Cave Story PSP.

Well, this game truly is a gem. It's a testament to what independent developers can do, in fact, this game was made by one Japanese fella for the grand total of... Nothing! This wonderful game is Homebrew!

I'm not going to get into the story surrounding this game, there's tonnes of information about it online and it makes for a good read actually. What I will talk about, however, is the quality.

To start with, the graphics are beautifully 8-bit. Yes, it started life as a PC game and that does mean that technically, it could've had much 'better' visuals. But after you've played a little bit, you'll realize that the graphics suit the game very well indeed.

Then there's the music, again, delivered in an 8-bit style-ee, complimenting the visuals very well. Every track is spot-on, adding a lovely atmosphere to the adventure. The music is easily good enough to listen to without playing the game, I may upload some of it, it's really that good.

Another aspect I like in a video game is the story, I do enjoy being spun a good yarn and Cave Story has a lovely one. It isn't the most compelling of anecdotes, but it has everything you could want. The protagonist, (Quote), is a loveable machine of death, there's plot twists, a love story, lots of bosses and an evil Doctor calling the shots. Plus, there's 3 different endings!

Playing this game is hugely pleasurable too, not just because of graphics, music and story, but the overall design is just right. Everything from the level layout, to how high you can jump is flawless. The difficulty curve is nice, starting out at, 'quite difficult', and finishing up at 'so frustrating you'll nearly be pulling your hair out'. All the while keeping a 'just one-more-go' level of addictiveness.

There's so much to this game, It's a real genre-blurrer of the highest order. Part Platformer, part Shoot-em-up, part RPG. Playing this masterpiece is the only way to fully understand what I'm talking about. It is available for PC, under the original Japanese title, Doukutsu Monogatari, for which there is a translation available at Romhacking.net, but that is easy to find. Here I'm going to focus on the PSP port and also include a couple of mods that have been done.

I will add more information about these mods as soon as I find the website I initially got them from. I'd like to credit the original author, y'see. But in the mean time, enjoy them. All of these are in PSP EBOOT format so Place them in the /PSP/GAME/ folder of your modified PSP's Memory Stick.

Cave Story PSP RC1. - The original game, translated for Japanese to English. 

Cave Story - 4 Endings Mod. - Identical to the original Cave Story, just with an extra ending. Very strict criteria must be met in order to find the 4th ending.

Cave Story - Boss Rush. - Boss Rush mode. A mod which takes out all the levels so you get to fight all the bosses in the game, one after another. More fun than it sounds.

Cave Story - Julian's King. - A full overhaul of the levels and story. It's slightly more difficult than the original, but is still a lot of fun to play.

Cave Story - A Lost Land. - Another full overhaul of the story and levels which adds another side to the story.

I have some more too, so this post will be updated to include them at some point. However, there's a lot of fun to be had from the stuff I've already posted. :-)