The main theme is a cheery tune that plays over the title screen, setting you up for your fun adventure. Until things go south, of course. Even then, the song's unexpected reuse in the Plantation helps to bring the game full circle, and the amount of time spent there subverts Long Song, Short Scene—allowing you to hear the song briefly turn discordant just before it loops.
Gestation plays when you are exploring the first cave, and it tells you that you have started an adventure full of emotions. But it's even better when you return to get the Spur, it sounds really nostalgic.
White, King's theme song, barely sliding into the actual game as a secret track.
Running Hell, A track that starts out with a dramatic severity before segueing into an energetic and heroic sound.
Last Battle, an adrenaline pumping tune that carries all the intensity a final fight should have.
Living Waterway, a tune that manages to be both bouncy and mellow, relaxing and unsure at the same time.
Labyrinth Fight, which plays within Labyrinth M alongside Curly while destroying everything in your path.
The kickass Wind Fortress, which is unfortunately a Cut Song. The actual Wind Fortress level makes an appearance as an unlockable challenge in Cave Story+, with this song as the background music.
Geothermal, especially when you first hear it upon entering the Core. It has a sense of grandness, exploration and curiosity.
Charge is one of the best boss themes you'll ever find in any game. It also happens to be less than fifteen seconds long.
Quiet is Nightmare Fuel, and that's the point. It hammers home that terrible things are happening on the island, the areas that this track plays in being forcibly vacated of their residents being one of them, with one of those areas being Mimiga Village, which has been turned from a bustling Mimiga capital to a Ghost Town.
Plant (Yamashita Farm) is probably the most underrated track in the entire game, thanks in no part to the farm's only purpose being Mrs. Exposition and a single Life Capsule. Yet Pixel chose to give the area unique music instead of recycling "Mimiga Town", and it's as beautiful as chiptune music can be. The gentle melody and rocking arpeggios underneath give it an lullaby-like quality that's appropriate for an early-game area before all hell breaks loose.
Official remixes
The Wii port was criticized for its poor re-arrangement of the soundtrack. So they made a new improved version. Some standouts:
Balrog's Theme is slower than the original version, but manages to make Balrog sound more menacing while still remaining silly.
Gravity. You didn't know what was missing until you've heard this.
Meltdown 2 sounds much, much better in the new fixed rearrangement.
Cave Story 3D has some pretty awesome remixes. Last Cave was already a great piece on its own, but the Cave Story+/Cave Story 3Dremastered version takes the track to whole new levels with an epic sax lead, truly embodying the sheer determination and resilience that was required from both Quote and the player to overcome the game's challenges, both story and gameplay-centric, culminating in a tense but empowering atmosphere leading up to the fight with the Doctor which makes dragging yourself through the Hidden Last Cave in particular so much more bearable.
is a cheery tune that plays over the title screen, setting you up for your fun adventure. Until things go south, of course. Even then, the song's unexpected reuse in the Plantation helps to bring the game full circle, and the amount of time spent there subverts Long Song, Short Scene—allowing you to hear the song briefly turn discordant just before it loops.