Cave Story

Cave Story was a single work of Daisuke Amaya a.k.a. Pixel, who made the game during his free time in five years. It is a homage of Pixel favorite titles, like Metroid and Castlevania.

You are Quote, awakened in an amnesiac condition inside a cave. There he a village of Mimigas, being persecuted by the Doctor. There he was involved in a kidnapping accident, which was only the surface of a bigger  mystery involving the Mimigas. Like the whole game, the story is deeper than it looks on the surface. I certainly didn't expect so many emotional heartstrings in what seems to be a simple game by the looks. Pixel is able to make us love the characters without too many dialogues and a small but clean character portrait that expresses emotions better than full-sized portraits found in many other games. We'll both hate and sympathize the antagonists. Many of this were helped by Quote being a silent protagonist, making it easier for players to get into Quote's shoes.

Being a tribute to Metroid, Castlevania, and all similar games, Cave Story plays like one. You explore a huge area (in this case, the Cave). You have a laser gun (which will be upgraded at certain story points), and you will shoot enemies that are in your way. While you have areas that can only be entered with a certain upgrade, the whole level wasn't as maze-ey as Metroid and it focuses a lot more on action. Even though it's relatively stricted in a "cave", there's quite a lot of variety in the environments. And level design, like the game it was inspired by, was one of Cave Story's strong points. I dare say it's on par with Metroid and Castlevania--not on scope or spectacle, but in complexity. Similar to Metroid, there's a good deal of collectibles that upgrades Quote's abilities--health, or ammo capacity, or even a new weapon.

Boss fights are well designed, and none of them feel cheap or relying too much on trial and error. You will need to learn the attack patterns, and strike whenever you think you got the chance. Easier said than done, as the bosses in this game are no cakewalk: you will fail a few times, and all of them mostly due to your own mistakes.

Cave Story is hard; both the challenging and frustrating kind of hard. The frustrating part comes from the scarcity of Save Points and non-skippable dialogue. Some bosses require you to replay an entire section of the game and watching the dialogue again before proceeding the rematch. While replaying the section is arguably a design decision, whether you like it or not, re-reading a dialogue shouldn't. Especially in a game with subtle dialogues like this. I believe there should be at least an option to skip a dialogue a player has already read in every game as long as it does not clash with the vision of the game.

This game employs a retro-styled pixel art that looks like a 16-bit game. The character designs are simple and it focuses on expression rather than animation flairs. The character's faces are bigger in proportion and it's most likely the first thing a player noticed while playing. It's a deliberate choice to emphasize the emotions this game is trying to convey as well as a workaround so that the game didn't have so many animations (it's a one-man work, if you remember).

As for the music, they're...music to my ears. The main theme is one of the catchiest song I've ever heard and it's certainly one of my favorite main themes ever. The music in other places were on par with the title screen, especially the boss battles, but only the title screen gets a mention since it's instantly recognizable.

Cave Story is an indie darling for a lot of reasons. It's the entry point to indie gaming, and it's the first answer to anyone asking "what indie game should I play?". It's a lesson and motivation for all the budding indie developer everywhere.