Developer: Nicalis / Studio Pixel
Released: Nov 2011
Hours Played: 5.1
Similar To: Bard's Gold / Pharoah Rebirth+ / Super Panda Adventures
Rating: 2/5 Parsnips
Cave Story+ is done in the 16-bit retro style and is your typical run and gun platform shooter that has you leaping about and shooting enemies. The controls are solid and movement is responsive but as your momentum can carry you forward a little, the moments that demand pinpoint accuracy can become a little annoying. Nevertheless, once you become accustomed to its ways the old-school vibe it exhudes becomes all well and good. You get safe areas now and again where you can stock up on health and ammo and where you can save your game. On the downside my enjoyment was hampered somewhat at times by the adventure game / Metroidvania elements that made me unsure of where I needed to be to proceed or what I needed to do.
This resulted in revisiting areas and NPCs quite regularly to figure things out and this got tedious after a while. On top of the backtracking, I realised I had to wade through quite a load of old dialogue that I had already read before and, with no option to skip, this added to the irritation. A YouTube walkthrough showed me that I just had to talk to a particular NPC but the point is when you just want to run and gun your way through a game, getting bogged down with unnecessary dialogue is a genuine hindrance. Fortunately, when you do get involved in the jumping and the shooting the game does offer some satisfying old-style goodness. The monsters vary their moves and attacks, and it's nice when you learn how to outmaneuver them and pick up those crystals and extra lives.
If the bland chiptune doesn't slowly drive you mad, the counter-intuitive menu system probably will. I don't think I've ever been so wound up by just a few menu screens before in all my life. Configuring the controls for the Xbox controller is a nightmare and the whole working-out-which-button-or-key-does-what routine is ridiculous. Still, once you've grappled with that, your save system takes place in the game where any room with a floppy disc icon above it means you can save your progress once inside. Oh, you have to press down(!?) while hovering over the disc icon to actually save! Seriously.
Although the game does teleport you to different areas, there are no level-select screens. If you die, the game simply asks if you want to continue and you begin back at the room where you previously saved your game from. From the title-screen you may either continue your game, play one of four challenges (that presumably get unlocked as you play), change options or quit. There is also another path with question marks which is mysteriously greyed out. The option menu contains rudimentary choices but, as mentioned, is a tricky puzzle in itself and gets bafflingly frustrating to negotiate and operate.
I appreciate how this old school style platformer will be fully embraced by traditionalists. The running, shooting and jumping mechanic is generally all as it should be and once you get past those niggling little negatives, the game gets refreshingly satisfying. You do still have to retrace your steps though which can throw you off a flowing routine but overall Cave Story+ manages to redeem itself and goes a decent way to justifying the cascade of praise that regularly get showered over it. Personally? If I could have my money back and knew about Cally's Cave 3 before finalizing my Top 40 Action Platformers, then that game would probably creep in ahead of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment