Cave Story is a spectacular metroidvania adventure platforming game by Daisuke Amaya. The PC version has a very old-school feel to it both it the ascetics and difficulty. The music has a great score reminiscent of the 8 and 16 bit days where rhythmic and catchy tunes had everyone humming them for weeks, months and sometimes years.
The gameplay is a simple side scrolling adventure that gains complexity through the precise controls and shooting need to traverse the areas. The game has an interesting leveling-up system for your weapons that is related to the enemies you kill and the damage you take. Most enemies will drop small triangles that serve as experience points to level up your equipped weapons, however, you lose experience as you take damage. Therefore, you are in a constant back and forth between having a super-charge highly leveled weapon to taking enough damage that your weapons lose a few levels and you are struggling to get past enemies.
Furthermore, the amount you actually explore and find the weapons/items scattered through the areas lead to the endings that you can receive. There are a total of three ending that you can receive: a bad ending about halfway through the game and then both a normal and good ending at the end of the game. Obviously, it becomes harder to get each of these endings as you progress with the quality of the ending to the point in which the good ending has an additional very difficult final stage, two extra bosses and a multi-phase final boss.
Cave Story is a must for any that enjoys metroidvania games especially considering that is free. For those of you that enjoy to play your games on consoles, Cave Story was recently released on the Wii as a downloadable game for 1200 points ($12). The Wii version has been updated with new, exclusive content and features, and enhanced graphics and music. It also contains several exclusive gameplay modes, including Boss Rush, a Sanctuary Time Attack mode, and the ability to play through the game as a second character.
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