I get that it was basically the first of its kind with the whole pixel art 2d platformer indie game trend, and I know its iconic for that, but I just couldn't bring myself to really enjoy it that much. Sure, the characters were decently charming and the music was nice, but the art style didn't do it for me.
What really soured the experience for me were the controls. It was a hassle to figure out how to use a controller (I don't like playing platformers with a keyboard), and the player character is really slippery and floaty, making precision platforming a pain in the ass. The save system and checkpoints were terrible, and the insane difficulty spike towards the end of the game completely threw me off and made me more angry at the game than anything. And I was playing on easy mode. I'm no stranger to difficult games either, my favorite games of all time are Hollow Knight and the Dark Souls games. Sure, they have their fair share of bullshit too, but at least they had something more to them that actually drew me in and had me replaying them. Cave Story almost felt like a rage game at points. The only thing I got to say I enjoyed really was when the combat was fair. Combat was really fun when I knew the mistakes were my fault and not the result of artificial difficulty like spammy projectiles and the slippery controls having a mind of their own.
Overall, it was a meh game for me. Not my thing, and I don't even wanna think about attempting the true ending. I've seen what Bloodstained Sanctuary looks like. No thanks.