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.
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.