Cave Story

Cave Story.

Cave Story?

http://www.cavestory.org/

Cave Story!

But wait, that's not all!

Cave Story for WII?

http://www.cavestorywii.com/

http://nicalis.com/blog/

CAVE STORY FOR MOTHERTRUCKIN' WII.

Yes. Cave Story. For Wii or otherwise.

For those among us who have not yet been introduced to its humble glory, it is a Metroidvania-type platformer/adventure game for PC—-and soon for Wii through Wii Ware—-made with a distinct retro feel. The story features an amnesiac protagonist, lots of caves (big surprise there), a recurring henchman who may or may not be a giant toaster, and cute bunny people. The game has a TV Tropes page.

After recommendations from friends and seeing the TV Tropes page for it tease me with siren calls of "Why not? It's free!" I downloaded it.

It fails to disappoint, I am happy to say. The Wii version looks to be just as fun (if not more fun with possible extras, though I do not know of any yet beyond the addition of extra save slots) and the graphics are SLICK considering they're still essentially 8-bit.

This is one of the few games that's genuinely inspired a "WOW!" reaction or sense of wonder in me (the only other two I can think of are the Myst series and the original Unreal). Some of the areas and backdrops are awe-inspiring considering the relatively simple graphics, and some rooms are absolutely huge.

And I will close this particular post with a mandatory "HUZZAH!"

(P.S.: How do you make a spoiler tag again? After the offsite forums went down and we switched to this my not-l33t HTML skills became worthless.)

Cave Story was a fun little game.

[[spoiler:text here]] gives you text here

HUZZAH! Yep, you have to not be a human being to not like Balrog...

I love this game. I've played it loads of times, with all sorts of self-imposed challenges. Certain things are less than ideal for repeat playthroughs (the beginning is very long and very easy—the real game practically doesn't even start until the boss of the egg corridor, and the first area that even the hardest challenge will make difficult is sand zone. Also, you can't skip cutscenes and there's some right before boss battles, plantation is ridiculously boring and my god they make you run through sand zone so many times in a single playthrough that I could probably beat it blindfolded if you gave me the machinegun), but it's worth it. I managed to beat the whole thing with 11 HP, but I was never able to beat Monster X on my 3HP run, being the ridiculous attack spammer he is. Damn thing boils down to getting lucky twelve times in a row. One interesting thing I found is that with the exception of the one jump at the beginning of the outer wall area, and obviously the bonus levels, the entire game can be beaten with the jetpack turned off (and without the machinegun); in fact, the levels look like they were designed to be played like that and using it was just to make things easier. There's even elements added in with no purpose BUT to facilitate no-jetpack runs, like the slow sandcrocs in the outer wall area and that lonely fan near the end of the shattered egg corridor. That one jump has caused me no shortage of head-scratching.

My favorite level is the shattered egg corridor. Oh man, that level is awesome. I've beaten it with every weapon, with no weapons, with or without the jetpack, without getting hit and more, forward and backwards (both are fun), all with my 11 HP. I highly recommend playing that level with low HP without attacking, both directions. Since the bugs follow you through walls it's quite hard but quite fun; the "end" when doing it backwards is especially fun since a humungous army of bugs will be chasing you into the teleporter. The outer wall, the area right after the egg corridor, is also twice as cool if you don't kill the ghost enemies.

One interesting thing is that I played it through my first time without the translation patch. It was interesting. If you think you're gonna have time for two playthroughs, and trust me the game's good enough for two, I would recommend trying it without the patch the first time (though you'll need a strategy guide to tell you where to go in place of the other characters). With nothing to go on but character portraits/expressions and their actions, the plot I came up with was very different from the actual plot but just as compelling; among other things, King was evil but the kidnapping of Toroko caused him to make a Heel–Face Turn just in time for his heroic sacrifice and Sue was a guy and a longtime companion of the protagonist who had come to the island with him. The characters are quite expressive even without their dialogue. As a side note, I happened to install the patch just before reaching Arthur's house in my second playthrough, which meant that I saw the message on the computer but not Kazuma typing it earlier, and that plus the red flowers by the bed plus the next boss led me to a conclusion interesting enough that I was disappointed to learn of my mistake later (though if you talk to the mimigas in town at the right point in the plot, it's implied that Arthur did transform himself in an attempt to defeat the doctor after all).

Cave Story is quite possibly the best freeware game ever. Possibly surpassing Nethack in awesomeness.

I'm not getting the Wii version, though, partly because I don't have a Wii. I'm content in having finished the original Windows version.

