It’s been almost three years since I first played Cave Story, and for the last two-and-a-half years, the Grassland theme song has been my ring-tone. Recommended to me after a bad break-up, Cave Story is a strangely melancholic 2-D platformer in the vein of Castlevania or Metroid . . . and I have been in love with it since the first time I downloaded it.
That’s right. Cave Story was originally a freeware PC/Mac game, developed by independent designer/musician/artist Daisuke Amaya. Known on the internet simply as “Pixel,” Amaya developed the game in his spare time, and released it with quiet modesty in 2004. An English fan translation of the game followed, and soon the title was the darling of the independent game scene.
Now, when someone says freeware, we can’t help but envision half-finished, well-intended games that suffer from rusty edges. Freeware titles are something packaged on PC CD-ROM collections in the mid-nineties, their cracked jewel-cases crammed into budget bins at Electronics Boutique. Few of us think of well-polished, emotionally resonant games that simply feel like full-on studio productions. But that’s what Cave Story is. It’s a conversion game; after playing it, you’ll never think of independent software the same way again.
And that’s why it’s coming to WiiWare.
Tyrone Rodriguez, Producer of the Wii version, was a fan of Cave Story for a long time. Part of the reason he wants to bring it to the Nintendo console is to get people to play it.
“It wasn’t about getting a commercial release. There’s money involved, but that’s secondary. There are so many people who won’t play it—won’t download it.
Rodriquez explains, “Indie games are cool, but they’re rarely a full experience. But I downloaded it, and I got the first gun, and thought, this game feels cool, it looks cool. It reminds me ... of a really high-end NES game, like the kind that used the MMC chips.”
“The joke I make is that it’s a 12-bit game,” he smiles.
“Once I started playing it, I literally couldn’t stop. It was obviously designed by somebody who was in love with—grew up with NES games, who really has an appreciation, and more importantly an understanding of how these games are made.”
Still, why would anyone pay for a game that you can get for free? I’ll answer that one: The game is so good, you want to give something back. Cave Story is something you’re personally proud of. You want to share it with friends that might not like to play a game on a keyboard. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that the Wii version is getting overhauled graphics, remixed music (the music, by the way, is incredible), and new downloadable content. Hard core fans can switch the graphics and soundtrack back to the original on the fly, or replay the platformer with new sprites to endings they may not have unlocked before. Cave Story is a long and difficult game, and there’s more than one way to finish it, after all.
A quick plot summary: You are Quote, a hat-wearing soldier with amnesia. Waking up in a cave, Quote soon discovers the world of the Mimigas—a race of fuzzy rodents who have been struggling against a mad Doctor and his servants. When the Doctor’s servants kidnap a Mimiga, Quote heads off to unravel the mystery of her disappearance . . . and discover the history of the world he inhabits along the way. Like Megaman with heart, Cave Story isn’t just an adventure. It’s a tragedy, as well. Cave Story is softened by a sense of loss.
“Just in the first level, Amaya said he wanted to create a sense of stress and anxiety that new games just don’t have.”
Players have become so passionate about the world of Cave Story that Rodriguez is nervous of offending them. “My concern,” he says, “is that people would think of us as an evil company trying to commercialize it. But every single thing I want to do to the game, I ask [Amaya] about, personally. We work hand-in-hand.”
“Amaya redrew the major characters, he redid most of the graphics.”
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