Critique of Cave Story

We went over this before, Noxid. That's why that thread got locked -.-(ONTOPIC) You are playing on CS+ of all versions to complain about mouse shit like that. If you hate the game, then why you search for a forum to shout about it on?

No, the thread got locked because you don't understand basic human communication and everyone made fun of you
That isn't going to happen twice, because I am just going to delete your posts and give you an infraction for inciting inflammatory offtopic discussion if you don't stop talking about it one post ago.

 

I don't get what you're talking about here. Of course the game is going to hide it from you, that's what makes the good ending a secret. You're not supposed to be able to find it unless you look meticulously through the whole game. There are hints of it throughout (like ma pignon, who seems to do nothing, and the red mark in the labrynth that booster falls down in, and the tow rope in the core is easy enough to find if you just take a moment to look around).

That's still a stylistic choice. The most noticable robotic features of them are their pale white skin and their earphone things (they don't seem to have ears). They resemble the other robots you see on the island too with the 2 radio antennas from their head. I guess I don't really care if it broke your suspension of disbelief, since it doesn't seem like an important issue at all.

Well when you complain about a game with solid game mechanics because of the difficulty then yes, I will tell you to play an easier game because that is obviously what you want.

It's called a difficulty curve. The game gets harder at the end to make you work for the ending. Also why are you still going on about mouse support? This game clearly doesn't need a mouse.

It actually depends on the keyboard/computer, the 3 keys thing is a more common issue with laptops. Even with only 3 keys it's still easy since you should only ever need 3 at once really.

We're interested in critiquing your critique, and not pretending like it's flawless. Cave Story has some flaws, yes, but you're just getting worked up over little details.
If you don't like the game then don't play it is all I have left to say.

"I mean, there's a reason the expression "needle in a haystack" is used for a hopeless task no one in their right minds would undertake unless they had hours to while away in mindless drudgery. An excellent adventure game has no haystacks. A good adventure game probably gives you a magnet. A bad one makes you look at straw for seven hours. This game is nothing but haystacks, and sometimes the needles are made of straw."
—Wields-Rulebooks-Heavily on Limbo of the Lost

"Or let's talk about computer adventures; they often display information failure. "Oh, to get through the Gate of Thanatos, you need a hatpin to pick the lock. You can find the hatpin on the floor of the Library. It's about three pixels by two pixels, and you can see it, if your vision is good, between the twelfth and thirteenth floorboards, about three inches from the top of the screen. What, you missed it?" Yeah, I missed it. In an adventure, it shouldn't be ridiculously difficult to find what you need, nor should victory be impossible just because you made a wrong decision three hours and thirty-eight decision points ago. Nor should the solutions to puzzles be arbitrary or absurd."
Greg Costikyan in his article on game design "I Have No Words and I Must Design"


While not impossible to 'Win' you're locked out of the 'Correct' ending based on a choice that occurred hours ago that had little to no indication that making the choice would have that affect. It's blatantly made to be so obscure that you cannot find it on your first play through without using a guide and potentially not at all if you don't read the wiki/forums/guides. It's not like there's any actual hints, most are so obscure that they don't make much sense till you look back after finishing the game which means it failed at it's job.


Pale skin could easily be explained by being in a coma for a decade in a dark cave. You get no light exposure so your skin would lose it's pigmentation. You're also a soldier, so it would make sense for you to have some kind of radio communication so that's what I thought the headphones were any not actually grafted into the head. They don't look even remotely close to other robots. They're white, most are gunmetal grey or black. The robots act like robots, quote and curly act like people with no robotic characteristics at all besides a few very subtle appearances which could potentially be other things if the wording was changed even slightly in game. Also, if you don't care about immersion then please don't go into developing video games, immersion is one of the biggest aspects of it and ignoring it is like shooting yourself in the foot.


It's not a curve when it does this, this is a curve. The game doesn't need mouse support because you don't personally think it's necessary. Disregarding that not everyone plays like you and might have different preferences. I know, shocking but stay with me here.


Jump, Move left/right, Swap Weapon, Aim, Fire. I'm sorry if my math isn't so good but I'm quite sure that's 5 when the allotted number of inputs is 3.


Little details are things like clipping into a block partly sticking out of a slope that prevents you from getting over it without jumping. That's little details. Things like failing to hint/foreshadow the secret endings, mutually exclusive powerups, etc. are BIG things.


