In terms of the kinds of feelings Cave Story evokes, the only things I can compare it to are some Studio Ghibli films like My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke, but even there, the correlation is far from perfect.

The way it fuses gameplay and storytelling under a unified style of subtlety and surrealism is hard to define. Despite those similarities, the game feels unique. nature stuff was recently used in a similar way (but to a lesser effect) by Hollywood darling Avatar. Some of the game’s narrative points have been seen before. From there, the game’s world gradually unfurls before you, revealing a place not quite like anywhere else. You control man in a cave, who, like the player, doesn’t know who he is, where he is, or what he’s supposed to do. So now that more than five years have gone by since its release on the PC, is Cave Story still important? More importantly to your wallet, now that Cave Story costs $12, is it worth paying for?Ĭave Story starts with no explanations and no promises.

Most notably, Cave Story isn’t free anymore. Thanks in no small part to that fan base, the game has been re-released on WiiWare, but not without a few changes. These are just a few of the reasons the game has developed an ever-growing, ever more ravenous fan base. Though we are yet to see the true impact that this will have on the game industry, it’s already become clear that many aspiring game developers see Cave Story as proof that anyone with enough passion and determination can become a game developer. Perhaps most importantly, though, Cave Story showed us that one man can make a videogame all by himself, and end up with something that’s just as compelling a game made by a development team of hundreds. It showed us that indie games could be “artistic” and be inviting, and not just one or the other - something that the developers of Braid and the Bit.Trip series have definitely taken to heart. It showed us that the techniques and tropes of NES-era game design can still be relevant in the post-cartridge era, something that Capcom and Nintendo have since capitalized on in a big way. When it was first released on PC in 2004, it showed us things about videogames that some of us had forgotten, and others never knew in the first place. People say that Modern Warfare 2is important because it has a scene where you are a party to the deaths of innocent people, or that Heavy Rain is important because it brings “choose your own adventure” gaming into the HD generation, but neither of those games have yet proven their impact on the future of videogames.Ĭave Story is different. The word “important” as it relates to videogames has been worn out to the point of near-worthlessness. Some people love it, and other people loathe it, but almost everyone agrees : Cave Story is an important game.ĭoes that sound dumb to you? Well, it probably should.

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