Cave Story+

Cave Story is an alright adventure game. I'm sure it used to be very impressive. It's short and sweet, with an adequate level of challenge. The music, graphics, and world design are all appealing; and it's certainly become a mainstay for recognizability. Playing it onwards to the present, I found it to be a decent way to kill time, but I didn't love my experience. Perhaps I played it at the wrong time, but I felt like I just had to 'finish' the normal mode to feel done with it and get the jist. There's extended challenge modes, and an optional good ending to pursue for those with a lot of patience. I didn't particularly appreciate that I had to replay the game to find new content, since I was bored with it by the end (and it's incredibly dull to return to the start of the game again). It's disappointing since I think the secret content is, as always, the best part, it's just not personally worth it for me to slog towards. As for the appeal when it comes to Metroid/Castlevania, I sort of saw it and sort of didn't. There's some minor backtracking, but there isn't many unlockable items. There isn't a large world either, it's mostly little levels that are mostly linear where they give you small tasks that will "extend" the play field by having you go back and forth over it with respawns. The genre has come a long way in complexity where this feels really simple, even compared to like Super Metroid or Symphony of the Night. I also didn't love the boss fights, which felt very much like Megaman, a genre I've never enjoyed. That said, I paid for the game, but it's now free as far as I know; so if you love these sidescrollers, you'll have fun. Cave Story is an old classic, so you don't want to miss it just for the cultural background.

10/10 game. According to my mother, this (the original freeware version) was the first game I ever played when I was 4 years old. Ever since then, this game has held a very special place in my heart. Nostalgia aside, Cave Story is also known as the father of indie games, and it's available on so many platforms that pretty much anything with a screen can run it, which is one of the coolest things about it, in my opinion. The gameplay, story, music, characters, map design, and atmosphere are all just soooo good. Especially considering that this game came out in 2004. The Plus version was even better than I expected. The new graphics are really clean, and you can switch between graphics modes, game speed (50 or 60 FPS), and soundtracks, which are all great reasons to replay the game over and over again. Though, I'd love it even more if it supported high refresh rates like 240 Hz. It's literally my comfort game. I have a special bond with the vibe of Cave Story. I FIND PEACE AND TRANQUILITY PLAYING THIS!!!!!!!! PEAK GAME. PEAK PEAK PEAK!!!!!! DEFINITELY BUY IT!!!

curly and quote are t4t OH YEAAAAH!!!

NEVER START ON HARD MODE also we NEED more misery porn

I dont like to write negative reviews and this is my first. But this game really hate its player so i will reciprocate. Not even silksong dares to make the experience so frustrating. The game controls as a drunk kirby with asthma but puts instadeath everywhere and few save points. I can accept traps that mess with the player, i can accept instadeath, i can accept difficulty. But all together with bad controls just dont feel right. Again with silksong as an example, i could rematch a boss for two hours because i feel that if i died it was my fault but i was getting better at it. Here, i just wanted it to finish because you die by random things or unresponsive controls. I was told this was a legendary indie but it seems that the free version is better and does not supports a publisher that supposedly messed with the original dev.

great game but i sense a distinct lack of misery peg scenes

I think I've officially lost my mind by playing this... 10/10

One of the true original Indie games to make it big, and my personal favorite of them all. An extremely simple and still extremely rewarding experience that actively motivates you to backtrack, try out new things, and sample every piece of dialogue that you can before moving on to the next challenge.

This game is truly amazing. I used to pay it on a PSP homebrew but I'd play it again and again TENFOLD. The 2026 update did help at least for me not gonna lie.

A classic. Gameplay, soundtrack, plot, everything is crisp. Perhaps one day I'll get 100% achievements.