![]() This blend of intentionally placed obstacles with the game's patient, deliberate physics helps you naturally accustom to the pacing of the game.Ĭlearing that short section brings you to your first powerup - the Heart Container! The small capsule blinks its bright red heart invitingly, and picking it up permanently increases your max health by three. Not only that, your high momentum and slow turn speed does wonders in helping cause accidental deaths and misplaced jumps. The straight clearing located just after you pass the first pair is intentionally angled to position you perfectly to land right onto the leftmost set of floor spikes, and a hasty, instinctive jump launches you into the death trap above. If you make the mistake of rushing the second pair of spikes, you'll find yourself immediately impaled. The first two spikes are easy enough to conquer - as long as you leap after you've passed the ceiling spike, you'll be fine. The First Cave starts you off by leading you to the left through a series of bright red spikes, immediately trying to teach you patience with your movement. Wow, a reward already?! This game's a piece of cake! Well, when you do finally master the jump, you finish up in the room and make your way outside the door to the rest of the world. You can't even run! It's almost as if the creator intentionally designed it so you wouldn't just blindly rush through the game. You suddenly become acutely aware that even when walking, changing direction and overcoming the static friction of inactivity feels a lot slower than you might be used to. It's almost as if someone took the floatiness of Samus Aran from Metroid and added the physical inertia of Mario to create a somewhat slow-moving, gun-slinging robot. Then, upon landing, your forward momentum leads to a slippery sensation similar to that of the classic Super Mario Brothers. Jumping in the air reveals how incredibly buoyant your character is, but your momentum actively works against you, making it surprisingly difficult to change direction in midair and control your character's landing. Though highly reminiscent of classic NES platforming physics, the mechanics of Cave Story are unfamiliar enough to require dramatically new muscle training. If you've played other platformers, the first thing you'll realize is how different Cave Story feels. You might stumble into the pond just to see what happens, and find out that it's also harmless - as long as you don't let your breath meter go to zero. If you hadn't yet realized that the button for jump was different from that of looking up, you fall down safely. The starting platform floats quietly, with small gaps on both sides, so you're forced to figure out how to leap across. ![]() You slowly walk left and right, delighted with the subtle visual cues as you look up and down. You easily infer the functions of the distinctive machines, and the lack of enemies lets you familiarize yourself with the button controls at your own pace. It's often said that some of the best design can be found at the beginning of a game, and Cave Story makes sure that's the case. To the right, a flickering heart machine and a twirling floppy disk glow bright red. You're completely defenseless, so it's lucky that the only thing you see in the room is a small, glimmering pond below you. Upon starting the game, you find yourself in a room with no introduction to your character, no explanation of the world, and no hints as to why you're there. This short description isn't at all unique to Cave Story, but its seamless storytelling, careful level design, and overall finesse makes Cave Story stand out as a masterfully executed game. As you venture through the game, you collect upgradeable guns with various properties and platform your way through a series of dungeons and bosses. For the unfamiliar, Cave Story, released in 2004 by Daisuke Amaya, is a 2D action-adventure shoot-em-up platformer reminiscent of the Super Famicom era of video games.
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