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Meet the cast.
Cave Story is a jumping-and-shooting action game.
Explore the caves until you reach the ending.
You can also save your game and continue from where you left off. — author's description of the game.
You wake up in a cave. You shoot your way out of the cave, so you can get to a village in another cave. Then you have to go to a different cave, followed by...
Well, it's aptly named.
Cave Story is a freeware Metroid Vania game by Studio Pixel. There's a plot in there somewhere, involving robot soldiers, bunny people called Mimigas, and a Mad Scientist with a Morally Ambiguous Doctorate and a magic helmet that's trying to Take Over The World.
What makes this game notable, however, is how good the gameplay is. A great difficulty curve that keeps it just challenging enough all the way through, a myriad of weapons with unique styles, and frequent, hectic, and exciting boss battles that are exhilarating and rewarding are just some of its better qualities.
What's also notable about this game is that only one person wrote the scenario, drew the artwork and scenery, animated the sprites, designed all of the levels, composed all of the music, and programmed the entire game engine, all over the course of five years. And it shows, in the best way possible.
Its breeding ground on the English-speaking Internet is here . And for any Mac users, there's a Mac OS X port available here. Also, it's on its way to the Wii!
This game provides examples of:
- Action Girl - Curly Brace skirts the border of Action Girl and The Chick (but not due to Chickification). Although she does get beaten up several times, requiring the player to save her, and takes it upon herself to raise a group of orphaned Mimiga children, she's never (at least from a story perspective) incompetent in combat when the player is given the opportunity to fight with her, in either sense.
- Not only on story, but in gameplay as well. This Troper got his ass saved by her multiple times during the labyrinth when he was low on health and weapon levels. Granted, he didn't trade the Polar Star for the Machine Gun. She is much more useful with the latter.
- Alas Poor Scrappy - If you thought Toroko was annoying at the beginning of the game, you'll feel like crap when she gets kidnapped, and like a major Jerk Ass when she dies later on... by your hands (although it was a you-or-her situation there).
- Alas Poor Villain - When the island crashes, the ending cutscene features a slow pan over the different areas over the island accompanied by slow music, featuring all the creatures who were trying to kill you. Some of the monsters, such as the Hoppers, are even cute. Nice job killing them all, hero.
- All Myths Are True - You're told that a mimiga that eats a red flower dies right away. What actually happens is worse. Much worse.
- All There In The Manual - The names of many NPCs and enemies are only given in the end credits. The writing on Quote's hat (only mentioned once, by someone who doesn't understand what it says) is revealed in Pixel's artwork from the Beta version of the game. And that's all there is—in spite of many clues hinting at a large, interconnected backstory, Pixel has said of everything beyond what's shown in the game: "It is up to the player to decide".
- Amnesiac Dissonance - Subverted! Quote and Curly think they're robots from a past war who helped kill off the Mimigas, and their amnesia has shifted their allegiance. However, when Curly's memory returns, she remembers that their mission was to destroy the Crown; and that they didn't kill any Mimigas.
- Ambidextrous Sprite - Averted with Ballos, whose right eye is (almost) always red while his left eye is always white. Malco does fall for this trope, though.
- Arc Words - "The surface," "soldier from the surface," and "killer robots." Justified by the amnesia you have when the game begins.
- Artifact Of Doom - The Demon Crown.
- Asteroids Monster - in the Sand Zone
- Back To Back Badasses - During the Bonus Level Of Hell.
- Badass Adorable - Quote and Curly. Heck, due to the art style, nearly all the badasses are like this, but those two really take the cake.
- Battle Cry - Huzzah!
- Big Damn Heroes- Huzzah! It's Balrog.
- Blind Idiot Translation - Just one line, actually, in an otherwise superb translation. The secret password in the plantation is Litagano Motscoud. Pretty random, right? Well, actually, in Japanese, it's the reverse of the game's name: "Doukutsu Monogatari" "Do-U-Ku-Tsu-Mo-No-Ga-Ta-Ri" becomes "Ri-Ta-Ga-No-Mo-Tsu-Ku-U-Do". The translator missed the intended meaning and just transliterated it as best he could. A better name might be Yrots Evac. Whether this error remains in the Wiiware version remains to be seen.
- Bonus Boss - right at the end of the...
- Bonus Level Of Hell - Although the final secret level contains angels and its official name is "Sacred Grounds," a sign there cheerfully greets you: "Welcome to Hell!" And the "angels" turn into demons when they die and drop the illusion entirely when they surround the Bonus Boss. Hell level in this game might be very hard, but at least it plays fair and ending is rewarding, unlike that OTHER freeware platformer.
