Freeware Independent Game: Cave Story

Cave Story is an amazing little freeware gem--I've played through it once and will very likely play through a time or two more.  But I'll let the more qualified do the gushing--

Cave Story, or Doukutsu Monogatari, is a Japanese freeware PC side-scrolling platformer game developed by StudioPixel. It has been translated into English by Aeon Genesis Translations and will have an official translation script published sometime in the near future.

Cave Story is really one of those games that can be considered a masterpiece of game design. There are so many wonderful and classic gaming elements, that I cannot even begin to describe just one quality well enough to say “It is for this one reason alone that Cave Story is a great game.” There is just so much effort, originality and ingenuity behind this game and it really shows more and more as you play through it.

The developer, Pixel spent five years making this game as fun and as great as it is by adding solid controls, smooth gameplay, a great cast of characters and dialogue, an interesting plot, good music and beautiful old-school 2-D artwork. And on top of all this added multiple endings, several boss battles, tons of items to collect, all kinds of added secret bonuses and special challenges, various and considerably different methods of playing through the game depending on your actions, competition ranking features and an extremely high replay value. For a freeware game it is fairly lengthy too. Cave Story is by far the best freeware game I have ever had the honor of playing through and certainly one of the best games I’ve played.

The gameplay plays like a combination of various NES/Famicom games. Some that come to mind are Metroid, Castlevania, Megaman, Blaster Master and Monster Mash. Pixel’s art style and character design and boss battles are very reminiscent of Treasure games, like Gunstar Heroes, which happens to be one of my personal favorite games of all time. So if you are a fan of any of these titles, then you are in for a real treat. It was a wonderful and addicting experience playing through it and I hope anyone reading this who has not already played this game will give it a shot. You won’t be disappointed. It reminded me of why I enjoy playing videogames.

...Continued