Cavern Tale

When you think “free”, you probably think there’s a catch somewhere. That the game was half assed or it’s actually pay-to-win. I’ve tried to avoid putting those kinds of games up here because they’re typically garbage and not that fun to play. What I’ve got for you today though, goes way past everything I’ve put here so far. Something you NEED to play.

Skip to the bottom for the download link and play it

Cave Story has been described both as a metroidvania style game and a platformer, and it manages to play very well in both respects. You play as a guy named Quote who cant remember how he got where he was at the start of the game, and I’m not saying anything else about the story in case you’re one of the five people on the internet who hasn’t heard of Cave Story. Go play it.

You playing yet?

Over the course of the game you are given a number of weapons to use, and while you’ll obviously find one or more you prefer over the rest, none of them are useless or broken. The bosses are well designed and fun to fight, definitely among the game‘s highlights.  Even fighting the generic enemies is still fun, and the platforming can be challenging but its never truly frustrating, gameplay is undeniably solid.

You playing yet?

The art and music for this game is terrific, each area of the game has its own feel, which becomes more impressive in light of the fact that this game was made by one guy. Cave Story actually got a (poor) port to wiiware, and a better port to the DS. The most recent port is a version on Steam that has a bunch of extra stuff added to it, however the ports aren’t free so its not the subject of this post.

You playing yet?

Everything from start the finish is well put together. From the characters to the music. Even the plot and backstory to the game is interesting, and there's even a True Ending to get and a secret final boss to fight, which is HARD to pull off.  Its hard to properly convey how good this game is without sounding like its all brainless gushing or the same drummed up hype that developers use to advertise their latest generic AAA title, so throwing around words like “masterful“ is a waste of time.

YOU PLAYING YET?

In the end all I can really say is that this game is awesome and that you should be playing it by now, so why arent you?

The original, free version of Cave Story can be downloaded from here
http://www.cavestory.org/downloads_game.php
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WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? GO PLAY IT.