Cave Story+

released on Nov 22, 2011

A remake of Cave Story

A fun epic 2D platformer side scroller that brings a refreshing look to not only retro games, but this is what a "Remastered Edition" looks like. Now with multiple endings.


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This review contains spoilers

-- Curly Story Playthrough --

Yep, Cave Story is still pretty good.
One thing I wanna highlight is how cool and grim this game's second act is, especially if you're not doing the best ending - people are just dying left and right next to you, giving you their last means of escape in the hopes that you can make it out and fix everything, by the time you make it back to Mimiga Village and literally everyone is gone it really hits you how quickly half of the main cast was disposed of and how they've all placed their hope and their legacy in your hands because they believed you were the only person who could save everyone - no pressure, right?
Stuff is so bad at this point that you can't even fault Kazuma for wanting to run away on that dragon, and you might just want to take him up on that offer to go with him.

It's not narrative genius or anything, but the game does a great job of setting the tone and atmosphere ramping up towards its last third, even if said last third is comparatively rather goofy and more light-hearted.

I guess I should talk a bit about the differences between Curly Mode and the regular game... uh, they insert Curly dialog where Quote was implied to speak before with minimal changes to the NPC dialog.
It's charming, but it's kind of awkward with the way everyone just repeats what Curly says in the form of a question like they're Solid Snake during a mission briefing.
Perhaps the funniest part of it all is how they still wanted to keep Quote silent despite him being an NPC now, so you get a bunch of scenes where Curly speaks on behalf of him or just straight up tells him he's too useless to tag along (in place of dialog where she would have said it about herself while playing as Quote) - a little mean-spirited if you ask me.
It's nothing that substantial but I didn't really expect it to be, Cave Story has enough meaningful choices for you to make that allow repeat playthroughs to still feel fresh anyway, so it's still worth a run through.
I would have appreciated some Curly illustrations for the credits though.

Despite my commentary on the game's normal route I still did go for the best ending in this playthrough, and one thing I can tell you is that the final level and boss are WAY easier with the Snake than they are with the Spur.
Snake Nation, it's time to rise up and take our rightful spot as the best weapon in Cave Story.

Just play the original freeware PC version, + doesn't add anything of value.

I'm not gonna beat around the bush: I picked up Cave Story+ on the Switch MOSTLY because I wanted the keychain it comes with. I REALLY love Cave Story, and the chance to get more tat for it was something I certainly wanted. Throw that in with the Co-op update they put in recently, and that was more than enough to sell me on the Switch version. I'm fairly sure I've written a Cave Story review on here before, so I'm going to keep this review down to mostly just the differences between the DSi port with which I am so familiar and this new Switch iteration.

Cave Story as a concept is basically Planescape Torment meets Contra. It's an action adventure run'n'gun game (a bit like Contra) where the premise of the narrative is that you're going in with just absolutely no context and the story of the world unfolds around you as you take part in it (like Planescape Torment). It's a great little action game by itself, and the story has always held a soft place in my heart :) . My only slight caveat would be that it is basically impossible to know how to access the final dungeon and boss fight for the best ending your first way through. If you don't want to play through the game again (it's only like 4 or 5 hours in the first place if you aren't dying too much), I'd recommend using a guide to know what you should look out for, because the things you need to do to do it also just make the main game far easier.

The story mode of Cave Story+ is almost exactly the same game with a few very minor changes. The Bubbler gun is now called The Bubbline, a location of a dog in the Sand Zone has been changed along with your ability to now carry multiple dogs at once, and the long corridor between the final boss rush and the entrance to that area has been completely removed. Other than a few minor translation tweaks, the game is just the same as it always was. Included in this port are the aforementioned 2-player co-op, where the second player can play as just about any of the promo-main character costumes that have been out (like the seasonal ones), the alternate difficulty costumes, or even just about anyone who shares a similar character model with the main character whom you encounter in the story (although you do need to meet them in the story first to unlock those costumes). I was unable to try that mode. They've also added some new time-trial maps in their new Challenge mode, although I didn't really find them interesting enough to give them too much attention. Additionally, from the options screen on the main menu, you can change between the graphics of the original game and the new smoother look of CS+, as well as shifting between the original music score, CS+'s, and several other remixed sets. You can even switch the jump and shoot buttons if you want.

Verdict: Recommended. This is a great port of Cave Story, and a great way to experience the game on a modern system if you'd rather have it portable than on PC.