And boy is it a piece of art. Cave Story is a piece of art.

Daisuke Amaya, what you have done for the indie gaming community, and the gaming community at large even, will be remembered forever.

By the way, you can have infinite saves on the windows version if you're a little clever: Just make a copy of your profile.dat file and rename it something like "Right_Before_Monster_X_With_Machinegun.dat". Later, if you ever wanna play that part again, just delete (or rename) your current save file, copy the save that you want and rename it back to profile.dat. Renaming any number of times doesn't screw them up, and you can make an infinite number of saves at any point in the game. I must have at least two dozen with varying weapon selections and maximum healths, right before almost every boss and at the beginning of my favorite levels (the last leg of the labrynth right after moving the rock, the shattered egg corridor, the outer wall, both last caves and the hell level). I love games which store the saves clearly labeled in their own directories; it increases the replay value so much to be able to just jump to whatever boss you feel like fighting.

edit: Just counted. 40 saves. Also, renaming them stuff like profile.dat.Hell W Knife And Spur doesn't screw them up either. You've pretty much got free reign as long as you change it back to profile.dat when you want it.

edited Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:19:38 by Brickman

Well, guess my Wii won't be just lying around catching dust anymore... (They wouldn't restrict Wii Ware to just one region, would they?) Since I have a lousy computer with a Linux system that can barely run a GBA emulator, this is quite welcome for me.

Of course, I'm a little scared of playing it because I'm not too good at action games and I easily get frustrated with challenges, but I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth and take the rough with the smooth.

Like how I'm now going to grit my teeth and face the cold and the tiredness and ride my frikkin bike to university. *shudders*

...You haven't played Cave Story yet, Faw? Remind me to smack you when (if. I hate my new university) I meet you again on msn.

Anyway, as to the game itself... Cave Story is awesome, in the most basic sense of the term - that is, something that induces you to awe. I could rattle off a list of great things the game has - really good music, great difficulty curve, lovable characters... - but really, the most important thing in Cave Story is its feel. Cave Story feels... complete. Perfect, in a way. You go around, and the game flows around you, getting you more into the story and the challenges.

I recently conquered the Bonus Level of Hell for the first time. My time was like 16 minutes. Is this good for a first ever completion? [y/n/q]

Any first time completion is good. You CAN'T get or get anywhere near a good time until you've beaten it a few times, even if you already know the layout and watched videos of speedruns. You have to train yourself how to defeat the bosses and fight those angel-devil things before you can worry about defeating them faster. Anyways, the time to unlock the first alternate title screen is 6 minutes, which I never got close to (I ran out of free time at the time; I haven't played in a while so if I tried again now I'd be pretty rusty). I think I barely beat ten minutes ever, though I've lost my time (he had the good sense not to store THAT in the same directory as the game where the save is or god forbid as part of your profile.dat. I don't know where it is, but I wasn't able to find it when I copied my stuff over to my new computer, so I lost my time). And before you ask, that first alternate title screen features Curly in Quote's place and replaces the music with the hell music, the next one is King and I think the song called "Run" in the music player (the one that plays during his big scene, the big fish boss fight and the escape after beating the boss, among other places), and then you get Toroko and a song which doesn't even appear in the game but is in the music player. And before you ask yes I only know this from spoilers.

I think my first time was about 16 minutes too. Part of it was that I abused the two hearts at the start of the third portion (the one that plays like a normal level), since they reappear if you go back to the previous room and reenter. Since the second section always gave me a beating I just kept regenerating them until I was near full, though it isn't fast or pretty.

In my current game I've got the passes-through-walls gun (I forget what it's called, I'm going to affectionately call it the Wave Beam), and the weaker jetpack. I didn't save Curly. >_<

I had a game before I reinitialized my OS. Got the tow rope, grabbed Curly, and made it down to the last tunnel in the Waterway before Ironside when text announced her vitals had gone kaput. I went, "Aw, HELL NAW!" and reinitialized from before the Core fight. I put her in the bed in that one Waterway save room and figured, "I'll be back." Apparently not? I had the 2.0 jetpack that time, so I'm guessing the jetpack determines your story route? Before I could carry on that game, I reinitialized my OS due to techno troubles. All that said, I have a lot to look forward to in my second run.

Now I'm on presumably the last form of the Doctor. Freaky batshit insane mofo, he is.