I DO like the game, don't you read what I say? I however noticed several issues with the game as I played through them.

mouse support? how would that even work?

i want diagrams.

Like Terraria but with Binding of Isaac's aiming system.

You can't compare Cave Story to Super Meat Boy in that way. Every hazard in SMB is a one-hit kill. That's a game about pinpoint precision and fast paced platforming, contained within relatively short levels. Given the frequency a good player in Super Meat Boy is likely to die, it wouldn't make any sense to have lives and spread-out save points. Cave Story is about exploration and endurance. If the game immediately re-spawned you wherever you died, that would take away the primary challenge of the game, outside of the bosses.
To answer your question directed at me, no, I didn't get the good ending on my first playthrough. I traded the Polar Star for the Machine Gun, got the Booster 0.8, and let Curly die, three things that I would guess most first-timers do. And that was my point, that the game funnels the unknowing in a certain direction, a direction that makes the game more accessible for first-timers, but then hints at other possibilities. And then you're supposed to play the game again with those things in mind. Sure, you might not talk the Hermit Gunsmith again, making you miss out on that hint, or you might not read Booster's note, but the game rewards the player for being thorough. If the secret final level was easy to find, then it wouldn't be much of a secret.
One more thing about the Machine Gun -- the fact that trading for the Machine Gun is an option should be a pretty big clue that there could be another option down the road. That's pretty basic video game logic, I think.

Hard Mode, that is all folks.


And that's also the problem. No warning, no foreshadowing, no nothing until you read the guide or happen to backtrack for no good reason and stumble upon the gunsmith which unless you read the guide there's no reason to go back there anymore. There's a difference between being 'Through' and requiring either clairvoyance.


Also the machine gun doesn't say whether or not it's better or worse than other weapons. For all you know it could be one of the best weapons in the game but if you skip it you get the second best weapon if you don't trade it at the next time for the worst upgrade.

I'm gonna have to throw in my two cents and say a few things.
Fake difficulty: Unless you're playing Hard Mode in Cave Story+ or you're not picking up Life Capsules on purpose, the game has none. I chose to use Hard Mode the first time I played, and yes, I felt there were times where the repetition asked is simply uncalled for. However, I always remember that the game wasn't designed to be OHKO and it was my choice to do so. Even if an unsuspecting player chooses Hard Mode, once they reach the first or second areas, they'll realize they should go back to one of the lighter modes unless they're particularly stubborn like me.
Pretty much all the gripes I have with the game design at 3HP are completely gone if I had 10HP and a Missile Launcher. And I think you get 50 over the course of the game?
Of course, Hard Mode should add a save point in three or four specific locations because there is fake difficulty when you get killed in one hit and required to repeat something several dozen times over just to get back to where you were.

Mouse Support: No? When has Mario, Metroid, Mega Man, Sonic, etc. EVER needed a mouse? What would be the point of that? It's like adding something to a old-school, side-scrolling platformer that just doesn't need to be there.
And about the inability to do multiple things while firing on a keyboard and the necessity of a pad...It's not necessary. I know my keyboard does lock up if I press Z, an arrow key and X at the same time, so I did an upward shift to A and S and what do you know, problem resolved. If you're saying it's difficult to play on a keyboard...Let me tell you, I used a lot of emulators back in the day after my GBA broke. Mega Man Zero has trained me well to charge the saber, dash, jump and fire the buster all at the same time. It's not impossible (though it does take getting used to), and now I end up preferring the keyboard over a pad or controller.

Robot Thing: I don't really know what to say about this one...I played a ton of Mega Man (obvious, given how many times I mentioned him), from nearly every one of his incarnations. In all of those games, he's portrayed as a sentient, emotional hunk of machinery who can occassionally be conflicted with difficult decisions. There was no "Beep boop, prime directive is blow crap up" because he's just so much harder to relate as a character if he were like that. Quote doesn't say a word in the entire game, but he does have a heart, and that's what lets more people connect with him than it would if he were just a machine sent to fulfill some mission given.
Shouting "It's not realistic, there's no indication they are machines!" ...Really, it's supposed to be a bit of a shock when you find out in-game. It changes your perception, but I didn't find it detracted from the suspension of disbelief at all. It's not even a first that a form of entertainment media has a human-like machine (Astro Boy, Androids in DBZ, etc.).

