Wow 11,111 views. And within the first year! I just want to take this time to thank every single one of you for being a part of it. Even though I have only been here for about 3,000 of them I have watched TAGJ blossom into a beautiful gaming review flower…uh…anyway I just want to thank Eden and Origin for letting me become a part of the team.

This truly is an amazing landmark that needs to be celebrated in such a way that will be remembered for all eternity. As I am still new to this I’m going to do what I can, but it is in no way on the same scale as what Eden or Origin are up to. For the 11,111 view celebration I have taken it upon myself to write a review about one of the most popular indie games. This game pretty much has become the definition of an indie game. The game is Cave Story. And as I said in my first review I plan to do every review with something unique that makes it more than just reading, it make is an adventure. So for this time around I think it would only be fitting for this review to have a soundtrack! I seem to write novels instead of reviews, and I will hold true to this, so this will be quite an investment of time, but well worth it! If you are ready to begin hit play! Just leave it running the whole time and it should be good to go!

Alright first off let me say one thing; there may be some spoilers in this review. It’s hard to review a game which is focused on story without revealing…the story. I’ll keep most of it quiet, and most of the stuff I say won’t even really be spoiling anything. It all depends on how you look at it. Anything I feel is  too revealing I will be sure to put in some sort of spoiler alert thing. Like this:

So there you go, whenever you see one of those just don’t click it if you don’t want to know. It’s ok to be impressed. Alright now that that’s out of the way we can go on.

In Cave Story not much is known about the story from the beginning. It is one of those kind of games where the story slowly unravels as you progress, slowly figuring out where you are and why you’re there. That being said most of the story is revealed before the first “boss” fight so I won’t feel like I’m defeating the purpose of playing the game. At first you are assaulted by story which won’t make any sense till later, then you are dropped smack into the game without a clue on what to do. Though this game is very simple to learn and fun to master. Z does your jumping, X does nothing until you steal a gun from a sleeping man. Don’t worry, you never see him again. Unless you want to for whatever reason…. So after escaping the first cave you find yourself in a small village which turns out to be practically vacant except for four remaining Mimigas, the native residents of the world. I’ll refer to this world you are in as the island. Turns out humans have come to the island and one called the Doctor is abducting  Mimigas and so now only six remain; King, the leader of the village, Jack, King’s number two, Toroko, the sweet and the brave,  Mahin, who never stops eating, Kanpachi, he likes to fish, and Sandaime, the owner of the farm. Oh and there’s Sue, but she doesn’t really count. So the Doctor has decided to take Sue so he sends his minion Misery ( sorceress who has a fondness for bubbles) to go fetch Sue. Misery has a bodyguard, lunchbox, thing Balrog who does all the dirty work. Well it seems Sue is missing, from the assault of story when starting the game, and so after a quick tussle with Balrog they end up taking Toroko instead. So thus begins your adventure to rescue Toroko and find Sue. Oh yeah, and maybe help the other villagers out too. And that’s all I’m going to tell  you guys about the story, if you want more, play it. After you finish reading of course. Hmmm…I went through all that without a spoiler…well there’s still time.

What’s that? You don’t like story? Well have no fear there is plenty to be found in the gameplay alone. This is a well made platformer which involves complex puzzles, and all with little to no back-tracking. You can collect Heart Containers….Life Capsules to increase your health and you collect pieces of the Triforce…Force Gems…Power Crystals to increase the level of your current gun up to level three, each level increases the power and epicness of the gun.

There are numerous items and guns to collect:

Each gun is unique in not only with the type of fire, but also the playstyle changes depending on the gun. On might be strong but limited, another might be “teh suck” until level three while others can be used defensively. Each one makes you think how to use it and adds a whole new way of playing every time you get one. And not just guns, but there are many items in the game, some of them more useful than others.

When you get hurt, you loose some of your Power Crystals so if your not careful you can level down your gun and most of the time it’s when you need it most. So it has a double negative for getting hit. Simple solution though, don’t get hit. As I said earlier there is hardly any back tracking and there are many “levels” for an Indie game. This is a really complex game for something that is free. It might just be me but my first time playing through I thought at the credits, “Now that was a fun game. Oh cool, the credits show you all the characters from the game. Wait a minute…who is that…where was she… holy, how many people did I miss?” Turns out I missed out on an ending and a whole gun! So working on my second play-through…yeah…I’ll be working on it for a while…but I digress. Turns out there is pretty much a whole ‘nother story along side the main one that is only hinted at unless you do certain things.

The graphics are simplistic, yet effective, and everything runs smoothly. As far as my playthroughs go, I found no bugs or glitches. Overall this is an amazing game which I will continue to try and beat (for the second time). Solid gameplay, interactive story, secrets, compelling story, lore, great music, and an entire sub culture based upon it with mods, new games and everything. So if you have a good 10 hours or so then play this game. Play it even if you don’t have the time.You can get it here. There should be instructions on what to do, if not let me know in the comments and I’ll help you out. It’s also headed to WiiWare on March 22, 2010, although if you’re reading this you can just get it for free. I must admit that I’ll probably buy it if I have leftover points when I buy my Wii for the release of Monster Hunter Tri. Oh yeah, did I mention I will be covering every inch of Monster Hunter Tri when it comes out on April 20, 2010. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did.

Well it’s been an honor bringing this to you for our 11,111 view spectacular commemoration spectacle celebration. Look forward to great things coming soon. I hope to see you all at our 111,111 celebration! Actually I hope to see you this Saturday for my second episode of Indiesplosion!