- Breather Level - Plantation is rather easy compared to Outer Wall and what's to come. Most of the enemies in this area are rather weak or easily avoidable, save points are plentiful and there are no bosses.
- Broken Base - The developer's forums for the WiiWare version are ablaze with people complaining about the music, the graphics, the gameplay... it's descended to the point where "devoted fans" are refusing to buy the game when it comes out because it was delayed.
- Call A Rabbit A Mimiga
- Catch Phrase - Balrog's "Huzzah!"
- Climax Boss: The Core
- Complete Monster - The Doctor.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome - Every single track. Cave Story (the song, better known as Plantation) and Moonsong deserve special mention.
- They Changed It Now It Sucks - While some of the remixes for the Wii are great (For example, 'Moonsong', which plays on the Cave Story Wii website) others are getting...not so nice responses (The music for the first Egg Corridor is a little...screechy)
- However, the game will include the option to uses the old music instead of the new stuff. According to the blog's FAQ, you can even mix and match the songs. (so if you, say, love the new Mimiga Village, but hate the new Egg Corridor, you can switch one and keep the other). So everyone's happy! ...Right?
- Crosshair Aware - The Bonus Boss.
- Cut Scene Incompetence
- Cutscenes - Probably the only thing you hate about this game is the fact that these are unskippable and you'll have to watch them every time you retry the boss battle.
- Dark And Troubled Past - Ballos.
- Death Seeker - Ballos
- Defeat Means Friendship - For Toroko, Curly Brace, and eventually Balrog.
- Degraded Boss - Igor. He appears as a regular enemy at the Balcony.
- Difficulty Spike - And how. Things up to Plantation are relatively easy with save and refill points scattered around. However, Last Cave, at least the harder version where all your weapon levels get dropped to 1. ramps up the difficulty a lot. After a little breather at the Balcony, you'll have to Defeat three bosses in a row with no refills in between.
- But wait, there's more! If you want to get the best ending. You'll have to go through the hard Bonus Level Of Hell with no saves onward. And then there are two bosses, the last one which is a Sequential Boss. Aaaah! After that, Monster X doesn't seem that bad after all!
- Distressed Damsel: Sue, more than once.
- Dual Boss - The Sisters. And a trio boss, Undead Core, with Misery and Sue.
- Easter Egg - An astounding number of them.
- Earn Your Happy Ending - Storyline-wise and gameplay-wise. The bonus dungeon and the bonus boss will make you their bitch.
- Empathic Weapon - The Blade, especially at max level.
- Evil Albino - Misery
- Eyes Always Shut - Kazuma.
- Event Flag - Jellies? Never seen 'em before, but now that you mention it, they're right out the door!
- Fetch Quest - Several, including puppies.
- Fission Mailed - After the fight against the island's Core
- Flunky Boss - Many, many boss battles are of this type. The battle with the Undead Core actually has two levels of this, as one of the flunkies is itself a Mook Maker.
- This is because with the weapon level system the game works better if there is almost always something you can shoot to get power crystals back if you get hurt. Most of the bosses which don't actually summon minions have projectiles which can be shot and drop powerups anyways.
- Floating Continent
- For Massive Damage - All of the game's nastiest bosses also happen to only be vulnerable by shooting them in the face/mouth/eyes during a specific part of their attack pattern, always the part where they are spamming a ridiculous number of bullets onto the screen. Always.
- Also, Ballos's second and third forms, though they don't dissappear at any point.
- Fridge Brilliance - Has no one else noticed that Santa gives you coal?
- Fungus Humongous - Mimiga Graveyard.
- Funny Animal - The Mimigas.
- Game Mod
- Gameplay Ally Immortality - That entire section where Curly is following you around/attached to you.
- Giant Space Flea From Nowhere - Pooh Black, Monster X, Ironhead, and Heavy Press.
- Goddamned Bats - The green birds in the Sand Zone, and Butes in the Bonus Level Of Hell
- Guest Star Party Member - Curly accompanies you like an Attack Drone throughout Labyrinth M. If you save her life and restore her memory, she will rejoin you in Sacred Ground.
- Guide Dang It - You will not get the best ending on your first playthrough. Accept this fact and enjoy the game.
- Also, the Bonus Boss Ballos' 2nd Form, for a lot of people.
- Heart Container - Although could be changed to Energy Tank, considering its appearance and the awesome Metroid-style riff that plays when you pick it up.