If the repetition was uncalled for on hard mode, then hard mode wasn't made very well.


You get 50, some enemies can do about 20 damage a shot.


Also yes, but it should also apply to the easy and normal modes because taking it from the top over and over because you are having a particularly hard time with a boss isn't fun.


Mario, Metroid, Megaman, Sonic are all pretty much exclusively pad games. So it's a bad comparison as we're talking keyboards and mice and not pads and controllers.
I realize it's not 'necessary' however it should give the ability to use the mouse instead so that way you can avoid it entirely if you're playing right. Nothing worse than trying to play a game beyond it's physical limitations. Also congrats you play emulators, not everyone does so not everyone has the experience dealing with it. I personally play FPS, TPS, RTS, and RPG games so I don't have as much experience with platformers on the computer. Platformers aren't often on the computer because they just don't work well with keyboards. So with that in mind why not add in an anti-frustration feature and make the player able to use the mouse to help ease this problem?


Except they're really not. Let's look at LEGION from Mass Effect: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=h8Chpj2_X3k
I don't see why playing something like LEGION or having your partner talk in something like that would be a bad thing.

Versus

Megaman is clearly robotic. Yet, despite this he isn't actually a robot. He's considered a 'Cyborg' in the game (Really, should be called a bionic). So not only is megaman a more robot-looking cyborg, but quote is a human-looking robot. That's the big problem.


Then the moment was rather lost, it could have been handled better. It's like calling this a cow:

It simply makes the player care less about what the character's say because they're pretty obviously wrong or flawed that you start to ignore them (Or at least I did).

IMAGE MACRO

Not enough boxes in the world, mate.

You just know that someone's pissed when someone uses bold text Oh so scary!

I'm pretty positive that there isn't a lack of hints. Read GIR's post, because I don't think that needs to explained again.

Might I add that this is a fantasy game that we are talking about? Not like CoD is like real life but still... Calm down about that. It's a fantasy game.

And you missed my point of not needing all of the health and rockets that you need to complete the game. Like I said before, people have completed the game with 3 hp and no rockets, and you can too.
Let's go over what happens when...
You skip over Booster: Short monologue, minor character development
Save Curly:You find out your true self. Not like you can tell that Quote and Curly are different from the robots scattered throughout the island.

Even with the difficulty spike (which it never had, actually), you do know that a good game is supposed to challenge you rather than press the buton to win bitches, right?

... Everything? Would an NES game need to have a mouse to point and click at objects to make them instantly die? Hell no. That's what most modern FPSs are about. I do agree that retro games are meant to be played on a gamepad, hence why there was gamepad support in EVERY VERSION OF CAVE STORY TO DATE. Adding a mouse to all of that would just make the game feel all slimy and take away the greatness of retro platforming. Also, I play Cave Story on a gamepad on some of the console, but on a keyboard when I just do not have a gamepad for it. I have no idea why you are not able to shoot, aim, and move at the same time. Possibly because you just do not have any good reflexes at all. Honestly, a keyboard is just like a gamepad, but only with keys to me.

Jumping and firing does require reflexes and accuracy. In some cases, you have to be pixel-perfect and have to fire at the right time to assure that the enemy is going to be hit. Congrats on disproving your point.
If a person is good at at game, of course that the person is better and more skilled at the game than others. More intelligent, not so much, but I'm leaving a special case for you, who doesn't even know what makes a good game.

Looks like someone disproved another one of his points

Troll.


Already Did.


Like reality unless otherwise noted. Robots aren't characterized as anything different from our real world understanding of them.


No I probably can't. I don't have the patience to play the same section a few dozen times just to get past. Just because it can be done doesn't mean that most people can do it. There's things called world records for a reason. They celebrate the ability to do something to such a degree that no one else can do it. If what your saying was true then there would be no such thing.


There's a difference between challenging and frustrating. Most games cannot get this down right so they tend to either make it easier to avoid it, or they make it harder and people get frustrated until they nerf it or it gets forgotten. It is in fact a spike, every boss until then was a single unit, some of them had a second health bar but none of them were 3 separate bosses in a row without health or resupply.


NES games are played with a pad, not a mouse and keyboard. Also, 3 input limit, 5 common overlapping actions. Do the math please.


Jumping and firing requires as much accuracy and reflex as FPS, it's not somehow more demanding just different.


