TP's first review ever.  (Hopefully, not the last!)

Cave Story

A few years ago an unheard-of Japanese game designer released a game called Cave Story. It was a 2D side-scrolling platformer/shooter that garnered quite a fanbase and was thus, translated into English soon. I stumbled upon the game on a certain website's (I forgot which one it was, I am sorry... but grateful) indie game recommendation feature. The game is free to play and there's no catch such as in-game advertising or any form of electronic registration, which I am still surprised by given how polished and professional a job this game is.

I've been playing it for the past few days and am at the last level, which is difficult as hell (have to beat two bosses in a row... cruel, yet fun!)... so I'm sitting down to post a short review on it. If I don't fuck up too much with the grammar and consistency-in-writing, then perhaps I might even write more indie game reviews.

Story (No spoilers)
Cave Story tells the... uh... story of an amnesiac soldier who wakes up in a cave on a strange island. After a short and easy introductory level which serves as a tutorial, you are met by the inhabitants of the island. A village of cute bunny-like characters, called 'Mimigas' serves as the setting for the story. After exploring, talking to various characters and being introduced to the first of the villains who kidnaps one of the villagers, you embark upon a journey that will take you through some of the most masterfully crafted levels and environments in any game of this kind. You will meet interesting characters that trump the tired, generic and forgettable ones that populate most games of today.  A very finely paced plot makes every one of your quests feel important.

Gameplay

Cave Story is a twitchy shooter with a good share of platforming and exploration thrown in. The controls, in terms of number of buttons, are as easy as those of the original Mario's. However, the weapons, abilities and the variety of enemies that you'll encounter make the game shine.

You have three 'level upgrades' for each weapon. Whenever you kill an enemy, more often than not they will drop experience points which you collect to upgrade your weapons. Taking damage de-levels the weapon you have equipped at the time. The more powerful the enemy you kill, the more experience you get. It’s a nice addition which deepens the gameplay.

You also gain a few special abilities along the way. A 'bubble shield' lets you stay underwater without running out of breath, a jetpack upgrade lets you fly and reach areas that were previously unaccessable (adding the attraction of going back to older levels to hunt for treasures) and some ammo capacity upgrades for your rocket launcher.

Every level has its own variety of different enemies that (often, not always) require you to use different strategies/weapons against them. The boss fights are few and far in-between, but are epic in scale later on in the game and very satisfying... again, aside from the characters, I feel that modern games could learn quite a lesson from Cave Story. They are monstrously difficult at times, but in a fun way. You might scream and curse when you die after taking out 95% of the monsters' health, but you will keep on coming back for more. Its just that good.

The exploration is a mixed bag. Hidden areas are perhaps a bit too cleverly hidden to be discovered by untrained eyes such as mine (or maybe its just me). But there is a good deal to explore in the game, treasures such as health and ammo upgrades, weapons and even some funny items that serve no purpose are hidden away in different areas. You can even find additional quests and funny easter eggs in some areas. They are a bit hard to find and sometimes you might only end up with a part of a quest, the rest of which you can't make any sense out of because you can't find the hidden areas they require you to go to anywhere. Make no mistake though, most of the treasures found make exploring each and every one of the levels worth it for those who are determined enough.


Game Design
This game took its creator, Pixel, 5 years to create.   Judging from the end product, it isn't a surprise. Cave Story is a masterpiece in game design. The levels are brilliant, the graphics are varied and, I don't know how to explain this, but despite being able to COUNT the pixels, I find them beautiful. I was amazed at times how when backtracking through certain areas did the placing of save points, landmarks and jump puzzles made perfect sense. Everything in the game, the levels, the puzzles, the monsters spawn points all come together perfectly. 

The only gripe I had with the game was that once you enter any rooms within a level, and come back out... all the enemies you spent your time killing will respawn which discourages engaging in combat and also cuts down on the exploration opportunities since you can't roam around with the enemy spawns constantly coming at you.

Graphics

The game runs at a maximum of 640x480 resolution and looks pixelated. The game has an artistic edge that eschews technical bells and whistles and truly shines with the variety of its levels, characters and environments. The game serves as a perfect example of art edging out technology.  I do find myself guiltily wishing that someone out there might pull off a Bionic Commando: Rearmed on this game.


Sound

Cave Story features an 8-bit sound track. Just about every one of the themes has a catchy tune and I found myself downloading the mp3's soon after I'd played through the game for hours listening to them (there are fantastic fan remixes available on the web too). The themes are beautifully composed and have a light hearted feel to them.  A drawback I found was that the game's music track files weren't in any recognizeable format... I discovered after my failure to try and replace the soundtracks with appropriate remixes.

Closing statements

Cave Story is a free game. It’s the most fun I can remember having in the past twelve months and in that time frame I have played games ranging from Command and Conquer 3, World in Conflict, Company of Heroes, Stalker : Shadow of Chernobyl, Crysis and Gears of War. Cave Story is a masterpiece and it defies all the rules that we know today. It reminds me how much we're stuck up on petty things like voice acting, graphics, physics and multiplayer when sometimes the best way to spend your time is to forget all that and just have fun. Again, its free to play so try it out... you won't regret it.

Score
Review scores are for people who can't read, so scroll back up and read the fucking review.