Spelunking in Cave Story

I just had to google spelunking because I was unconvinced that it could really just mean exploring caves (which my prior knowledge was trying to tell me was true). It’s true – spelunking is just looking around caves.

Anyway, I’ve purchased the last 3 Humble Indie Bundles (I should’ve posted about 5 because it was so amazing, but hopefully you owned all the games already) and have played . . . an embarrassingly low number of those games. Additional sadness came today when I realized I haven’t listened to the soundtracks from those games or those from my GOG.com games. The other day I received a recommendation to try out Cave Story for it’s awesome Metroidvania style of gameplay so I downloaded it and gave it a whirl.

Spoiler alert: it’s pretty sweet.

First thing I noticed was the music. The music behind the opening menu is fantastic! And as I’ve kept playing through the game, the music stays great, but I think my favorite thus far is still the opening theme (to be fair, I’m not really that far). The second thing that I had to notice was the old school art style. Gotta love the classics.

The story took me a minute to get into, I didn’t find myself really caring about Sue or any of these Mimigas for awhile. I was surprised, but maybe shouldn’t have been, by the freedom the game offers. I suppose I associate that art style with older games that stereotypically didn’t give much freedom. Someone was in trouble, you agreed to help them, if you don’t, they kept asking until you said yes, they were grateful. Bad guy asked are you ready to rumble, you said no, and he attacked anyway. Those types of situations. The first “mini boss” you run into asks if you want to fight, so just to try it out, I said no, and he left. Again, that kind of player-driven plot is really the norm in gaming now, right? But it pleasantly surprised me in Cave Story all the same.

My beef? The controls. I like the simplicity, but something about the jump took me longer than it should have to master. And while I love self-deprecation and admitting my own ridiculousness, I felt like I was pressing that damn key just like I should have and the jump wasn’t going as far as it was supposed to. Having said that, every game has a learning curve of varying gradations to get comfortable with the controls, so now I’m a jumping master.

No one tells you the down arrow does stuff! I mean, maybe they explained it in the beginning, and I pressed ‘Z’ too many times too quickly to read what they were telling me. But I took a few minutes in this room to figure out the floppy and the heart monitor, embarrassingly enough.

I’m getting more and more invested in this game. I realized I needed to take a break to write this and get started on Rayman (GOG.com weekend sale on the first 3 Rayman games, if you’re interested, and other really great games actually. This a good weekend sale on the site).

If you tried Cave Story in the past and didn’t get hooked, maybe give it a little more time to whet your whistle. If you tried Cave Story in the past and played for a long time and hated it, leave a comment because I’d love to hear your critiques. If you tried Cave Story in the past and loved it, then good on ya. If you tried – nah, I’m just kidding, I’ll stop doing that repetition-in-the-beginning-of-the-sentence thing. But seriously, give Cave Story a first or maybe second chance, and be sure to leave a comment about what you think!