Oh, I know what makes a good game. I work and study game design a lot. Most of you probably don't or give Cave Story special exemptions because it's "Retro so it's supposed to have <insert flaw here>."

 

I always thought megaman was a little boy in a blue jumpsuit myself

 

Hard Mode isn't what the game was designed around. The placement of the save points and health refills provides an appropriate, fair challenge given the "normal" amount of health a player would have in the standard difficulty. If you're suggesting that more save points should be added in a mode that you'd supposedly only be playing if you're competent in the game regularly, then I'm afraid you're missing the point of a "hard" mode.

 

With most of the forum on this topic it's pretty heated. I suppose if you want mouse controls ise the WII or complain to Nicalis.

 

Why the fuck is this still going on? You are just repeating your pouts over and over, and we are repeating over and over about how dumb they are. It's not going to get any better from here. And if you think that I'm giving up then you are just sadly mistaken. I'm not going to take another 5 minutes just to repeat myself over and over again. Just, please. Stop being such a whiny bitch.

 

While not impossible to 'Win' you're locked out of the 'Correct' ending based on a choice that occurred hours ago that had little to no indication that making the choice would have that affect. It's blatantly made to be so obscure that you cannot find it on your first play through without using a guide and potentially not at all if you don't read the wiki/forums/guides. It's not like there's any actual hints, most are so obscure that they don't make much sense till you look back after finishing the game which means it failed at it's job.


Pale skin could easily be explained by being in a coma for a decade in a dark cave. You get no light exposure so your skin would lose it's pigmentation. You're also a soldier, so it would make sense for you to have some kind of radio communication so that's what I thought the headphones were any not actually grafted into the head. They don't look even remotely close to other robots. They're white, most are gunmetal grey or black. The robots act like robots, quote and curly act like people with no robotic characteristics at all besides a few very subtle appearances which could potentially be other things if the wording was changed even slightly in game. Also, if you don't care about immersion then please don't go into developing video games, immersion is one of the biggest aspects of it and ignoring it is like shooting yourself in the foot.


It's not a curve when it does this, this is a curve. The game doesn't need mouse support because you don't personally think it's necessary. Disregarding that not everyone plays like you and might have different preferences. I know, shocking but stay with me here.


Jump, Move left/right, Swap Weapon, Aim, Fire. I'm sorry if my math isn't so good but I'm quite sure that's 5 when the allotted number of inputs is 3.


Little details are things like clipping into a block partly sticking out of a slope that prevents you from getting over it without jumping. That's little details. Things like failing to hint/foreshadow the secret endings, mutually exclusive powerups, etc. are BIG things.


I DO like the game, don't you read what I say? I however noticed several issues with the game as I played through them.

Alright let's break this down.

Who's to say that the best ending is the correct ending? Nothing tells you which is canon, so there is no reason to be upset if you miss it. It's not like you can't complete the game without getting it. And as I said before it's actually pretty easy if you just look, I'm sorry that you think it needs to be made more obvious to the player but I guess you're just used to easier games.

Him being a very human robot doesn't really break the immersion for me, maybe you could explain how it breaks the immersion? Since no one else seems to find it an issue.

The game does Curve up like in the last diagram. The levels before the final bosses increasingly get more and more difficult, so it's not that much of a shock for there to be 3 bosses in a row at the end. It's not a spike like as you've depicted.

First off, aim isn't a button. And you shouldn't have to be swapping weapons while firing. The most you should be doing is one of the directional keys, jump and shoot at the same time, which adds up to 3. Sometimes you may need 4 which is annoying (jump shoot up right/left) but it's a hardware issue. Get a better keyboard if it bothers you.

The game does hint and foreshadow the secret endings, I guess you just didn't see it while most others did.

 

I don't have as much experience with platformers on the computer

this explains a lot. it's difficult to learn how to play a genre you aren't used to. i still am garbage at most fps games i play, but i can adapt to the controls of any platformer pretty well, especially if it's on a keyboard. personal preference i guess. you could always plug in an exchs bawx controller into your pc with a bit of effort, if that would make you feel better.

i don't like how quote didn't seem like a robot

yeah, i'm pretty sure the reveal of quote being a robot was supposed to be pretty dramatic, so if you were confused, than that was probably intentional?

also yeah, they are supposed to be humanoid robots, based on the dialog that is centered around them. please don't get all bitchy about the difference between "cyborgs" and "robots" and all that bullshit. v_v

 

Don't forget, Booster could be a robot too! And what is there to disprove that? He can screw gravity with his magical backpacks! Pixel DID say use your imagination. If you call THAT crazy, you shouldn't be yapping about the authenticity of Quote being one, either!

