If you die you will be sent back to your last save point and it’s very easy to lose a ton of progress. So save often and try to stock up on health and ammo whenever. There are even machines that restore your max health and missile supply. There are capsules and treasure chests laying out in the open and they can upgrade one of numerous things. Maximum health, missile capacity, the efficiency of certain weapons, or give you new mobility options. Some of these upgrades are mandatory to progress through the game. However, necessities will not always be laying in plain sight. You’ll need to interact with characters or listen to hints to figure out where to go.
As you progress through the game you may notice some changes with the enemies. They’ll become more aggressive and the game will start to feel more like a bullet hell rather than a metroidvania. Don’t worry, that’s intended. Later bosses will begin to launch projectiles all over the screen and that’s when you have to dodge them like crazy. If you take damage your weapon level goes down, so the game punishes the player for playing poorly. With enough shots you can slay a boss and get to wherever you need to go. Besides that there really isn’t much else to say about Cave Story. Well maybe a few things. There are alternate endings to this game and the requirements needed to meet some endings are very vague. Yet this does add some replayability to the game. The true ending actually requires you to meet specific needs and if you screw a single one up then you can’t get the true ending. So play carefully. Hopefully you can stop the mad Doctor and save the Mimiga from his wrath.
Thoughts
Cave Story has aged as well as a fine bottle of whiskey. Even after seventeen years that whiskey has remained in tack and leaves a lovely taste to the mouth. There are quite a few characteristics that still make Cave Story a charming game. One of those characteristics is stated in the title, the story. It’s one of those stories that you really can’t care about at first due to how little information is available at the time and how slowly paced it is told to the player. It’s around when you start meeting more of the cast that the story of Cave Story starts to feel interesting. Cave Story wants you to get invested in who is who and why they matter to the overall plot. Why are there humans on an island filled with monsters? What is so important about the Demon Crown? Why is there an island floating high in the sky? Well that’s for the player to figure out.
The controls are good enough to get the player to where they need to be, but they're not tight enough for the slickest movement. Around the grassland area you’ll be encountering a lot of spiked pits and sometimes you may end up lunging yourself into one with how slippery the movement is. Gunplay is great, but I wish there were options to aim diagonally. The way guns level up when picking up experience points and downgrade when taking damage is a unique little system. Although it gets annoying when all your weapons are at a low level and you power up for a boss or large group encounter. The art design is pretty good as well and the soundtrack is a bopper. I was playing the plus version of this game and it contained updated visuals and alternate versions of the soundtrack. I chose the Famicom version which is really catchy.
Cave Story is still a really good game, but what hasn't aged well? It’s been seventeen years, so of course some aspects of the game are going to chip when thrown at a stone wall. The difficult curve is one of those aspects. The game starts off at a very consistent rate, but it’s immediately the second half where the game spikes like a nail gun. The final confrontation has like four different bosses and if you die once you have to start from the beginning fight. I remember getting the true ending a long time ago and the requirements needed to meet it are never told to the player. It’s something they’ll have to learn from a guide. Even if they do want to reach the true ending, the secret areas they have to go through are very hard. All their guns are downgraded to level one and messing up a few times will lead to instant death. The final levels are some of the hardest levels I went through in a sidescroller and perfection is needed.
The game can be beaten within a span of five hours, but that’s expected from an indie game due to constraints so no complaints here. It’s weird how there are not that many reasons to go and revisit areas. Sure you’ll be going back to the Mimiga Village alot and you do have to go back to the Egg Corridor later on, but other than that there are no reasons to backtrack. Comparing Cave Story to some of new indie metroidvanias today you can see that they are wider in scope. Kinda unfair to compare Cave Story to these other metroidvanias, but it’s to show how much has changed and how much content these metroidvanias have. Hollow Knight, Bloodstained, Axiom Verge, Ori, Blasphemous, Salt & Sanctuary, and many more. Cave Story does have replay value thanks to like five different endings and how fun it is to speedrun so that’s nice. Overall, Cave Story is still a really good game and I do recommend it to those who want to see why it’s so important. It’s easy to pick up and understand which is what every video game should be able to do. In the end I am going to give Cave Story an 8.5/10 for being pretty good.
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