Cave Story is a 2D platform-shooter paying homage to old-school games of the same genre such as the early Metroids. It's a single player game where you control a... person who wakes up in a cave, somewhere, with no memories of anything prior.

During the journeys you'll come across many different kinds of lands, enemies, bosses (includes a toaster!) and weapons (includes a duck-shooting gun). You can get more health by collecting Life Capsules and you can boost your weapons by getting triangle crystals from enemies. Each weapon has three levels which are unlocked by getting a certain amount of crystals. Leveling up a weapon is easy, but keeping it there (or keeping it at level 1 - there's a weapon like that, too ;o ) might prove a bit difficult since you lose experience when you take damage. This'll become a pain in boss fights.

There's also a really nice story with three different endings, one which is behind many secrets and punishing difficulty.

Now that the secrets were mentioned, one thing that makes this game really special is the detail that's been put in this game. Not the graphic details, the amount of things you can do and find despite Cave Story seemingly being a linear game with a linear story. You better remember the message from finding the map system and go exploring!

The game was made by Pixel AKA Daisuke Amaya over the course of five freakin' years. By one single person, who did all the developing, designing, composing, scripting... Alone, during his free time. And most of all, it's free. Seriously, five years of work by one single person, you ought to try it just because of the sheer amount of love this game has gotten. And it shows.

I really recommend this game to everyone. If the pixel graphics intimidate you or you're simply turned off by platform-shooters, at least give it a go. It's completely free, after all. I promise you won't be left with disappointment.


........................................~ A picture shamelessly stolen from the Wikipedia!

There are four versions of this game.

The original one, Cave Story, is a 100 % free game available for download.
Download Cave Story here.
Just grab the English translated pre-patched one ;o There's some other downloads that some people might be interested in, so I didn't put a link straight to the download.

The original Cave Story has pretty much everything you want to see from the game. However, if you want to pay a bit for the game, you can try the following:

Cave Story was ported for Wii in 2010 by Nicalis. It features enhanced graphics and remastered musics and a few extra modes such as Curly Story, which the same as the main story except you play as Curly who's throwing some lines here and there. A bit dumb imo, but there's also a boss rush mode and a Sacred Ground Time Attack mode.

There was also a DSiWare port made without everything else except the Sacred Grounds Time Attack. Oh well.

All the new features from Wii can also be discovered from Cave Story+, available in Steam, plus a whole new Time Attack level called Wind Fortress and two challenges. Also 76 achievements of which many of them are secret achievements. Again, go exploring!

A port to Nintendo 3DS was made in 2011. It has 3D graphics which also makes the gameplay a bit different. I hear it's because of this they added some additional Life Capsules to the game so that the max HP will be 100. Also includes the Sacred Ground Time Attack mode.

People haven't played Cave Story? What? How is that possible?

For added win finish it on hard mode & go for ending #3, you'll hate life doing the final run. Even normal & easy aren't exactly "fun" to get that ending with.

Played this game alot, would recommend it anyday, but really, It's cavestory. hah.
Although do like the thread.

Currently doing a hard run. I'm aiming to get through the game with 3 HP, ignoring what little life they apparently give at the end. Many achievements with one shot!

...Currently on Monster X. I already feel like hating life.

Monster X isn't bad... It's the bit after the island falls you need to worry about.

It took me 10 times to get past the first 10 feet of the game

damn those bombs...
Seems like a cool game, I'm gunna keep playing it.
THX

I have watched a lot of stream on this game including Jerma and others and always wanted to pick it up, so I think now I finally will, anymore tips you'd like to share? Thanks for the thread Tonkakai!

you can do lots of things after Labyrinth
If anything, you'll get some directions about what to do to get the best ending.
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what bombs

Whoa whoa I didnt know there was a boss like that, how far are you in cave story?