 

If the repetition was uncalled for on hard mode, then hard mode wasn't made very well.

Which I agree with later. It was a pretty lazy addition in +, they should have just called it "No life capsules and no missile launcher run". But it wasn't in the original game, so it doesn't really count. That's more of the PC port's fault than it is the original game.

You get 50, some enemies can do about 20 damage a shot.

Ample health man, you have no idea. I've yet to see any attack do 20 damage, so I must have dodged all of them. In other words, power-hitting attacks are easy to dodge. Which is a good choice in game design.

Also yes, but it should also apply to the easy and normal modes because taking it from the top over and over because you are having a particularly hard time with a boss isn't fun.

No, I don't think so. I understand why they decided to the final bosses in the manner they did. It drives up the tension to the climax and it's totally doable on the first go without needing to know how each enemy fights...assuming you had the HP to be able to take a hit or two. In Hard Mode, it's obviously not the same case, but again, it doesn't really count because it was a lazy addition in +. You're talking more about Cave Story in general, so I don't think it's fair to dock points on an addition to a later port.

Mario, Metroid, Megaman, Sonic are all pretty much exclusively pad games. So it's a bad comparison as we're talking keyboards and mice and not pads and controllers.

Except that the orignal controller available doesn't mean squat when we're talking game design. All of those games can easily be ported to a PC and lo and behold, they're not exclusively pad games anymore! Hell, Sonic Generations came out for PC as a lazy, lazy port of the XBOX360 version. Would it have been better if they added the mouse? It'd look so unnecessary.

I realize it's not 'necessary' however it should give the ability to use the mouse instead so that way you can avoid it entirely if you're playing right. Nothing worse than trying to play a game beyond it's physical limitations. Also congrats you play emulators, not everyone does so not everyone has the experience dealing with it. I personally play FPS, TPS, RTS, and RPG games so I don't have as much experience with platformers on the computer. Platformers aren't often on the computer because they just don't work well with keyboards. So with that in mind why not add in an anti-frustration feature and make the player able to use the mouse to help ease this problem?

Platformers, not on the computer...You clearly haven't played very many indie games. Take a visit to Newgrounds and find there are several nicely made platformers that, of course, use the keyboard. The reason why don't see very many commercially made PC games? Probably because most people are occupied with 3D exploration over 2D, which the tech provides now. I mean, you don't see very many for the console either, do you?

It's not because they don't work well on the keyboard, it's just not that profitable anymore.

I don't see how adding a mouse would reduce frustration much, any way. From what I understand, you're still shooting in the four directions, only with the added difficulty of figuring out whether you're pointing up or forward when the cursor is to the upper-right of your character.

Except they're really not. Let's look at LEGION from Mass Effect: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=h8Chpj2_X3k
I don't see why playing something like LEGION or having your partner talk in something like that would be a bad thing.

Not certain what you're referring to here, sorry.

Mega Man pic versus Quote pic
Megaman is clearly robotic. Yet, despite this he isn't actually a robot. He's considered a 'Cyborg' in the game (Really, should be called a bionic). So not only is megaman a more robot-looking cyborg, but quote is a human-looking robot. That's the big problem.

Resizing, have you heard of it?

Also, yes, Mega Man's a robot, they're called Robot Masters. So is X, whom the series continuously refers to as the most human-like machine in existence. It's never been explicitly stated Mega Man nor X uses any human components. Also, you were able to tell Mega Man's a bot? First time I saw him, I thought he was a kid in a power suit.

But, all of that's moot, really. Doesn't matter what they look like vs. what they are because I don't see how it detracts in any way from the story.

Then the moment was rather lost, it could have been handled better. It's like calling this a cow:
Giant pic of funny looking animal I'm inclined to believe is a cow.
It simply makes the player care less about what the character's say because they're pretty obviously wrong or flawed that you start to ignore them (Or at least I did).

A big problem just because they used a term that you don't feel is entirely accurate? You're seriously going to throw the entire story on its rear end for a nit-picking point like that? Obviously, each player responds differently, but to decide to sever your entire connection with the characters because they said "robot" when "cyborg" or "bionic" is more accurate? That's really petty.

