Cave Story+

Cave Story+ is the console incarnation of one of the most important independent games ever made, a project that a single author developed over several years in his spare time and released for free in 2004. The game tells the story of a memoryless robot who wakes up in the caves of a floating island inhabited by the peaceful Mimigas, gradually uncovering why the entire island is in danger. The storytelling is surprisingly elaborate, with side characters the player will remember, and several endings, the best of which requires meeting non-obvious conditions and skipping one seemingly tempting item.

Gameplay-wise it blends platforming with shooting in the spirit of classics like Metroid or Blaster Master. Weapons level up by collecting energy triangles, but getting hit costs the character her progress, which pushes the player to play cleanly. The arsenal is varied, and some weapons change how the character moves, such as a rocket launcher that lets her launch herself upward with her own explosion. The final stretches rank among the harder parts of the game and also offer optional tough levels for those who want to see the game truly through to the end.

The Plus version adds improved graphics, new modes and the option to switch back to the original look and original music, which matters a great deal to longtime fans. On Switch the game runs perfectly smoothly, supports two-player play, and handheld mode suits it well thanks to short stretches between saves. The chiptune soundtrack, which the author also composed himself, ranks among the most memorable in all of independent gaming and can shift within a single hour from a carefree melody to a thoroughly oppressive theme. The game's influence is hard to overstate, since it showed that a single individual could create a title comparable to professional production, opening the way for an entire wave of later independent projects. Today it still plays excellently and belongs on the genre's required reading list.