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Disclaimer: Some plot spoilers may be found in the article.

It has a fansite. It’s spawned a remix project. It’s even got its own LiveJournal community. Everyone and his indie-game-playing-mother has heard about this game. Every indie game blog has written about Cave Story. There are dozens of articles out there praising its gorgeous pixel graphics, its sublime music, the awkward-yet-memorable storyline and the tight gameplay.

Why add one more article to the multitude of published ones on the internet? Why choose this game as my first ever Game of the Month?

Because it’s the staple of indie gaming, the poster boy for the independent games generation. Because, if you haven’t played Cave Story, you haven’t played indie games. Because, simply put, when you talk about indie games, you talk first and foremost about Cave Story.

That’s how good this game is.

Cave Story, or Doukutsu Monogatari in its native tongue, is the product of Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya, and only Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya. That’s right, this game was imagined, programmed, and produced by a single man over the span of five years. According to sources, Pixel, who works as a programmer, worked on the game during nights after work.

That alone boggles the mind already. Imagine working on the game engine, the graphic tiles, the sounds and the event management after coming home from a kind of work which is specifically designed to drain mental resources. Now sustain that effort over five years and you’ll see where my sentiment is coming from. But I digress. On to spotlighting the game.

Doukutsu Monogatari revolves around the adventures of a robot who wakes up on a floating island with no recollection of who he is or why he exists. Soon, through the player’s actions, the game reveals the plight of the Mimigas, a rabbit-like race living on the island. Apparently, some doctor is abducting them for his nefarious plans. Of course, as the player it’s your duty to make this travesty end. As you progress you make more friends and find more enemies, as well as finding that the story goes deeper, much deeper.

It’s on this subtle beginning that the plot gives the player something to start with, a sense of direction, without giving the entire story away. That’s one of the beauties of Cave Story: the slowly unraveling narrative. Other games usually give you some background information even before beginning the game, and that’s all you’ll ever get. Take for example this gem below; completely unrelated but it illustrates my point.

Well that’s all I really need to know now, is it?

With Doukutsu it’s different; you get unceremoniously dumped into the fray with no further knowledge of anything. And the wonderful thing about it is, it works. The pacing is fast enough to keep your interest piqued, but slow enough to maintain some mystery. So you play on to know exactly what’s going on.

Soon you meet Balrog, Misery, Professor Boost, Curly Brace and the other characters. Each one of these characters is defined and differentiated nicely from the others. In fact, everything about them just goes to show the painstaking effort that went into this game - from their personalities, to their dialogue, all the way down to their individual sprites - it all screams labor of love.

That’s when we cue in Doukutsu’s second beauty: the retro-styled graphics. Amaya ain’t called Pixel for nothing, he really delivered the goods on this one. But as I’ve often seen, talking about graphics is an exercise in futility. So without further ado:

What gamer wouldn’t want to play a platformer that looks like this?

Of course, we can’t leave out the music. Again, it’s one-man-show Pixel holding down the fort in this department. When asked about how he created the unforgettable tunes for the game, he merely replied:

I don’t know all that much about music… But what I do is put some notes together, give them a listen, and decide if they sound good or bad. If they sound bad I erase them, and if they sound good I keep them. Then, repeat.

If you can’t appreciate hardcore trial and error you’re just plain cold. Especially if the kind of music that turns out from it is the kind that you hum in your head for days on after. Who can forget the background music playing in the Mimiga Village or at the Outer Wall? Even if you don’t remember the titles of the tracks, you remember the melody. As I said in an earlier post, music is an integral part of the experience, and here it comes in (harmonic) spades.

Finally, we come to the crux of all of Cave Story’s beauties: its very strong and fun gameplay. Strictly speaking it’s not any different from your Metroid or Castlevania titles, and in fact Doukutsu has been likened endlessly with these genre-defining games. The three all have relatively engaging platform action and the exploration factor to their credit. The island where the game takes place is a veritable labyrinth of rooms, paths and doors with many secret passageways just waiting to be found - this isn’t unlike the alien planets of Samus’ journeys nor the halls of Dracula’s grand abode.

What it is, however, is a very solid foundation from which the game can jump off to show its real colors. Doukutsu exudes its special kind of charm whenever your character does anything at all, and this is what sets it apart. It’s in this meek-eyed pixel innocence beside all the threats of dying that the game finds its biggest draw and pulling power. And dying ain’t really all that bad either.

Playing Cave Story is an enjoyable experience. Fits of frustration will be very far and few in between. If you add to this playability things like upgradeable weapons (everything from your regular blaster to rocket launchers to spurs to lightning), tons of items and power-ups to collect and an adequately challenging plethora of enemies, well, you have yourself an instant classic.

Imaginative and captivating, a sight for the eyes and great on the ears. Not too long that it gets tiring, not too short that you feel cut-off when it ends. Has the replay value to keep players coming back for more.

In short, a masterpiece.

That’s what this game is. If you didn’t understand before why the world loved it so much, I hope that now you do.

PLAY IT! - link to Aeon Genesis, ROM hacking heroes and translators of Cave Story.