Reviews from

in the past


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.

Cave Story is the perfect example of why you shouldn't judge a game by it's graphics. The game first released in 2004, and yes, the graphics can feel pretty dated sometimes. However, the visuals do not take away from the overall experience in any way.

At it's core, Cave Story is a short little game that tells an interesting story, with a surprisingly fun combat system, that presents players with a decent challenge. I found the way that Cave Story slowly ramps up the difficulty, especially near the end, very rewarding and fitting for the storytelling experience (depending on your ending). Just make sure not to make the same mistake I did and attempt to play the game on Hard difficulty during your first playthrough. It's not worth it... and you'll ruin the experience. I ended up restarting after a few hours in once I realized how screwed I was without the extra hearts.

I think I'll definitely be replaying Cave Story in the future when I feel like sampling the simple, yet satisfying experience this game has to offer again. The game is definitely worth looking into if you've never played it before.

Very fun but the latter half of the game is confusing and has a lack of save points.


Cave Story has a place in my heart. Discovered it during my childhood and wanted to play it, which fortunately happened years later
Memorable story and visuals, even though cs+ is more of a definitive verion of this game, I still stick with the original ver graphics.

It shows its age for sure, but it is filled with charm and love. I have nothing but respect for the game that kickstarted the indie revolution.

I skipped a lot of content without realizing because the clues are kinda clumsy, and you can easily get the worst ending without realizing it. Still, the movement is great and the weapons are all fun, but the Fireball didn´t have much of an use. It´s pretty short so replaying it to get the better ending isn´t much to ask.

The music is great, it has that early 2000´s vibe that we all love. I wasn´t a big fan of the remade music, so the option to choose which one you want is something i appreciate.

Overall, i would say it´s a great short experience.

Final Normal en facil, con todo conseguido para el True end.

Es increible lo fresco que se siente considerando de que es uno de los padres del indie moderno.

I should return and play it better, but seems promising with some minor direction confusions from what I remember.

One of those real indie games that was made by one person over a long period of time, but produces a whole fountain of emotions. The plot, music and cute pixel graphics, drawn with real soul, are just perfect.

Одна из тех настоящих инди игр, которая делалась одним человеком на протяжении большого количества времени, а по эмоциям отбивает целый фонтан. Сюжет, музыка и миловидная пиксельная графика, нарисованная с настоящей душей, просто все идеально.

Plataformas de disparos en su máxima pureza. Muy divertido y con una música de las que te quedan en la cabeza un buen tiempo después de jugar.

Glorious Switch port.
Hilariously ancient PC port.

VENCI MEUS DEMÔNIOS pois 4 boss seguidos não vão me parar, retiro o que disse 10 horas atrás

mas de resto gostei muito muito do jogo todo, um dia ainda jogo pra pegar a experiência completa com o melhor final

me perdi numa parte quando era criança e parei de jogar

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.

I don't know why it took me so long to play this. I absolutely loved it.
A great sidescroller with a bit of exploration and lots of choices.
Movement and combat is very well responsive and enjoyable.
I will come back to this one to finish it 100%.
Incredible and short game that I wholeheartedly recommend playing.

pretty fun game but can be pretty difficult at times if you dont know what the hell youre doing

Cave story is an all-time favorite platformer of mine, but as someone who loves 100%ing and achievements, I'm frustrated with games who do 'one last big level at the end that's not technically necessary but is obscenely hard'. I hated it in Mario 3D World and Odyssey, and I hate it here. I consider myself good at video games, but when the stretches are that long without any sense of reprieve it's just.... not fun, at all. Anyway, this is still an all-timer for me.

Se pasó más rápido de lo que esperaba, la dinámica de las armas bajando y subiendo de nivel constantemente fue algo que me mantuvo siempre entretenido, queriendo tener todas al nivel máximo en todo momento. Me hubieran gustado más áreas, aunque para la poca duración, la cantidad de bosses me sorprendió. Me arrepiento ligeramente de no haberlo jugado en difícil, ese extra de dificultad me hubiera gustado. La historia es efectiva y se nota la atención a cada detalle.

Uno de esos juegos importantes que nunca habia tocado hasta hoy, y me arrepiento bastante. Jugandolo ahora se entiende perfectamente la importancia que tuvo para tanta gente y el papel que represento de cara a una escena que practicamente era inexistente en el momento.

Me ha gustado mucho el mundo, que sea un metroidvania '''ligerito'' (lo he jugado en facil ya que ponia que era lo recomendado), y la historia y personajes ( ojala fuese un juego con mas ambicion en este sentido, porque no llega a explotarse todo lo que podria).

Por contra, lo he jugado en pleno 2024 y eso hace que le vea problemitas que no me han gustado mucho, como el sistema tan inflexible a veces de chekpoints + trampas instakill, lo cual es simplemente frustante porque te hacen rehacer minutos enteros de juego y mata un poco el ritmo cuando pasa, y llega a frustar cuando es una trampa que no habias visto.

Por lo demas un juego muy disfrutable, para un par de tardes esta genial

I've played this game on every platform I have available to me, it is a masterpiece and one of my favorite pieces of media

... man i wish i liked this more.

i'm generally a fan of metroidvanias, and i don't mind difficult games, so this seemed like a great choice to pick up. plus, i got a recommendation from someone to play (to my knowledge they only use rateyourmusic, they're @miokinon on there), so my expectations were pretty high going into this one. unfortunately, there are some pretty major problems that stop me from enjoying this more.

the controls feel rather loose, and for a game involving a good amount of platforming, that's not a great quality to have. the lack of checkpoints for major sections was also not great; i'm cool with endurance challenges, but those endurance challenges should be roughly equal in difficulty. i just found that many of the low-checkpoint sections were just frustrating, as it meant playing through another 5 minutes of easy gameplay that i just did.

it feels pretty dated in some ways as well - the checkpoint system fully resetting any progress, the lack of an in-game settings menu, the poor menu UI, it's all there.

i generally enjoyed the story, i think much of it is told in an interesting manner and characters were pretty endearing. there were points, especially in the latter half, where the plot was kind of just... dumped onto the player in an odd way. just a small gripe though, the story as a whole is pretty solid. i love balrog, he's just a homie

the bosses are pretty solid throughout, i enjoyed almost all of them thoroughly. the final fight is especially quite good and is a great climax.

it's not a game i consider great, but i'd recommend it if it seems like your thing. i think it's just not exactly for me, and i can totally see why people adore it, so give it a shot if it seems fun to you. i just didn't love it personally. :)


Fuck Nicalis, pirate this game cause the dev gets no money. Shame too cause the physical actually looks nice. Cave Story itself ROCKS. Gameplay feels great, platforming is engaging and the world is interesting. A great indie game ahead of its time. My one complaint is just how annoying trying to get a good ending is, really puts a damper on the game

Metroidvania muito bom e bem balanceado, só que pretendo rejogar pq esqueci muita coisa do jogo

Good graphics overhaul, but the original has more personality.