Long has the wait been for Cave Story fans to see the official appearance of the freeware classic on a console, and today their dreams are realized: lo and behold, Cave Story is now available on WiiWare for the sum of 1,200 Wii Points. Sadly, however, in North America only at this point.
For those of you have not heard of this masterpiece, Cave Story was originally a PC game designed by indie legend Daisuke Amata, under the alias ‘Studio Pixel’, over the course of 5 years and eventually released onto the internet, completely free of charge. The story follows a young boy who wakes in a cave with no memories and must explore to find out who he is, why he’s there, and just what’s going on. The game was designed as a throwback to classic NES games such as Metroid, Castlevania and, though not many people seem to make this connection, Mega Man, with elements of exploration, platforming, and shooting. Include an awesome soundtrack and some brilliant battles, you’ve pretty much got yourself a classic right here.
What Nicalis, the independant indie gaming company who originally approached Pixel with the idea of porting Cave Story to WiiWare, have done is team up with Pixel to make the ultimate Cave Story experience! This WiiWare remake includes updated graphics and music (Both of which can be switched to the original that appeared in the PC release), an official and more accurate translation, boss rush mode, time attack, and the ability to play as fan favourite character Curly Brace (Although all three latter additions are already available through fan mods). Not only this, but several downloadable content packs are planned for the future.
The most this remake will do for most gamers is alert them to the existence of the game and make them download the original free PC version to try out. True Cave Story fans will, however, download the game without complaint of costs: all they will want is more of the awesomeness that was experienced first time around.
You can check out more information, as well as a trailer, on Cave Story the Nintendo Channel.