Interestingly, the fate of Toroko didn't spook me as much as that ONE raged-up Mimiga hiding in that house in Grasstown (probably attributable to me being a spoiler hound). However, this is probably also attributable to the fact that IT WAS UNEXPECTED. I go into the house, there's no music playing (SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY FIRST CLUE), I see red petals by a bed and don't suspect a thing as all prior rooms with red petals have been thoroughly pacific (this even despite my knowing from spoilers that the red petals did nightmarish things to those who ate them). I go open the chest and FANGED THING WITH GLOWING HELL-EYES JUMPS OUT OF THE FIREPLACE LUNGING AT ME OH CHRIST OH CHRIST KEEP IT AWAY FIRE FIRE SHOOT SHOOT DIE DIE DIE. When it finally was kaput the horror of what that poor Mimiga had turned into mixed with the horror that I had put it down and I had a Heroic BSOD for a second. Jesus, it's like 8-bit Resident Evil.

Anyway, gameplay. Everything feels smooth and right, and nothing seems to interfere with anything else. No weapon feels useless (the lvl 3 Bubbler is a godsend against the more Bullet Hell-happy bosses. Fight spam with spam!). And while many of the bosses are freaking tough I have yet to find one to be unfairly hard. Then again, I have not gotten to the Hell Level yet, and will likely not be there until next game, unless my predictions are incorrect. Maybe for my first enforced challenge run I'll keep the Polar Star through the whole game, for lulz.

Fav music from the game includes the title theme, Moonsong (combined with the beautiful backdrop that that song plays over, and the fact that it plays at one of the most critical plot points in the game, and I get a little choked up inside when I hear it), Scorching Back, Quiet (Nightmare Fuel!), Labyrinth Fight, Mimiga Town, and On To Grasstown. Makes me eager to find out what the remastered BGM for the Wii Ware version will be like.

Fawriel: I think there's a Linux port, and people are also working on a DS port. Alternatively, you could emulate Windows and play it in there.

Yes, which jetpack you get determines which story path you can take. If you get the weak jetpack from Booster, the rope needed to save Curly won't be there after beating the core. If you don't get it, the rope will be there, but if you don't follow the steps properly you can still fail to save her. If you do, you'll still get the stronger jetpack later, and you'll still get the "hard" version of last cave (unless you keep the mimiga mask rather than trading it back for the jetpack, which ALWAYS causes you to get the easy version since the hard one's impossible, and obviously blocks off Hell for the same reason). Last cave is determined entirely by the jetpack. You can't enter hell unless you saved Curly AND restored her memory, and get the jetpack back; you'll know you're ready for hell when she gives you the iron band. The stopwatch from the outer wall is nice to have but not necessary.

Anyways, my favorite music is mostly the same—Moon Dance, Scorching Back, Labrynth Fight, Final Battle, The Way Back Home (aka the credits music), Pulse, Safety, Eyes of Flame and Gravity. Oh, and of course Balrog's Theme. The second half of running hell would qualify if the first half weren't holding it down. Almost all the music's great though; the only ones I disliked were Access (which is kind of dull, though it's only used in two early cutscenes, Living Waterway (which just sounds annoying in my opinion) and the title theme (which is not interesting enough to compensate for how much you'll be hearing it late in the game, especially in such a boring portion). Every other song in the game has a lot of merit to it.

@ Brickman: Durrrrrrr wut? o_o (EDIT: DON'T TAKE THAT AS A PROMPT TO SPOIL ME.)

Anyway, I felt that the Cemetary tune was fairly good and rather unfortunately only got used in a single room in the game.

For some reason, when I think of Cave Story I also think of Yume Nikki. Any idea why?

edited Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:12:55 by Charlatan

"Fawriel: I think there's a Linux port, and people are also working on a DS port. Alternatively, you could emulate Windows and play it in there."

Ah, I tried that last thing. Except it moved at, I dunno, a third of the speed it's supposed to, either because of my crappy computer, a lack of Direct X or somesuch to let it run faster, or both. Given that, it's amazing how far I bothered to play it. o_o

edited Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:43:13 by Fawriel

I played thourgh it 3 times, which is a hell of a lot coming from me. I liked the sudden GRIMDARK and I laughed at how pretty much the spike room of the bonus level was pretty much a Player Punch just becuase it looked so freaking impossible. Will play the Wii version if it has enough improvements.

Whoa, Fawriel changed her (her?) avatar! I totally forgot about commenting that I totally didn't know that your previous avatar was supposed to be a male, hahaha—it looked totally female to me, and most other people, it seemed.