No joke, that's one of the most petty things you could do when you're going through someone's story. You could be like, "well, robot isn't the right word" and then continue on, but you're actually tossing the thing out.

 

Okay, here are my thoughts so far.
First and foremost: three saves slots is totally dumb, you're totally correct here. No point at all, and makes getting all the endings something of a pain.
Second: everyone should chill the fuck out, no matter how incompetent someone seems.
Third: JamesRaynor, hear me out.
What is wrong with the good endings being hidden or not even hinted at? They're supposed to be a secret, just because there isn't a giant red arrow pointing to the towrope doesn't mean the game design is bad. Next, what's wrong with having a boss rush at the end? Sure it's hard, but that's kind of the point of a final boss sequence, isn't it? To be challenging?
I get this feeling that you have little exposure to difficult or non-mainstream games. Most popular games that come out now are hated for not doing the things you criticized Cave Story for doing. If you really enjoy a game with tons of save points, no giant boss rushes, and mouse controls, then I would advise staying away from the retro platformer in general.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, we all have preferred genres, yours and mine just differ :3

 

I think the main problem here is that you are being a bit stubborn. You aren't listening to our perfectly reasonable arguments at all. If you want mouse controls, I am fairly sure Noxid released a hack that does just that in the Free Hacks! thread. But please, don't go whining about the good ending being too hard to find. I was 9 when I first got the good ending. I never used a guide. I didn't even know most of the Interne existed back then. I was intelligent enough to follow the hints given throughout the game to figure out what to do. And how does not knowing you're a robot break immersion? If you were an amnesiac, would you know you were a robot? Also, Quote and Curly didn't act like the other robots in CS because they ere designed that way. Also, your arguments about this bit are simply justifying why they could be humans, not why they couldn't be robots.
TL;DR: Please listen to us.

 

I agree with cultr. Happiness is the key that opens that one, stubborn-ass door to the food of non-hunger.

 

this explains a lot. it's difficult to learn how to play a genre you aren't used to. i still am garbage at most fps games i play, but i can adapt to the controls of any platformer pretty well, especially if it's on a keyboard. personal preference i guess. you could always plug in an exchs bawx controller into your pc with a bit of effort, if that would make you feel better.


yeah, i'm pretty sure the reveal of quote being a robot was supposed to be pretty dramatic, so if you were confused, than that was probably intentional?

also yeah, they are supposed to be humanoid robots, based on the dialog that is centered around them. please don't get all bitchy about the difference between "cyborgs" and "robots" and all that bullshit. v_v

That's a nice suggestion, except I don't own an Xbox, nor do I want to go out and spend 15-20$ on a controller just to play the game 'properly' because it wasn't correctly mapped for PC.


I wasn't so much confused as "No foreshadowing, No hints, No Glamor Failure, No nothing and they expect me to think nothing of it." I tend to play and analyze a game as I play so I tend to notice these things a lot more often than others. It's a Shocking Serve, a plot twist put in for the sake of a plot twist with little to no characterization or effort put into foreshadowing. This children is what I and many others refer to an 'Ass Pull' where a writer less than gracefully pulls a less-than graceful narrative development out of thin air, violating the Law of Conservation of Detail.


Humanoid robots, but still considered to be the same 'Robots' as those grey and black ones found in the core room. There's only 3 official differences, none of which have to do with appearing more human-like.

Alright let's break this down.

Who's to say that the best ending is the correct ending? Nothing tells you which is canon, so there is no reason to be upset if you miss it. It's not like you can't complete the game without getting it. And as I said before it's actually pretty easy if you just look, I'm sorry that you think it needs to be made more obvious to the player but I guess you're just used to easier games.

Him being a very human robot doesn't really break the immersion for me, maybe you could explain how it breaks the immersion? Since no one else seems to find it an issue.

The game does Curve up like in the last diagram. The levels before the final bosses increasingly get more and more difficult, so it's not that much of a shock for there to be 3 bosses in a row at the end. It's not a spike like as you've depicted.

First off, aim isn't a button. And you shouldn't have to be swapping weapons while firing. The most you should be doing is one of the directional keys, jump and shoot at the same time, which adds up to 3. Sometimes you may need 4 which is annoying (jump shoot up right/left) but it's a hardware issue. Get a better keyboard if it bothers you.

