You may have noticed
that my first review was of a couple of games that came out quite
some time ago. So, in an effort to try to keep things fresh and new
(as fresh and new as freelance, unpaid critic with a free blog and a
retail job can keep things), I bought Street Fighter V and planed to
sink several hours into it and write a review. When I loaded it up,
one of the menu options was grayed out, with the promise of them
being available sometime in March. Unfortunately, it was the
challenge mode, something I was looking forward to. As of this
writing it is March 3rd, and hasn't been patched in yet.
So, I played the story mode and completed Ryu's story in about ten
minutes. I tried an online match and it looked like a slide show.
Survival mode is an endless succession of one round matches, and I
got up to about match 11 before I got bored and quit to the menu
screen. Apparently, the difficulty doesn't ramp up until about 30 or
so matches; most of the AI opponents stood still for a few moments
and stared at me while I beat them silly. With that said, I couldn't
really get a grasp on the mechanics until I got some online matches
to work.
To the games
credit, when Street Fighter V's online matches actually work, the
fighting is wonderful and fast paced. The familiar motions of
quarter-circle punch and whatever pattern the dragon punch is felt
like coming home. The graphics are fluid and clear, and I had a lot
of fun. So, until everything is patched up and the servers are
running optimally, I'm going to hold off on giving Street Fighter V a
full on review. As of right now, Street Fighter V is in an early
access state. I just wasted two paragraphs telling you that I won't
be reviewing Street Fighter V yet, so let's get to the game that I'm
actually going to review: Cave Story +, another older game I bought
from steam.
Cave Story is a 2D
platformer created by a single developer, who calls himself Pixel.
The plus version is a revamped from the original (which I never
played), with newer graphics and remixed music, challenge modes and
other things. You play as a robot who finds himself on a mysterious
floating island populated by Mimigas, a race of rabbit people. An
evil doctor is kidnapping and attempting to weaponize the cute little
creatures. You decide to help them out and, in the process,
eventually leave the island to return to the surface. That's the gist
of the story, but there is a lot of underlying mythology about a past
war between the Mimigas and the robots. The background information is
revealed conversations with the NPCs and some other flavor texts, as
the fabric of the world is weaved over time. I won't recount the
entire history of Cave Story here, but I found it pretty interesting,
and made it seem that there was a lot going on beyond the island.
The game play is
heavily inspired by retro platformers. Mega Man and Metriod come to
mind; the game even plays a little sound bite when you find a life or
a missile power-up that's similar to the sound bite in Metriod. You
play through several different areas on your quest to stop the
doctor. Each area has a unique aesthetic, and you can clearly tell
them apart. There's a lot of precise jumping that needs to be done to
progress and at times the controls seem a little slippery. I was
trying to climb up a long vertical area, and trying to land and stop
on a small block, suspended in mid-air, became an exercise in
frustration. However, it wouldn't be a retro style platformer if
there wasn't moments were you wanted to snap your controller in half
and punch your screen in. That being said, I still think the controls
could have been a little tighter and more precise.
The protagonist
defends himself by shooting projectiles from a variety of weapons.
You start out with a peashooter, but eventually acquire a missile
launcher and even a sword that possesses the spirit of a dead Mimiga.
You upgrade the weapons by destroying enemies and collecting the
gold triangles that burst out of them. Each weapon can be upgraded to
level three. What makes this system unique is that when you are hit,
you lose the power ups. It's possible to upgrade your machine gun to
level three and tear through the enemies, but if you get hit enough
times it'll be downgraded to level one again. This way of upgrading
and downgrading your weapons assures that you're never too
overpowered, and the game never becomes too easy. Actually, the game
isn't really easy at all. The difficulty really ramps up around the
mid point, and the final boss took me more than a few tries to
finally conquer. The challenge makes beating the game feel so much
more satisfying.
While the controls
are a little slippery, they're mostly functional and don't adversely
effect game play. The story is pretty well written, and doesn't load
you down with exposition to get its point across. The music is great,
and the graphics capture the retro era platformer perfectly, while at
the same time looking different and interesting. However, like older
games, some of the super secret special hidden content is unlocked in
a pretty obtuse way. When I beat the game the first time, escaping
the island and leaving the mad scientist to attack the surface with a
floating death island, an achievement unlocked calling me a 'coward.'
So, instead of escaping I chose to stay, which opened up the rest of
the game. I don't really call that obtuse, because there was a save
point right before the scene. It didn't take long to see the result
of both choices. However, there is another ending that's vaguely
hinted at, a super secret good ending for 'true heroes.' I have no
shame in admitting that I looked up how to initiate the chain of
events required for the true ending, because I feel the game's clue
were not intuitive enough.
Obscure hidden
paths aside, I feel Cave Story is a wonderful game with a great level
design, graphics and soundtrack. I wholeheartedly recommend it if you
have fond memories of playing Metroid and other old school
platformers. If you didn't grow up playing those types of games, Cave
Story would also be a great foundation to build on. If you like it,
you can always go back and play the classics to see where some of the
mechanics originated.
Some Final Words
I want to return to
the subject of Street Fighter V briefly. I am very well aware of the
reason why Capcom released the game so early and slightly unfinished:
to let the competitive players get a jump start on the tournament
season. This period of time will let pro players get to grips with
the mechanics of the new entry before heading out to tournaments, but
I still can't help but feel disappointed about the lack of features.
Perhaps it's because I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge mode in the
Street Fighter IV series. That mode helped me become a better Ryu
player, much more than going into random matches.
I'm not a marketing
executive, so I wouldn't say that I know better than the people who
sit at the top of Capcom's ivory tower, but I think there's probably
a better solution. Instead of charging $60 for a game with incomplete
features, they could have had a cheaper downloadable version for the
pro players to practice with. A physical release, with the features
for more casual players, could have waited for a couple of months.
Either way, the
core game play of Street Fighter V works very well and is fun. I can
see myself sinking a lot of hours into ranked and causal matches and
sparing with the CPU in Training Mode. I'm very much looking forward
to the full release.
Until then: Buy
Cave Story. It's awesome.
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