I barely need to introduce Cave Story at this point. Everyone knows Daisuke Amaya, with the help of many friends, would work on it for years to release it quietly in 2004, and the game slowly took off overseas after a wonderful translation by the Aeon Genesis crew. It's a wonderful game that hit the gaming sphere just at the right time. and i love it to pieces.
Anyway, Nicalis would acquire the rights to the game at some point (I'm actually not fully sure, and information is fuzzy), and they would end up re-releasing this game. But weirdly enough, several of these releases have a bunch of changes that would end up creating a very chaotic list. And here's all of them, in chronological order!
The Wii
The first official release of Cave Story would be sent to a platform that honestly sounds like a slam dunk: the Wii. WiiWare and the VC were a huge part of the general "retro revival" of the mid 2000s that CS launched in the middle of, and making it a download title for the system made absolute sense. Sadly, the port was horrendously rushed.
WiiWare Cave Story released in March 22, 2010 in the US. It is a reasonably straightforward port. Its main claims to fame are upscaling the original graphics with a new resprite for twice the original resolution, a soundtrack courtesy of Niklas Nygren and Yann van der Cruysen with remixed interpretations of the original, the inclusion of Curly Story and the Sanctuary Time Attack once you've completed the best ending, and support for three save files compared to the original's only one.
Sadly, all of this came with costs. The upscaled graphics were evidently unpolished, with rather sloppy work overall. The musicians' work went to waste thanks to shoddy music programming, which made most of the MIDI channels not actually play and made the whole soundtrack really hollow. The official retranslation was commisioned to two japanese translators that mostly specialized on technical translation, and didn't contain some of the more flavorful language fans have come to love from the Aeon Genesis patch. The switch to 60fps, bumping the original's 50, led to an overall speed increase that people didn't fully agree on. This would be the first major stumble port of CS.
For further information on this version, check The Cutting Room Floor's article
The European release of CS Wi would not happen for several months, only dropping in December 2010. It contains significant fixes compared to the US version: most of the art was polished, music playback was significantly improved with actual drums (although still not up to what fans would find in the actual .xm files the game has) and some minor bugs were adjusted. Overall, it's better, but still barebones.
Once again, TCRF has an article with the improvements from the European port.
Cave Story+
After this, and with the intent of getting a port done more or less right, Nicalis would release Cave Story+ on Steam in November 22nd 2011. This is probably the most well known port of Cave Story! Including 5 separate mini modes (called Challenges) unlocked as you play, bundling the well known Boss Rush and Time Attack as well as the Nemesis Challenge and Machine Gun Challenge and even a leaderboard for these online. This port also includes proper controller support, the option to toggle between the original and rescaled graphics, a toggle for the original or New (WiiWare) soundtracks, difficulty selects in the form of an Easy and Hard mode (which would make it into all future ports) and other conveniences. It would become widely distributed especially after being included in one of the very first Humble Bundles.
This is, in my opinion, a fine port. While I'd rather have people play the original if possible, it has several features that are hard to pass up and it's not hard to get at all. It's probably how a lot of people first played Cave Story, and I cannot shame anyone for doing so. Heck, it's the first game I ever bought!
Also, can we agree that the Halloween and Christmas themed resprites are cute? like, no matter what you think of this port, at least I like that.
DSiWare
A forgotten piece in this history (so much so that I almost forgot to include it lol) is the DSiWare port, released in North America in 2010. This is a very no nonsense port. Given the graphical resolution and size limitations of the DS, it only bundles the original graphics and the original soundtrack. It includes a neat Jukebox at least, that's fun!
There's not much to say about this port other than it was delisted when the 3DS was out. Having Cave Story in a portable makes lots of sense tho.
Cave Story 3D
While all this was going on, a separate, much more ambitious project was in the works. In November 2011 (yes, the same month CS+ dropped, and just some weeks ahead actually), Cave Story 3D was released for the brand new Nintendo 3DS, developed by Nicalis and published by NiS America.
This version is a full rework, with completely new 3d graphics, several added areas, a soundtrack by Danny B and touch screen support, as the inventory and map are rendered there. And this is probably the most vocally hated port of Cave Story, and it is easy to make fun of... but I've come to appreciate it.
The game has exceeding amounts of detail that hint at a development team that just didn't have the specs for the console they were porting to. Several areas have noticeable lag, and the low resolution combined with poor lighting can make the game hard to follow. It has a major breaking glitch in the form of Item quit, which makes feats such as beating the game backwards possible. But, honestly, little of it hits me as lazy. Honestly, quite the opposite: it hits me as an overly ambitious port that ran against a short development time and an underpowered console. Pixel himself is credited as director and oversaw several of the new areas, such as the cool escape sequence after defeating the Undead Core. Danny B does a quite good job with the soundtrack too, especially in the more energetic tracks and the boss battles.
