| Cave Story | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya |
| Publisher(s) | Independent |
| Designer(s) | Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya |
| License | Freeware |
| Engine | Custom |
| Released | December 20, 2004 |
| Genre | Action-adventure game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Sony PSP, Xbox, Game Park Holdings GP2X, (Nintendo DS version currently in development) |
| Media | Free download |
| System requirements | Windows 98, 2000 or XP, DirectX 5.0+ |
| Input methods | Keyboard or Gamepad |
Cave Story (洞窟物語 Dōkutsu Monogatari?) is a freeware videogame released in 2004 for PC, designed and created over five years[1] by Daisuke Amaya, art-name Pixel. The game is a traditional action-adventure game, reminiscent of the Castlevania and Metroid games. It has been fan-translated to English by Aeon Genesis.
Contents |
Gameplay
Initially, the player may only run and jump, but a variety of weapons and items may be acquired throughout the game. Most items are plot-oriented, having no impact upon normal gameplay, although a few, such as the Booster (a type of jetpack) and the Life Pot, are useful. Weapons include various beam weapons, a machine gun and a bubble gun, and can be obtained from treasure chests or traded for at various locations in the game. Though there are 9 different weapons, the trading system limits the player to a maximum of 5. Most weapons can be upgraded by collecting weapon energy dropped by enemies, and will lose weapon energy if the player is hit.
Plot
Characters
Main characters
Quote (クォート Kwōto?): The player character of the game and largely a silent protagonist. He is named after the quotation mark.
Curly Brace (カーリーブレイス Kārī Bureisu?): A friendly and feisty female robot who tries to protect Mimigas. She is named after the curly brace.
Sue Sakamoto (坂本 数 Sakamoto Sū?): The daughter of Momorin Sakamoto, Sue never wanted to come to the island. She was turned into a Mimiga by Misery.
Kazuma Sakamoto (坂本 数馬 Sakamoto Kazuma?): Kazuma is the "occasionally reliable" brother of Sue, as known in the credits.
Jenka (ジェンカ?): An old witch who has lived on the island for a long time. She resides in the Sand Zone and raises puppies. She is Ballos' sister and Misery's mother. She is named after the letkajenkka.
Dr. Fuyuhiko Date ("The Doctor") (伊達 冬彦（ドクター） Date Fuyuhiko (Dokutā)?): The Doctor is the current master of the Demon Crown. He takes Mimigas away from various places in order to feed them red flowers, which turn them into killer monsters, and unleash them on the Surface.
Balrog (バルログ Barurogu?): Misery's "punching bag". A goofy minion of The Doctor who looks like a toaster, briefcase or lunchbox. Because of the Demon Crown's curse, he is forced to fight for the Doctor, but actually helps the player on several occasions after asking Quote and Curly "not to tell a soul" about it. His battle cry, "Huzzah!", is always shouted out before a fight, and has become a catchphrase among fans.
Misery (ミザリー Mizarī?): A witch who is a minion of the Doctor, and also the daughter of Jenka. Because of her role in creating the Demon Crown, she has been forever cursed to follow the orders of whomever bears it.
Ballos (ボロス Borosu?): Jenka's brother and an extremely powerful sorcerer. He was tortured into insanity and corruption and let his magical powers run wild, and thus was sealed inside the island by Jenka for the rest of eternity.
The Core: A living entity that somehow holds the island aloft. If the core is destroyed, it is said that the floating island will fall to the ground.
Supporting characters
King (キング Kingu?): The leader of the Mimiga Village since the death of Arthur. He feels he is responsible for anything that happens to Toroko. King dislikes Sue because she is an outsider and her appearance coincides with the Doctor's attacks on the village.
Jack (ジャック Jakku?): The village's second-in-command. He wears goggles and an ushanka hat with a wing emblem on it.
Toroko (トロ子?): The Mimiga who accepted Sue and was unafraid to make friends with her. She is mistaken by Misery and Balrog for Sue and is abducted.
Momorin Sakamoto (坂本 百鈴 Sakamoto Momorin?): Sakamoto is a rocket scientist and the mother of Kazuma and Sue. She did not want to bring them to the island, but could not leave them on their own.
Professor Booster (ブースター博士 Būsutā-hakase?): Head of the research team and a specialist in jetpacks, Professor Booster is Sue and Kazuma Sakamoto's grandfather figure, although they only address him as "Professor Booster".
Itoh (伊藤 Itō?): A shy engineer of "considerable talent" who specializes in control systems. He was also turned into a Mimiga by Misery.
Arthur (アーサー Āsā?): The legendary hero of the Mimigas. He fought against the evils of the island, driving them back, but was eventually killed by the Doctor and his servants prior to the beginning of the game.
