RPG Japanese. Yes please.
By Junosix

About a month ago I bought a second hand ThinkPad with a cronky install of Windows 2000 on it. Before I commenced a reload, I thought I'd have a quick go on the recently translated, nifty looking, freeware side-on RPG from Japan called Doukutsu Monogatari (Cave Story). And that alone managed to defer the reinstallation of said operating system for almost two weeks.

It’s possibly not for those who think high-resolution and detailed graphics are an index of value - this game celebrates the 8-bit look with a lovely mix of old-skool/pre-school sprites and backdrops. But that's not to say that this is simply Mega Man with a few more "IF" statements.

My first game of Cave Story was a very nice game of Cave Story and I killed lots of monsters in my first game of Cave Story.

You're an amnesiac soldier on a floating island (no, really you are - ask your mum!). Starting off underground and with a happy nod to Metroid (you'll see), very quickly you’ll obtain a gun and then find yourself outside, where it's full of lush and verdant soil and moss. Then you have your first run-in with the locals – a group of lagomorphous creatures called Mimiga, and someone's trying to force-feed them red flowers. How romantique. But not really - you discover way later on that these flowers create quite noisome were-bunnies, and that your aim is to aid these cute and fluffy things from the clutches of the evil Dr Honor Blackman or whatever.

It's actually not so soon into the game that you get your first boss fight. And it's actually a big electric toaster, full of monster. The usual way to deal with these is to rush in, square up and start unleashing death quanta. So the first time's no different – I just gatted his tits off and made him crumble like an apple. He comes back though, and you realise he's not all bad and has his own troubles in the form of a quite facetious goth fairy. And what's her name? Misery, aye.

What do we fear here?

The other monsters range from irritating blobs that bounce up and down to airborne things with semi-complex flight patterns, and I actually liked the little dragonfly things that flit about and shoot fireballs at you. They're such bastards, and also they're robotic and so I have a natural fear of them.

There's also the absolute "WOW!" moment halfway through when you realise by accident that one of your weapons, once upgraded, can be used as a rudimentary jetpack. I found it vital to reconfigure my keyboard layout though, in order to show off my handbrake/correction method. Another key moment for me was having to find five dogs and give them back to an old lady, and that's really quite nice, isn't it Jean?

The fly-by when you escape the island at the end has a lovely, floaty feel to it and makes you go “Ooh” and “Ahh” like an Amish boy in Dixons. And, and! You actually feel a bit despondent at the end, and have the same melancholic feel you get at the end of Delphine's Flashback – but then you remember, and figure out that if you'd answered a question differently earlier on you get to carry on further. So it's back to the save state you go.

Which is amazing, considering she's female.

I never once got the feeling that I wanted to finish it and get it out of the way. The controls are responsive so you never get the “I pressed itttt!” syndrome time and time again. The level design in itself is nicely varied, from small caves that inspire claustrophobia to outside vistas with sunshine and waterfalls that actually makes you feel like you're out having a picnic (with guns!).

Buy it now and become ritually addicted. Except clearly you don't have to buy it.

Download it and the English translation patch from http://agtp.romhack.net/doukutsu.html

There is also a Mac version available, and the Windows version apparently runs under Wine in Linux very well.

Get Ikachan, by the same developer from here http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA022293/FreeSoft/Ikachan.html

April 2005

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