It's not the version to go as your first Cave Story at all, but for the fans, I think it's absolutely worth checking out. Hey, you can make Quote wear a prinny cap!
Some other notes about it:
- Cave Story+ would end up receiving an update with the CS3D soundtrack (labeled Remastered) in 2012, and it would be included in almost all the ports going forward.
- It had a Japanese release in mid 2012. Alongisde extra content included as part of the NiS publishing deal, it also fixed the Item Quit glitch and significantly improved performance compared to the US/EU releases, most notably in Living Waterway.
- This port contains a subtle change: the layout of Waterway was changed to prevent players from betting dragged by the current right before the shack where they need to revive Curly. This change would not be added to any other port of Cave Story until much later (putting a pin on this one).
- This version was only ever released physically. Nicalis teased an eShop release, but it never happened. You know where to get it tho, you're smart, I believe in you. Citra runs it perfectly fine :). and DID YOU KNOW IT IS REALLY EASY TO HACK YOUR 3DS
3ds eShop
However, it is not the only 3DS port of Cave Story!
CS would get a digital release on the 3DS eShop, but it's not the 3D remake. It's basically a rerelease of the original DSiWare port
The Switch Port
And for a while, all was well. Beyond some ocassional teasers, no other port activity had happened. Nicalis was having no issue getting Binding of Isaac on any device with a screen on it, but CS seemed to be just fine with the ports it had. Or so we thought.
In June 2017, Cave Story+ would drop on everyone's favorite tablet, the Nintendo Switch. And this version is a doozy.
Despite featuring no major resprites, this port looks significantly different. Alongisde support for 16:9, the rendering got updated with dynamic lighting, water physics and other details. The port's claim to fame is its coop two player mode, which is really neat. RushJet1 provided a Famitracks soundtrack, aiming for the sound of the classic NES, which is simple but effective. It includes a brand new challenge in Sand Pit alongisde the return of leaderboards, which actually work this time! And it has several gameplay changes, such as cutscene skips, the ability to stack all 5 puppies in Sand Zone to speed up backtracking, the Living Waterway change from Cave Story 3D and a lot more.
There's no way around it, this is the best official port of Cave Story. If you must get one, make it this one. I am intimately familiar with it as it was my very first speedgame. Playing coop with my wife was FUN, despite the fact that they had to accomodate 2 players on a clearly single player game and thus some jankiness is to be expected. This port inspired several decisions I made in Cave Story: Tweaked, and it is the most well received of all the official ports across fans.
This port would get several updates. One of them fixed a bug that could happen if you paused the game during a cutscene skip, leading to hilarious behavior. Another port added a new soundtrack by Ridiculon, the guys that also write music for all the Binding of Isaac expansions. It is atrocious, I hate it, it is the worst Cave Story soundtrack DO NOT FIGHT ME. Whoever mixed this needs to... reconsider their life choices.
Very interestingly, there's unused data in this port that implies there were plans for WiiU, PS4, Xbox and Vita ports that clearly never happened.
Nicalis also promised to update the Steam port to bring it up to par with the Switch release but that ALSO never happened.
EGS and GOG
Finally, to what brought us here today. EGS got a port of Cave Story reasonably early. Despite some data differences, this port is functionally identical to the already existing CS+.
More interestingly, CS+ got a GOG port which is also, at least looks wise, identical to CS+... except it's a completely new codebase. Why? no clue. It also had a big glitch with using the teleporter in Arthur's house with the inventory open. Sadly, it didn't lead to beating the game early.
And that's it! That's every official rerelease of Cave Story.
Regardless of the awful behavior of Nicalis, be it whatever clauses they got the Cave Story IP under, or the mistreatment of people like the developer of Save Me Mr Tako, the blatant bigotry of its CEO who ended up banned from the Blade Strangers server, and others, I want to make one thing clear.
Most of the CS ports do not hit me as lazy.
Sure, WiiWare was rushed as all fuck, and DSi and 3DS eshop are basically just the original, but i don't know... there's too much effort on them to be lazy. If anything, they remind me that there's people behind Nicalis, people who probably do care a hell of a lot, that are probably not being paid that well, that deserve so much better than the mistreatment they get from the people they work for. Remember them as much as you remember Pixel.
And also just play Kero Blaster please how much do I need to ask you to.
