Cave Story (PC)
There is nothing I could possibly say to express how much I love this game, nor is there a word to describe how great it is. Cave Story (Dōkutsu Monogatari in Japanese), developed by Studio Pixel for the PC and released in December of 2004 (download can be found at the fansite http://www.cavestory.org/), is an action/adventure 2D platformer, and is an homage to many a classic games that developer Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya played in his youth, i.e. Metroid.
Cave Story is possibly the most well-known indie game of all time, and the original game earned widespread critical acclaim, with sites such as 1UP.com saying "so massive that it rivals modern [Game Boy Advance] Castlevania and Metroid games in terms of scope and play time" and Matt Miller of Game Informer said "Cave Story combines elements of Metroid, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, The Legend of Zelda, and Castlevania into an "engrossing, challenging, and quite lengthy" whole.". As such, Cave Story has recieved numerous ports, including Linux computers; Amiga's AROS, MorphOS, and AmigaOS 4; Mac OS X operating systems; Sony's PlayStation Portable; Microsoft's Xbox; the Sega Dreamcast; GamePark Holdings' Linux-based GP2X and GP2X Wiz; and even Texas Instruments graphing calculators! And updated WiiWare port was developed by Nicalis and released in March 2010, who also released a DSiWare port in November of the same year. There was a retail release of Cave Story for the Nintendo 3DS, Cave Story 3D, released in November 2011; also released in November '11 was Nicalis' Cave Story+, released on Steam, and later released for the Desura service in April 2012.
Now back to the review. I'm starting over, and I don't remember much of the story (though, I wasn't very far to begin with...), but I do remember that the title screen music is the BEST MAIN THEME OF ALL-TIME. Anyway, the story follows Quote, the interestingly-named robot protagonist, who falls into a cave and loses his memory. Through Quote's explorations, he discovers a plot by the Doctor, an egotist who intends to force the inhabitants of the cave to fight for him in his bid to conquer the world (Insert gratuitous M. Bison "Of course!" reference here). Quote is thrust into the position of the hero as he endeavors to defeat the Doctor. As with other games I'm reviewing, I'll say more as I play more, but for now I don't want to spoil the story for myself!
'Til next time!
―Zachary Carter, the Commercial Breaker
