Cave Story is a sweet,little package of nostalgic innovation reminding us why we fell in love with 2D games
You progress the story by dodging obstacles, solving puzzles and shooting enemies all of it culminating in a boss battle at the end. Sweet and simple. However, it features a RPG-like experience meter for every weapon you equip. You gain experience "triangles" by shooting an enemy. These triangles when collected fill up your experience meter for your currently equipped weapon. Each weapon has three levels. Your weapon gets more powerful the more levels you gain. So the previously weak Level 1 Pulsar Star can wipe out hordes of enemies within seconds on Level 3. But it doesn't end there. The twist to this is that each time you take a hit, you not only lose health but you ALSO lose your experience. So go all guns blazing and you'll end up not only damaging your health but also equipping a very underpowered weapon. This forces you to adapt your playing style according to the situation very quickly. Cave Story is very good at this.
Later on in the game, you'll also come across an interesting weapon that adds another twist to the experience formula. This weapon easily the most powerful in the game WEAKENS the more levels you gain. The game gives you a warning along with the weapon saying it's meant only for "advanced or clever gamers". Finding out the trick to using is both exciting and challenging. Basic elements like save rooms and health kits are present in Cave Story like any other action platformer of its type.
Throughout the game you'll also find treasure chests (many of which are well-guarded) which contain power-ups, new weapons as well as story-related items.
Cave Story tells an excellent story of an amnesiac robot who finds himself inside a huge cave-like island inhabited by cute rabbit-like creatures called Mimigas. He also discovers that there is an evil Doctor who has set his eyes on world domination and naturally we have to stop him.
Did I call such simple, clichéd, childish story as excellent? Yes, because Cave Story's um..story shines not because of it's plot content but because of it's storytelling. Beginning with a silent, amnesiac protagonist with no clue as to where he is or what he is supposed to do (just like the gamer) things slowly begin to unfold in a humorous, poignant and disturbing manner. Yes, Cave Story can be poignant and disturbing. Poignant because of themes like "having human like emotions despite being a machine" and disturbing because of "the way how the innocent can be easily corrupted by the selfish world".
The story has multiple endings although how you achieve that has another innovative idea associated with it. A remarkable achievement of Cave Story's story is the way how the story branches out without you mostly never even realizing it. It has a way of scripting the plot in a pretty unique manner depending upon what event is triggered by your position. For example, if you decide to explore a room you might trigger an event which is completely different from the event you might have triggered had you decided not to explore that room. Without spoiling anything, this causes the story to branch in different manners depending upon such event triggers. The game has three different "complete" endings besides a couple abnormal endings. It's another reason to replay this tremendously fun game.
Of course, a 2D platformer can't be called one if it doesn't have epic boss battles set pieces. Cave Story has got a dozen of them, ranging from "joke bosses" that evoke a "WTF was that?" to series of tough boss battles that will have you utilizing every trick you've learnt in the game to it's best use. Despite that, Cave Story isn't a very easy game. For large parts, the game remains in the "normal" difficulty mode but suddenly ups the difficulty in the final cave. To add to that the final cave has got two different versions depending which story branch you end up on.
Since Cave Story is homage in many ways to countless 2D platformers, it has a series of tough FOUR final boss battles (without any saving or health kits) that evoke memories from the likes of Ninja Gaiden or Metroid. There is also a couple of levels where you do a co-op with a computer-controlled character, Curly (a-la Contra albeit in single-player) and those levels are nothing but absolute fun.
Strangely, the game never gets frustrating or annoying despite the fact that the PC controls don't make the game simpler. Whenever you see Game Over screen, you always discover a flaw in your strategy and you immediately want to improve on that. The game can be punishing sometimes but can be immensely rewarding with satisfaction when you do manage to complete the hard part. Yet again, an aspect of 2D games many of old-school gamers like me still cherish.
True to its source of inspiration like Super Metroid, Cave Story is highly atmospheric. From eerie looking caves to dream-like scenery, the game's NES-like graphics do their best to evoke the game's underlying disturbing tone well. More than the graphics, it's the music that really hits the spot. Featuring 8-bit tunes (actually they're just normal electronica ) ranging from upbeat, cheerful moods to ambient, disturbing, fore-boding danger tunes. Both of them combine to create an inescapable, claustrophobic (again Super Metroid-esque) atmosphere in a cave that could have otherwise been so generic.
A special mention needs to be given to the game's creator, designer, artist, music director, and programmer in short almost everything --Hideki "Pixel" Amaya. He created this game single-handedly for a period of 5 years with nothing but plain dedication towards his game. It shows because unlike many action platformers of past, Cave Story hardly has any "weak levels". Every level is wonderfully designed; it's balanced and shows that proper time has been devoted to every part of the game. Other than a sequence where you have to travel through a pitch dark room, the game is devoid of any frustrating sequence either (go eat boot, Battletoads power-bike sequence :P )
Cave Story is an important game. It was the first game to develop a massive underground cult following which led to an indie-gaming revolution back in 2004 on a declining platform and encouraged passionate gamers to put forward their passion and ideas into a game without any sort of "executive" pressure. Since then, the indie-community has gone from strength to strength expanding from its PC/Mac/Linux roots onto consoles. Till date, Cave Story along with other games like Darwinia remain icons within the niche indie community.
But besides all its importance, Cave Story is a tremendously entertaining, wholly innovative game that reminds you of the best-of-the best from its genre yet standing its own ground against them. It may not be right to compare Cave Story and the likes of Super Metroid directly but in their own right, they're games that deserve to be played any way you put it. Cave Story is that sweet, little package of nostalgic innovation that reminds us why we fell in love with 2D games in the first place.
Oh and all of this is absolutely free.