Hello, and welcome to the sixth instalment of a series that I’m calling That’s Good, That’s Bad, based on a joke in the Simpsons in which Homer buys a cursed Krusty doll from what I now see as a pretty racist stereotype of an asian person. The gag is still good though, good enough for me to form a sort of review process in which I alternate between saying something good about a game, then something bad about it. This time my game of choice is Daisuke Amaya’s 2D jump and shoot game Cave Story.

The world building is well built…that’s good.

When introducing the player to a whole heap of places, people, etc., care needs to be taken in order to not overwhelm the player. Cave Story starts off small (in a cave as the name would suggest), with the player having no idea of who they are or what they are doing, which eventually branches out into stopping an evil scientist from unleashing an army of rabid bunny people on the world from his floating island. But what’s so great about Cave Story is that while it does indeed have a satisfying story (that’s the second part of the name holding true), it also leaves little gaps here and there for the attentive among us to clue together past events.

Your jump is not made for platforming…that’s bad.

Kind of a sticking point for when you’re making a platformer, since navigating platforms pretty much exclusively relies on jumping. And the jumping in this game is not great, with your little robot guy having a very floaty arc while also retaining a lot of momentum when landing. This culminates in a strong feeling of uncertainty, as you throw yourself at the top of a tiny floating box hoping that your metal ass won’t slide straight off it. The jetpack almost seems like Daisuke saying “yeah, I know the platforming is kind of garbage, but now you don’t have to worry about it as much.”

This game has got character for days…that’s good.

When Cave Story gave me the option to turn down the first boss’s offer to fight them and then the boss said that was cool and simply left, I knew I was in for something special. There are certainly some chuckles to be had during your adventure, but what really surprised me is how much depth there is to the characters despite the brief amount of time you spend with them. Take King for example, who initially comes across as an overbearing and somewhat callous leader. Yet, when you dig a little deeper you realise that he cares deeply about his people, and is struggling to fill the shoes of the recently deceased Arthur, who is praised in the village as a true hero. For all of its cute visuals, Cave Story isn’t shy about tugging on the heart strings by depicting death as quick and brutal.

A merciless save system…that’s bad.

Autosaves are a luxury we take for granted these days, with seemingly every step towards progress being saved for our convince. But Cave Story is here to remind you that you should save as often and as soon as possible, unless you want to collect that health upgrade for a second time. And hey, just because you beat a boss doesn’t mean you’re safe to relax, since there’s still those insta-kill spikes to jump over on the way to your next save. I know this might be a contentious point, but the game doesn’t have enough damn save points, especially towards the end when Cave Story kind of forgets the whole save thing entirely. Even if you argue that the lack of saves are there to preserve the challenge, it still doesn’t change the fact that you have to mash through the same dialogue boxes over and over again. That is, if you happened to buy Cave Story on anything but the Nintendo Switch like I did.

The remastered soundtrack is killer…that’s good.

Remastering a soundtrack always comes with its concerns, especially with the disappointing Demon’s Souls remake’s music still fresh in my mind. But Danny Baranowsky of Super Meat Boy and Crypt of the Necrodancer fame managed to take the original and remix it into an absolute banger. It provides a unique twist on Amaya’s work while not outright replacing it, which I honestly think is the best result. Both soundtracks deserve their place in the spotlight and it’s likely that your personal preference is going to be mainly down to which one you heard first. The plus versions of Cave Story contains the option to pick either, but regardless of which one you choose, these songs are sure to get firmly stuck inside your head. Oh, and there’s the “new” soundtrack, which is if you took the original and then let someone with only a Nokia 3310 compose it – it is pleasant in a quaint sort of way.

I can’t get that item without dying…that’s bad.

I have a personal beef towards health and power-up items that drop from enemies into places that you can’t reach. The last area in particular is guilty of this sin, by having all those gleaming weapon-upgrading triangles blasted out of enemies, fall into spike pits like how my tears fall down my face when I see such a thing. And in the early game when you don’t have the jetpack, health can just float an inch or two out of your grasp, just to piss you off even further. But lets try having these items disappear in front of you because the fucking game won’t let scroll through the text boxes fast enough!

So nice I played it thrice…that’s good.

Do I like Cave Story? Well, I did complete it almost three times and I’m now eying a fourth playthrough, so yes I am enjoying the game quite a bit. Cave Story strikes that sweet spot of being a breeze to finish when you know what to do, but with plenty of grit to its challenge to keep things interesting. And unless you look up a guide, there’s zero chance that you are going to get the best ending on your first try, so a second playthrough is pretty much a necessity. But there’s also choice in how you obtain items, with players who take the harder option netting bigger rewards at the end. As a matter of fact, the most powerful gun requires you to hold onto the second worst gun (the worst being that piece of shit Bubbline) until the last third of the game.

Unlocking Curly’s Story made me question things…that’s bad.

A moment of me cursing my OCD since I need to unlock everything in a game for some damned reason. And one of those things is Curly’s Story in which you play as the girl robot instead of the boy robot with some minor differences in the dialogue. And to unlock Curly’s Story you have to get a certain item of hers, one that made me take a long hard look in the mirror after I obtained it. Even worse, I now have an achievement carved permanently into my Steam profile called “Panty Raider” which has a higher unlock percentage than the achievement for saving Curly. Perhaps Cave Story is right: humans truly are terrible creatures.

So is Cave Story good or bad?

There are times in which I have a seething hated for this game, as it makes me question on whether facing down whatever twisted challenge it decides to throw at me is actually worth it. But after surmounting its gauntlet and being treated to its sparse but devastatingly effective storytelling, I’m confident in saying that Cave Story is a game that I’m truly going to miss when I’m done with it.