- Heroic Albino - Curly Brace and the protagonist. Probably due to their robotic nature.
- Heroic Mime - From context, it can be induced that the protagonist is speaking, but the player isn't privy to most of his lines.
- Heroic Sacrifice - After the fight with the Core, you drown. Curly gives you her oxygen tank to save you, drowning in your place. You do have a chance to save her, however. It's a remarkably sad moment if you fail to save her, and as you leave the room where she lies the door clangs ominously shut behind, while some of the game's saddest music plays.
- Infant Immortality - The Mimiga children fighting you alongside Curly can't be killed or permanently disabled, shots only stun them for a period of time. Unfortunately, Toroko was out of such luck.
- Sadly foreshadowed by the death of Igor.
- Invincible Minor Minion - Basil and Rolling.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting - Sue and Itoh are humans magically transformed into Mimigas. The ending credits show them transformed back, but with a lingering effect that they change forms whenever they sneeze. Also in the extra boss fight when Sue and Misery are transformed into monsters by the Doctor.
- Jerk With A Heart Of Gold - Balrog after you defeat him and after you defeat Ballos.
- Joke Weapon - The Nemesis. On its lowest power level, it fires devastating shooting stats. But as it gets powered up, it gets weaker! On its highest setting? It shoots rubber duckies. To add insult to injury, to get it you have to trade a much more powerful weapon that has sentimental value to the player character.
- On the other hand, it's quite powerful as long as you DON'T power it up.
- Gets quite tricky when one crystal is enough to take it up a level and you're paying attention to things other than the swarms of little bouncing triangles. Which is all the time.
- Jump Physics: Really weird ones at that, but they're wonderfully intuitive. You more glide than jump.
- Kaizo Trap: The Giant Press boss in the final zone will fall through the floor after it's defeated, and will instantly kill you if you're caught under it.
- Killer Rabbit - Mimigas dosed with the red flowers.
- Kill The Cutie - Toroko, after feeding her a red flower.
- Kleptomaniac Hero - At the beginning with the Polar Star and later with the Bubbler, and later on with Curly's panties.
- Leitmotif - Balrog and the Doctor have them.
- Let's Meet The Meat - Curative mushroom doesn't want to be eaten.
- Lets You And Him Fight - Curly assumes you're there to kill the Mimigas, and attacks you before you have a chance to explain yourself.
- Load Bearing Boss - The Core. Fight it, and then the villains swoop in and inform you that it's the only thing keeping the island airborne; they then zombify the core to save the island. Then when the Doctor possesses the Undead Core, you're forced to destroy it for good, and the island begins falling. Then Ballos inverts this—since Ballos was the one pulling the island down, defeating him saves the island from destruction.
- Lost Forever - Two mutually exclusive alternative weapons - and if you take either of them, you miss a third weapon.
- Also, if you don't sleep in a bed right after talking to someone, you won't have the item needed to get the best ending.
- Magikarp Power - The very first weapon. You have two opportunities to trade or upgrade it into something better; if you refuse both of them, you can get it remodeled into the game's most powerful gun. ...Hey! Why are you kicking yourself all of a sudden?
- Not quite the most powerful gun. The super missiles are better, but of course, they have limited ammo.
- The machine gun, powered up to Level 3, can be used to make you fly. Dunno about the remodeled gun, but when Everything Is Trying To Kill You, flight is pretty handy.
- The remodeled gun is powerful enough to blow up those same enemies trying to kill you with little difficulty, so it's an equal tradeoff; it all comes down to whether you're willing to wait for the Booster 2.0 or want to fly earlier.
- Macross Missile Massacre - Balrog uses this in one of the fights with him, and you can get a miniaturized one of your own via the level 3 missile launcher.
- Mad Doctor - The Doctor, natch.
- Malevolent Architecture - Of course. And Chaco's fireplace as a passageway in Grasstown.
- Memetic Mutation - Say it with me: HUZZAH!
- Metroid Vania - Borders on this.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate - The villain known only as the Doctor. Except that if you play the Bonus Level Of Hell, his name is revealed to be Date Fuyihiko.
- Multiple Endings - Several characters may die or survive depending on your actions, and the results will be reflected in the cut-scene at the standard ending. It's even possible to get a Bad Ending by accepting one character's offer to run away in the middle of the game. Overall, there are three main endings total, with slight variations depending your actions.