Backstory
In game world, thousands of years ago before events of the game, there existed a powerful magician named Ballos, whose powers were far beyond those of ordinary mortals. He used his powers to help and guide people, and so the people loved and trusted him more than even their own king. Over time, the King became jealous, and had Ballos imprisoned. Subjected to horrific tortures, Ballos was finally driven to madness. The magic inside him ran wild, and the King and the castle were destroyed instantly in a wave of fiery destruction. Ballos was unable to regain control of his magic, and, under its compulsion, murdered his wife and children and burned the kingdom to ashes. There remained but a bare trace of his sanity, and as he watched his family die, he was horrified even as he laughed. When Ballos's sister, Jenka, a witch also possessing powerful magic, learned that her brother had gone mad, she confined him to an island that floated in the sky. Even though Ballos could not be freed from his magic and his insanity—except through death—Jenka loved her brother too much to kill him. The floating island was held aloft by its Core, which lived deep inside the island. To defend the Core, Jenka constructed a labyrinth around its entrance and sealed the entrance itself with a large boulder. In the labyrinth she imprisoned the Gaudis, a race of giant insects, both as guardians and so that they would not be able to attack the Mimigas, a race of flower-eating, rabbit-like creatures who also lived in the island. Her powers exhausted, she retired to the Sand Zone, a desert-like cave on the island, and began to raise dogs. Jenka had a daughter named Misery. Misery, who gained magical powers of her own, forced Ballos to create the Demon Crown, which would channel his power to the wearer. However, as the unwitting creator of the Crown's curse, she was bound for all eternity to serve any who would wear the crown. Ten years before the game begins, the countries of Earth sent robots to bring back the Demon Crown. The robots killed indiscriminately, and many of the Mimigas were slain. To defend themselves, the Mimigas sought out the Red Flowers. Although the Mimigas rely on flowers for sustenance, the legendary Red Flowers are toxic to them. The flower itself contains two chemical compounds: one to incite massive muscular growth and mutation; and the other a deliriant that causes total loss of the faculties of reason. This second compound has shown to form a crystalline substance when purified—the Red Crystal—and it is believed that this is what gives the flowers their distinctive red color. Finally, a man from the surface gained possession of the Demon Crown. The robots fell silent. The Mimigas, however, were still frenzied from the Red Flowers, and the master of the Crown turned them loose upon the Earth. Quote (the protagonist, whose name is only revealed through special effort on the player's part) and Curly Brace were two 'special' robots sent to the island to assassinate the master of the Crown and destroy it once and for all. Their superior skill and strength allowed them to wound him, but before they could defeat him they were rendered unconscious and scattered among the island's network of underground caves. Shortly before the beginning of the game, a research party of humans came to the island by helicopter. It consisted of research scientist Momorin Sakamoto, her children Sue and Kazuma Sakamoto, Professor Booster, an engineer named Itoh, and a medical doctor named Fuyuhiko Date (whose name is only revealed through special effort on the player's part). The doctor knew the Crown existed and joined the party merely for the opportunity to find it. After the party landed, he immediately began to search for it. The opening sequence of the game shows the Doctor finding the Crown with Misery and Balrog, the two servants of the Crown, floating in the background. Once the Doctor had the crown, he began a plan to take over the world: he would force the Mimigas to cultivate and ultimately eat the Red Flowers, and use an army of enraged Mimigas to attack the "surface" (Earth). The other members of the research party did not want to cooperate, so he ordered them to be destroyed. Sue Sakamoto and Itoh were turned into Mimigas by Misery before escaping. Kazuma Sakamoto teleported away, but found himself trapped in a room with no exit and a broken teleporter. Reluctantly following the Doctor's orders for fear of her life, Momorin Sakamoto was eventually thrown off the edge of the island once the Doctor found the Red Flower seeds. Hiding out in the plantations, she planned in secret for a way to defeat the Doctor from the security of an underground laboratory. Sue hid out in the Mimiga village. The village was at one point very large, but had only six inhabitants after the Doctor began abducting Mimigas for use in his experiments, his army and to work in the Plantation. In the past, Toroko's brother and hero of the Mimigas, Arthur, had driven back a demon from the village and who gallantly saved the Mimigas, was killed by the Doctor during his rise to power. The new Mimiga leader, King, disliked Sue and attempted to exchange her for Toroko (after Toroko was kidnapped) with disastrous results. When the game begins, Quote awakens in a cave near the Mimiga village.
Story
The protagonist awakens in an underground cavern with no memory of how he came to be there and without weapons of any kind. He stumbles across a village populated by rabbit-like creatures called Mimigas who are being persecuted by an evil Doctor. Two of the Doctor's servants, Misery and Balrog, are looking for a Mimiga named Sue, but mistakenly abduct a Mimiga named Toroko. The player's main quest is to rescue Sue, save the Mimigas from the Doctor's evil grasp, and escape the floating island on which the game is set. There are three different endings for the player.
Reception
Cave Story has been very well-received by critics. 1UP.com described it as "so massive that it rivals modern GBA Castlevania and Metroid games in terms of scope and play time."[2] InsideMacGames ascribed the game's popularity to its "polished feel, engaging storyline, and compelling artwork".[3]
Handheld versions
A homebrew port of Cave Story has been released for the PlayStation Portable and the Gamepark Holdings GP2X.[4] There are also homebrew ports of the game in progress for the Nintendo DS (previously destined for Game Boy Advance). All three of these ports have the blessing of Studio Pixel, and are based on the game's original source code. Variant Interactive had announced an official commercial version of Cave Story for the Playstation Portable.[5] However, Variant Interactive's website has been closed since Fall 2007. Cave Story PSP was initially given a 2007 release timetable from Variant, but so far, no screenshots, or press releases have been given.
References
See also
External links
- Developers' Website
- English Translation
- Cave Story Tribute Site Forum -- Forum where you can find plot info, unofficial sequels, and hacking tips.
- Doukutsu Monogatari LiveJournal community -- news on Pixel's current endeavours and other Cave Story community happenings.
- Cave Story ~ Doukutsu Monogatari, a Tribute Site -- contains walkthroughs, tips and secrets.
- Cave Story Remix Project -- A community project to create remixes of the music from the game, completed and released in June 2006.
- Mac OS X Version -- A package that includes the latest Mac version, translated to English, as well as the full English manual.
- Interview with Pixel
- Spanish translation of Doukutsu Monogatari, Mac OS X Version -- Fan translated version. Windows version in the works.
- Unofficial PSP Homebrew Port -- Note: Your PSP must be able to utilize homebrew for this program to work.
- Linux version