Also, my favorite tracks:

• Cave Story theme (also used in the Plantation, where it becomes a sort of scarred realization of the "true" meaning of the innocent-sounding tune we all heard on the title screen)
• Last Battle
• Running Hell (oh yeah!)
• Moonsong (I keep a list of music that I consider "sacred", and Daisuke Amaya's musical talent has, by this track, made it onto this list, which contains works by Chopin, Bach, Mike Oldfield, the Beatles, Franki Love, and Rie fu, among others.)
• Jenka 1 (love that folksy dance music)
• Jenka 2 (the dark, ominous variation on the folksy dance music, as if showing the "truth" of the island)
• Mimiga Town (a very sweet and down-to-earth town theme)

Darn. Now I want to play this game again.

edited Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:15:55 by Glenn Magus Harvey

Hey Cave Story veterans! Did you know that there are fan-created mods for Cave Story? There are, and some of them are pretty cool. You can find many [http://miraigamer.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=60 here]. So far I've tried two: Jenka's Nightmare and Boss Rush. The former is really cool, with totally new along with heavily revised areas, a continuation of the plot, cutscenes, and (and this surprised me) several entirely new bosses, apparently built by overwriting an existing boss. It's much harder than the original, mostly because your arsenal (and healthbar) is kept limited and is almost always considerably less than what you'd normally have when fighting the enemies in a given area. It does, however, have waaay too much hidden/secret content which goes beyond rewarding the finders to punishing anyone who misses it, including the fairly game-breaking knife early on (near the end of Genesis-Sky) which totally ruins the weaker-weapon dynamic and from what I can tell can't be returned to later. Still, captures the feel of the game well and extends the challenge a lot.

The latter, Boss Rush, is exactly what it sounds like. It is awesome. You can either race through all the game's bosses with optional chances to heal up and obtain items available up to that point in the game between each one, or play the much more fun nonstop mode where you can take your pick of ALL the items in the game, even those you could never have together, and battle all the bosses back to back with no rest. Knifing Balrog 1 for the win! Warning: Boss rush is hard, especially due to the mindset it puts you in even if you don't care about timing. It's been a long time since the boss at the end of sand zone (not spoiling) killed me.

... *his

edited Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:18:38 by Fawriel

I gotta admit, Fawriel, for the longest time I thought both you and your former avatar were female.

I seem to have found a (rather sarcastic) creature approximately 3 pixels tall in the Mimiga Village graveyard.

Will wonders never cease?

On that note, I need to investigate that door in the upper right of that room sometime...

Question: Snake or Spur?

Other question: anyone complete the game without picking up life capsules?

That 3 pixel-high guy in the graveyard rewards you with Nemesis if you talk with his family in a room at the bottom of the Outer Wall (look at the map), tell him his family is looking for him, and then bring him back. You must trade in the sword, but nothing's free, right. Nemesis is at its most powerful at level 1, the inverse of every other weapon in the game, so you need to AVOID weapon energy when using it (it only takes 1 to level it up).

Gee, why don't you tell him where the door leads while you're at it? I guess I can't complain, since you did use spoiler tags, but there are walkthroughs out there.

Anyways, I haven't pulled off a 3HP run yet. I've beaten the main game (aka not hell) with 11 HP, but I could never beat monster X with just three. Damn bullet spam.

As for snake/spur, it's no question for me. I hate the snake. It just seems so useless to me—terrible rate of fire, the shots move so slowly that its inaccuracy is second only to the bubbler (funny that a machinegun would be more accurate in that sense), it does pitiful damage and it doesn't even shoot straight (no hitting Ballos's eye for you!). The shooting through walls is only useful in hell, as the rest of the game has level design which simply does not accommodate it (the very few cases where you'd ever use it are places where you could've used the fireball if you had it), and it only works in the easiest quarter of hell to boot! I could hardly even justify giving up the fireball for it, rather less the machinegun or the spur.

Better question: Knife or Nemesis?

Knife. The spirit of King, as well as at chain massive damage at its highest level.

Spur, because it has the most raw power without having the disadventages the Nemesis has (which ALSO happens to be a superiro weapon to the Snake) and the Blade, only because I feel kind of bad giving it away after all King did for you and because I suck at avoiding EXP, so I always have to get hit on purpose everytime I level up and then I realize I don't have enough HP to keep feeding the gun.

I'm gonna say Knife as I haven't gotten a Nemesis thingy yet, and also for the reasons of King mentioned above.

I'm gonna say that the Vulcan ties with the Spur (haven't gotten it, know about it) for sheer entertainment value, though. One has enough kick that you can Rocket Jump off the recoil, and the other is a BFG.

edited Sun, 14 Dec 2008 12:56:51 by Charlatan