Cave Story 3D | Review

By: Ryan Seiler
Posted: September 9, 2012

Indie games have become an integral part of the gaming industry. It’s where up-and-coming developers show the world what they’re made of, and an increasingly more profitable career choice to boot. But it didn’t start out that way. It started with basement programmers building the games they wanted to play, floppy disks being sold to friends, and very small audiences. Nowadays we have a little something called the internet, where someone in Moscow can play a game made by a developer based out of a hut in the Amazon. It’s the future man! Yet back in 2004, indies were still struggling to gain a foothold in the industry, no consoles supported small downloadable games, and releasing one as a stand-alone disc copy would only get you as far as the bargain bin. Luckily PC’s were there for small developers, allowing anyone with internet access to not only be informed about small titles but download and play them as well.

One, Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya, fan of classic platformers like Metroid, Castlevania, and Blaster Master, in a move that would make indie movie and music snobs cream their pants, designed, composed, and programmed Cave Story, by himself and distributed it for free online. In a time where ‘free’ and ‘download’ meant small flash game, Cave Story, as vast in scope and design as The Legend of Zelda and Super Metroid, was ahead of its time, creating a massive cult fan-base, heralding a time when a little guy like Sudio Pixel could compete with the big boys like EA and Activision. There’s no question about it, Cave Story is a stellar example of not just what an indie game can accomplish, but what video games as a whole can accomplish.

Studio Pixel’s modest platformer has been given two makeovers since its release. The first, developed by Nicalis, remade the 16-bit style of the original and upgraded to a more recent – yet dated -- 32-bit appearance for the Wii eShop, leaving literally everything else about the game unchanged. In 2011 Nicalis with the help of NIS America decided that Cave Story needed a true modern overhaul. Thus Cave Story 3D for the Nintendo 3DS was developed, giving the classic 2004 version a new 3D coat of paint. Buy hey; if that paint has cracks, the whole house looks ugly.