The game does hint and foreshadow the secret endings, I guess you just didn't see it while most others did.

It's presumed that the harder ending is canon because it's harder to obtain. That's the general rule and until it's stated otherwise by Pixel then that's pretty much the default position. And it's not obvious, I'm sorry that you're apparently so good at games that you cannot sympathize with players who aren't as good as you.



I self-critique as I play, that stood out by being an ass pull and shocking swerve.

An Ass Pull is a moment when the writers pull something out of thin air in a less-than-graceful narrative development, violating the Law of Conservation of Detail by dropping a plot-critical detail in the middle, or near the end of their narrative without Foreshadowing or dropping a Chekhov's Gun earlier on.



A good Twist Ending is surprising, and seems to come out of left-field at first. You're shocked at first, but then you look back and realize that that's what they were building to all along. It takes a great writer to pull off believable twists on a regular basis. - That doesn't stop less-than-great writers from trying, however.

The Shocking Swerve is a kind of twist made just to have a twist. There's little-to-no rhyme or reason involved, no Foreshadowing, and no way that the viewer could have ever seen it coming. They just pulled it out of nowhere due to a possibly misguided desire to "shock" the viewer. Characters may be derailed, subplots may be ruined, and generally everything that's occurred so far may be thrown out the window, just to pull off this twist.



No, it curves up rather sharply in the last dungeon of the game and the boss fight for it. The final boss rush is the only time in the game where you fight 3 bosses in a row with no breaks.



By aim I mean look up/down, which is necessary if you're trying to strafe. No, why should I get a better keyboard when the developers could just cut out the middle man and make the mouse act as a secondary keyboard to prevent the issues. I'm not interested in picking up a ten dollar game and having to go out and buy 20-40$ of peripherals.



It does hint it, but only if you backtrack at the right times or already have missed the possible ending.

Okay, here are my thoughts so far.
First and foremost: three saves slots is totally dumb, you're totally correct here. No point at all, and makes getting all the endings something of a pain.
Second: everyone should chill the fuck out, no matter how incompetent someone seems.
Third: JamesRaynor, hear me out.
What is wrong with the good endings being hidden or not even hinted at? They're supposed to be a secret, just because there isn't a giant red arrow pointing to the towrope doesn't mean the game design is bad. Next, what's wrong with having a boss rush at the end? Sure it's hard, but that's kind of the point of a final boss sequence, isn't it? To be challenging?
I get this feeling that you have little exposure to difficult or non-mainstream games. Most popular games that come out now are hated for not doing the things you criticized Cave Story for doing. If you really enjoy a game with tons of save points, no giant boss rushes, and mouse controls, then I would advise staying away from the retro platformer in general.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, we all have preferred genres, yours and mine just differ :3

Because then you deal with situations where it goes non sequitur.


Boss rush doesn't need to try to make itself look more difficult as it is. It disguises the healing powerups, which is unnecessary.


Just because it's on one extreme doesn't make the other extreme any better. All the information or no information, why not some of the information and you need to fill in the blanks?


I like retro platformers because of how they feel. However when I want to play a retro platformer I typically don't want to have their pimply underbelly along with the rest of it.

Which I agree with later. It was a pretty lazy addition in +, they should have just called it "No life capsules and no missile launcher run". But it wasn't in the original game, so it doesn't really count. That's more of the PC port's fault than it is the original game.

Ample health man, you have no idea. I've yet to see any attack do 20 damage, so I must have dodged all of them. In other words, power-hitting attacks are easy to dodge. Which is a good choice in game design.
No, I don't think so. I understand why they decided to the final bosses in the manner they did. It drives up the tension to the climax and it's totally doable on the first go without needing to know how each enemy fights...assuming you had the HP to be able to take a hit or two. In Hard Mode, it's obviously not the same case, but again, it doesn't really count because it was a lazy addition in +. You're talking more about Cave Story in general, so I don't think it's fair to dock points on an addition to a later port.

