Cave Story

[foxmosis]

I was wondering what ya'lls thoughts are on Cave Story, the little freeware game from 2003 that's gone quite the distance!  Figured this place might have some interesting things to say.

[krish]

Cave Story has such a warm place in my heart. I first experienced by downloading a demo of it from the Wii Shop store.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Did several attempts. At my last one, probably 10 years ago, I run into a game breaking bug and stopped afterwards - but the atmosphere and overall game was great, and maybe I should try it again somewhat soon :).

[seventhfonons]

CAVE STORY!!!! I love this game!! The graphics & sound effects are adorable, the gameplay is super fun and the music is amazing. When I found out the game was made by one person I was completely blown away!

I don't remember which came first for me, buying it on WiiWare or downloading it on my laptop, but I played it for the first time in high school and obsessed over it for a while. I even made the title screen theme my ringtone on the dinky little flip phone I had at the time haha. I later downloaded OrgMaker along with the entire soundtrack, and when I was bored I would load songs into OM and look at their arrangement and mess around with them for fun lol.

The version I played most was the WiiWare one because I liked being able to use a controller & it was fun to play on the TV, but I've never actually finished the game...I've only gotten the "bad" and "normal" endings because I couldn't beat Ballos :') It took me so many attempts to just beat his 2nd form (on top of all my Bloodstained Sanctuary attempts), and when I finally did I thought that was it...but nope, surprise 3rd form. And then I later found out there was a 4th. So I just gave up LMAO but I'd really like to play it again sometime and give it another go.

[Gans]

The controls felt excellent.

Was the pixel-style (not the author "Pixel" but rather the oldskool dots on screen) something special for you as well? Maybe this game reinforced my feel of "doesn't need high-end 3D grahpics" by quite a bit. Now pixels are everywhere, but 20 years ago, it was more like a thing from those outdated grey boxes.

Technically surprising, it runs on Windows 98 as well as on current Windows 10 machines. Only well made programs achieve this, and Cave Story is one of them.

[foxmosis]

Glad to see the love here!!  I think it's a wonderful game too, I first experienced it in 2011 on my 3DS through the DSiWare version of Cave Story.  Got the Normal ending, later found out about the good ending, did that one on PC and had to cheat a second Life Pot into my inventory for the last challenge.  It's one of my favorites.

I later downloaded OrgMaker along with the entire soundtrack, and when I was bored I would load songs into OM and look at their arrangement and mess around with them for fun lol.

YEAH!!  I also downloaded OrgMaker and tried to make some tunes with it, and since I didn't really know how to make music, they weren't good!  I found them though buried in a folder and I'm glad I found them, haha.

Was the pixel-style (not the author "Pixel" but rather the oldskool dots on screen) something special for you as well? Maybe this game reinforced my feel of "doesn't need high-end 3D grahpics" by quite a bit. Now pixels are everywhere, but 20 years ago, it was more like a thing from those outdated grey boxes.

I think so, yeah!  I didn't find this game until 2011 and at that point pixels were kind of around, like you had things like Mega Man 9, but they weren't like a common thing to see.  So yeah I thought it look really special.  I still do as well, it's not like mimicking 8-bit or 16-bit games but feels like it's doing something unique.

[bingus_baby]

Where my Cave Story 3D gang at?!?!?! It's the first version I played, since a friend gave me his old copy. I really liked it tho!! Looking back, I'm not super fond of the graphics, but it did have a special charm to it and the really good Cave Story+ soundtrack. Nowadays if I revisited the game it would be +. I have it on Steam and Switch. I also like the original of course! But I've never finish the game on a platform other than 3D.

[garystu]

I played an unofficial PSP port of the game. It was good on a PSP, the game has a very GBA/portable vibe that suited the handheld well.

I tried for the best ending, but I just couldn't beat the final boss. No checkpoint before the final boss was brutal, it took me 20 minutes to run through hell before the hardest boss killed me in 2 seconds. I had to give up. But otherwise, I had fun.

I think Cave Story is also a success of freeware, and its a shame to see paywalls have been placed back up not only in modern rereleases but by many modern indie games. I know freeware is still going strong, but I need it to be going stronger.