- Most Gamers Are Male - At one point in the game, you can sleep in the bed at a certain Mimiga's house; you wake up with her in that bed and her lipstick in your inventory. Exactly how a robot is supposed to have sex with a purple mutated rabbit is left as an exercise to the reader. Later on, you can acquire your new female partner's panties. They don't actually do anything... they just sit in your inventory for you to look at.
- Nakama - Curly and Quote (but only if you get One Hundred Percent Completion)
- Nightmare Fuel - Whatever the hell is inside the Undead Core.
- Ballos' last form will haunt your dreams.
- Nintendo Hard: Things are quite bearable until you get to Misery or Last Cave, depending on your booster version in which case it becomes Nintendo Hard. And then there's the Hell Level and Ballos. UGH
- No Name Given - The protagonist. Also, the Doctor. However, if you restore Curly's memory, you learn your name is Quote. And, later, that the Doctor's name is Fuyuhiko Date.
- Nonstandard Game Over - "You were never seen again."
- One Winged Angel - Happens a hell of a lot, sometimes in multiple phases.
- Palette Swap - Pooh Black (recolored from Balrog, no less)
- Paper Thin Disguise - Mimiga mask which tricks half of the characters.
- People Puppets - during the Undead Core battle.
- Perfect Run Final Boss - Ballos
- Player Punch - Pretty much everything The Doctor does.
- Power Incontinence - The Doctor after his first form is defeated. And of course, Ballos who became this by being tortured by an unnamed king.
- The Professor - Booster.
- Psycho Serum - The "red flowers", which turns the Mimigas into hulking homicidal monsters.
- Public Domain Soundtrack - Jenka's theme is a Finnish dance called "Letkajenkka".
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old - Misery and Jenka.
- Recoil Boost - Machine gun at level 3.
- Recurring Boss - Balrog
- Retraux - Its presentation.
- Ridiculously Human Robots - The robots can drown (which does get an in-game justification), regain their memories by eating a mushroom, and, well... read Most Gamers Are Male, above.
- Rule Thirty Four: Oddly enough, most of the "art" out there is of Sue or a certain "purple mutated rabbit" not Curly. Or So I Heard anyway.....So Yeah.
- Scary Shiny Glasses - The Doctor
- Schmuck Bait - "Watch out! Deathtrap to your left. One touch means instant death!" Unfortunately, the swathes of spikes littered throughout the rest of the game do not have a similar warning. Neither are they so easy to avoid.
- Schrodinger's Gun - It's possible to handwave a plausible explanation for why your decision to talk to Professor Booster determines whether he lives or dies. But your decision to talk with Booster also determines whether or not there's a tow rope in a locked room at the other end of the labyrinth—how does that work? Magic. But seriously, this is possibly the only genuine Plot Hole in the entire game.
- Screen Shake - The whole game after defeating the Undead Core.
- Sealed Evil In A Can - Ballos, although he's not completely evil.
- Sequential Boss - The Doctor. And the aforementioned Perfect Run Final Boss.
- Shrug Of God - "How much of this world have you created that we don't see in the game? ... What is Balrog, exactly?" "Nothing of that world exists beyond what you see in the game, as I don't have the skills to construct anything further. I leave the details of Cave Story's world to the player's imagination."
- Shout Out - The "found a heart container" jingle is quite similar to the Metroid one.
- Skippable Boss - The very first boss, as well as "The Sisters." Although the first one is more ironic: Balrog actually asks you if you're going to fight him, and just leaves if you say no...
- Spikes Of Doom - With varying lethality from Grasstown point on. Last Cave and Sacred Grounds are filled with them.
- Smashing Hallway Trapsof Doom - The Heavy Presses, especially later on in the Plantation, both versions of the Last Cave, and a few in the Sacred Grounds.
- Speedrun - The Bonus Level Of Hell mentioned above usually includes a timer, encouraging players to do this.
- Stationary Boss - Heavy Press and Ballos' last form, though in the latter's room everything you can step on either moves or damages you.
- Sugar Apocalypse
- Superweapon Surprise - The red flowers' effect. They're so secret Mimigas no longer know it.
- That Makes Me Feel Angry - Misery's "Heavens, that felt good!" while nobody is around.
- Tear Jerker - The death of Toroko, and then King. The first you get too late to save, and the second you're forced to kill after King was too late to save her. This was only made worse for This Troper when he saw the max level of The Sword. King himself appears as a ghost, attacking your enemies. sob.
- And then there's what happens to Curly if you don't know the precise sequence of events needed to save her and restore her memory. The worst is if you don't even have the tow cable.