Except that the orignal controller available doesn't mean squat when we're talking game design. All of those games can easily be ported to a PC and lo and behold, they're not exclusively pad games anymore! Hell, Sonic Generations came out for PC as a lazy, lazy port of the XBOX360 version. Would it have been better if they added the mouse? It'd look so unnecessary.
Platformers, not on the computer...You clearly haven't played very many indie games. Take a visit to Newgrounds and find there are several nicely made platformers that, of course, use the keyboard. The reason why don't see very many commercially made PC games? Probably because most people are occupied with 3D exploration over 2D, which the tech provides now. I mean, you don't see very many for the console either, do you?
It's not because they don't work well on the keyboard, it's just not that profitable anymore.
I don't see how adding a mouse would reduce frustration much, any way. From what I understand, you're still shooting in the four directions, only with the added difficulty of figuring out whether you're pointing up or forward when the cursor is to the upper-right of your character.

Not certain what you're referring to here, sorry.
Resizing, have you heard of it?
Also, yes, Mega Man's a robot, they're called Robot Masters. So is X, whom the series continuously refers to as the most human-like machine in existence. It's never been explicitly stated Mega Man nor X uses any human components. Also, you were able to tell Mega Man's a bot? First time I saw him, I thought he was a kid in a power suit.
But, all of that's moot, really. Doesn't matter what they look like vs. what they are because I don't see how it detracts in any way from the story.
A big problem just because they used a term that you don't feel is entirely accurate? You're seriously going to throw the entire story on its rear end for a nit-picking point like that? Obviously, each player responds differently, but to decide to sever your entire connection with the characters because they said "robot" when "cyborg" or "bionic" is more accurate? That's really petty.
No joke, that's one of the most petty things you could do when you're going through someone's story. You could be like, "well, robot isn't the right word" and then continue on, but you're actually tossing the thing out.

Or put that in parentheses under hard.


You can drive up the tension while still keeping the player's health and ammo refilled. It also makes more sense than the fluffy wamblers giving out hearts.


They could be, however then they'd also inherit the controller issues so yes it does apply. You compare how easy it is to control via pad but not keyboard.


I play platformers on newgrounds a lot (Or used to), however few of them require me to press as many buttons at once as CS+.


Not really, play Terraria; It has a similar system but it works considerably better. Albeit you can aim where-ever you want.


He's usually referred to as a cyborg, and if we say he is a robot he's a hell of a lot more convincing than Quote.


I didn't throw out the entire story. I just added a mental filter from "Robot to" "They mistake you for a robot due to never seeing a human." or similar.

 

Cave Story is not the kind of game that should use a mouse.
Are you fucking retarded.
Why don't you give us some proof of your studies on video game design?

 

It's presumed that the harder ending is canon because it's harder to obtain. That's the general rule and until it's stated otherwise by Pixel then that's pretty much the default position. And it's not obvious, I'm sorry that you're apparently so good at games that you cannot sympathize with players who aren't as good as you.

See this is where your attitude is wrong. You're not the majority here. I'm unable to sympathize with you not because I can do it, but because practically everyone else can.

I'm not going to say anything else since you've already decided what you're going to think and it's looks like you're not open to change your opinion. This is turning into a back and forth.

 

We should just calmly start. No reason to yell at each other over a mouse. The reason you can't get into the Gates of Heaven by being mean is because you weren't nice. I'll explain. If you aren't something, you are something else, but with which different results occur.

 

this moment brought to you by tvtropes.org or whatever (c)

This game was made by one man over five years for no reward other than the satisfaction of people enjoying his creation. By that I mean it was and is available 100% free of charge. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to shit on this beautiful man's labour of love.

I'm just
I'm done.

 

Well said, Noxid. Finally, someone has said what I've been trying to say in an understandable way!

 

See this is where your attitude is wrong. You're not the majority here. I'm unable to sympathize with you not because I can do it, but because practically everyone else can.
I'm not going to say anything else since you've already decided what you're going to think and it's looks like you're not open to change your opinion. This is turning into a back and forth.

This of course assumes the forum would include anyone but the most hardcore fans. Players who are frustrated enough to stop playing it don't sign up on the forum. They just throw it in the back of their dustbin and never play it again. There's a reason why it's called a Vocal Minority.

This post brought to you by Noxid©

This game was made by one man over five years for no reward other than the satisfaction of people enjoying his creation. By that I mean it was and is available 100% free of charge. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to shit on this beautiful man's labour of love.

I like the game, but you don't care about that and instead take the fact that I say it has flaws to mean that I think it's terrible.

But good on you, if you don't read my posts then please don't respond to the topic. Makes my life easier without having to see you spout insults while at the same time not even reading pas the first sentence.