- To clarify: You abandon her in the Core chamber, which is now filled with water. "There is no response" is the only thing you get on examining her. When you leave, the shutter closes behind you—leaving her to drown in the cold and dark, with no death scene. Add in the spooky dark music, and the result is just... ugh.
- Even worse is when the entire island is breaking down, and it goes through screenshots of the island falling to pieces. And the second to last one you are forced to see is the exact same place where you left Curly, now dead. All set to gut-wrenchingly sad music.
- Theme Naming - "Curly Brace" and "Quote" are the { and " symbols, respectively. And Curly's adopted Mimiga children have the last name Colon.
- Actually, it's a kind of spoonerism. "Brace" and "curly quote" are typographical symbols. There's no such thing as a "curly brace" because braces are curly by definition.
- Another interpretation (probably more likely as Pixel is himself a programmer) is that "Curly Brace" is the name commonly used by programmers for the {} symbols, regardless of the typographical accuracy of the name.
- Tomato Surprise - Kind of. The main character is revealed to be a Ridiculously Human Robot one-third into the game. The surprise of this revelation depends entirely on whether you noticed the robot ears on his sprite before this point—they are small and easy to miss. At least one of the NPCs didn't notice them either.
- Too Awesome To Use - the Life Jar, to the point you'll forget you have it when you really really need it.
- Took A Shortcut - No matter where you go, Curly Brace will get there ahead of you. However the shortcuts appear rather tough on her, since she's usually heavily injured by the time you get there.
- That One Boss - "Monster X". Despite not being the hardest boss, it is the first which give a jump in difficulty.
- Try beating him on a low hit point run, though. Doesn't matter how many health powerups he spawns when one hit kills you and he's only vulnerable while spamming bullets.
- This Troper is going through a 3-HP, no-items run. Monster X is as naught compared to the Island Core.
- This Troper disagrees. For him, Frenzied Toroko is much harder than both Monster X and the Core.
- Tragic Monster - Toroko. Also, Balrog. Also, to a lesser extent, Ballos.
- Trailers Always Spoil - The recent video interview for the Wiiware version has the game playing in the background, showing off several areas. This includes Sacred Grounds.
- IGN's one-paragraph description of the game spoils the player character's name, which you only learn on the path to One Hundred Percent Completion: Quote.
- Underground Monkey - Mainly with the Critters and Bats.
- Understatement - "Chivalry is dead, let me tell you." —Momorin on getting thrown off a floating island thousands of feet in the air.
- Vent Physics - Most notable in Grasstown but fans can be found elsewhere too.
- Wake Up Call Boss - Speaking of the Vent Physics, anyone who hasn't mastered them is very likely to get their butt kicked by Balfrog several times on their first playthrough. Other factors play a part, but it's usually the fans that screw one up.
- Wall Master - Sand crocs! And of course that infamous killer door!
- Dude, that killer door is deadlier than freakin' Ballos!
- Warring Without Weapons - If you have the better version of the jetpack, the last level before the final boss is radically remodeled and upon entering it all your weapon levels are reduced to one. The same effect occurs upon entering hell, although there it is arguably for fairness so that how well one beat the final boss doesn't affect the level's difficulty. However, by that time you are likely to have one of two weapons (Spur and Nemesis) that aren't made any less effective by this. Although considering one weapon is part of an optional sidequest and the other is only available if you reject two very tempting weapon upgrades earlier on, you might not have either.
- With This Herring - You are an elite combat android sent to destroy an artifact that gives its wearer unthinkable power, on an island populated by rampaging monsters. You begin the game unarmed and with three hit points. Presumably something bad happened to you beforehand.
- Once Curly gets her memory back, it's heavily implied that the previous wielder of the Demon Crown beat the robotic crap out of you; also, other robots are found near the Core and are in really bad shape.
- What Happened to the Mimiga - Where'd Jack go, anyway?
- A curious player can spot him sitting in a jail cell with Sue and Mahin if you visit before the plot takes you there. The implications of him being gone when you arrive aren't pretty.
- You Gotta Have Green Hair - Sue, Kazuma and Momorin Sakamoto. Also, Doctor. Sue's hair is seen during credits and Doctor's hair is seen during intro.
- While Misery has blue hair. (Except for her dialogue portrait, where her hair is green. Previews of the Wiiware version show that her hair is consistently blue.)
- Zigzag Paper Tassel - On the boulder that blocks the entrance to Labyrinth M.
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