Blade Strangers (NSW, PS4, PC) Review

The final days of August will bring a whole slew of new reviews to SuperPhillip Central. We start the week off with Blade Strangers, a 2D fighter releasing later today on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC. The Switch build is the focus of this review.

Stranger Danger

Forgive me for talking about another franchise here, but there are many reasons why I like the Super Smash Bros. series. I love how simple it is to pick up and play without needing to learn and memorize myriad moves and their respective inputs, and I love how it puts characters from a slew of franchises together for one big celebration of gaming. While Blade Strangers on the Nintendo Switch (also available on the PlayStation 4 and PC) might not have as heralded or as recognizable a roster as what you'll find in Nintendo's all-star franchise (and that's decidedly an understatement), what the game does have is an appealing and accessible fighting system that is engaging to use and a game in general that is engrossing to play.

Right away, I'd like to dive right in how accessible Blade Strangers is as a 2D fighter. The game uses the right Joy-Con's four face buttons, each corresponding with a different type of attack: from your typical lights and heavies, to something more skill-centric. As opposed to more technical fighters out there that demand a lot of "finger-fu" from players, Blade Strangers is a lot easier to pull off special moves and create killer combos while still delivering a good share of depth to combat. Whereas a series like Street Fighter utilizes a lot of half-circle, quarter-circle, and full-circle analog inputs that gives my thumb blisters just thinking about performing them, Blade Strangers merely uses one of the four face buttons in conjunction with a direction to pull off its characters' wide range of moves. Not only does this serve as a great way to provide accessibility to all fighting game skill levels (while again, maintaining a sense of depth in fights), but it also makes it so Blade Strangers is one of the few 2D fighters on the Nintendo Switch that isn't burdened by the Joy-Con's lack of a proper D-Pad.

Like each characters' gauge, this fight is certainly heating up.

You have two gauges to you in Blade Strangers, and one is obviously health. The other is a gauge that heats up upon taking damage as well as pulling off successful attacks. When it fills up, you can perform an Ultra Attack by pressing the right shoulder button. This is a devastating maneuver that can deal heavy damage to your opponent. Though, like any other attack in Blade Strangers, this can be blocked for small chip damage. If you opt to power up your gauge even more, you can use a stronger Ultra Attack by double-tapping the shoulder button, unleashing a varied, more powerful offensive strike to your (hopefully) unwitting foe.

Not the most gentlemanly thing to do, flinging a friend to the ground, but Cave Story's Quote is in a battle here!

Nevertheless, your gauge also helps you if you're on the receiving end of the butt kicking. When a character's health gauge enters yellow, they're ready to heat up, meaning that they can enter what is essentially a "last resort: state where they're much stronger and aren't as phased by attacks for as long as their Ultra Attack gauge still has some juice in it. What can result from this is some truly exciting come-from-behind wins, snatching victory from the disturbingly close jaws of defeat.

Coming fully featured with modes, Blade Strangers has a fair amount of content to enjoy. The main mode of focus for solo players is that of the Story mode, which has the same general, overarching story being told with each character's campaign. The only real differences between which fighter you play as are what characters your fighter battles and what dialog is spoken. Regardless of who you choose to play as, the structure of seven fights is always the same as is outcome of the story for the first batch of characters available to you in Story mode. You unlock the other handful of fighters (the more indie guest stars like Shovel Knight and Azure Striker Gunvolt's Gunvolt) in Story mode by completing the mode as multiple characters.

Do you think Shovel Knight battles for fun? No! He does it for shovelry!

No worries, however, as when it concerns every other mode of Blade Strangers, every character is available to you to play as soon as you turn on the game. That goes for the bog-standard fighting game modes like Arcade, Versus, Survival, Tutorial, and the Mission mode that tasks you with completing combos for each character, as a means to up your way of roughing up your opponent more impressively.

Each mode offers something for everyone, and I found myself quite invested in playing through each. Sure, playing through Story, Arcade, and Survival with each of the game's 14 characters to acquire relatively mundane unlockables--such as alternate character colors, portraits, and profile titles--might seem tedious (more so in the fact that I wouldn't have known I was actually unlocking stuff for completing these modes if I hadn't ever been observant to my Profile page), but it presents some longevity nevertheless.

Successfully got hit by the attack--hook, line, and sinker.

What brings even further longevity and replay value for Blade Strangers in the long term is something every fighter worth its weight in knockouts better have in 2018, and that's decent online play. I was able to test out the Switch version in a private, password-entry-only online match in Casual mode, where one's league rank isn't affected. Of the four online matches I played with an acquaintance, all four ran relatively well with no noticeable input delay. Hopefully that stays the course when Blade Strangers officially releases this morning. I'll be sure to update this review if I find any glaring problems, then.

The battle of the blondes begins in Blade Strangers.

While Blade Strangers may be a crossover game, it certainly doesn't have the gravitas of a Super Smash Bros., but then again, what does? My point here is that Blade Strangers offers an extremely niche variety of characters from even more niche games. For fans of titles like Code of Princess, Cave Story, Azure Striker Gunvolt, The Binding of Isaac, and Shovel Knight (okay, maybe that one isn't TOO terribly niche), you will feel well at home. For everyone else, you might be left with a clueless expression on your face as to who the heck these characters are. That said, the characters in general have varied enough tactics and move sets that you need not recognize every or even one of the characters to enjoy yourself with Blade Strangers. It sure doesn't hurt to recognize some of them, of course.

Some might call it a "who's who" of guest characters. Some might just ask, "Who!?"

When one thinks of the biggest crossovers in gaming history, one might think of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, and to a lesser extent, one might also conjure up the image of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. I mean, Mario and Sonic? Ryu and Cloud Strife? Kratos and Nathan Drake? Those are big names and worlds colliding. The characters of Cave Story and Code of Princess colliding? Well... perhaps not so much.

That notwithstanding, that doesn't make the crossover 2D fighter Blade Strangers any less of a satisfying and riveting game. With accessible (and more importantly Switch controls that work well for a 2D fighter), relatively pleasant visuals (a little over-pixelated with regards to the fighters), competent online play, a multitude of modes, and plenty of characters to learn and attempt to master, Blade Strangers delivers a fighting game that may not do much to distinguish itself from the big boys in the genre, but it doesn't screw up its attempt in trying.

[SPC Says: B] 

Review copy provided by Nicalis.

Ittle Dew 2+ (NSW) Review

Yesterday evening saw a look at a Legend of Zelda-like adventure with Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King. Moving from sprites to polygons, Ittle Dew 2+ is also a Nintendo Switch game, this time a retail release, that sports a similar overhead perspective while offering 3D models for characters and environments. Here's SuperPhillip Central's review.

"Dew" not miss out on this action-adventure delight.

I adored Ittle Dew 2 when it originally released on the PlayStation 4 in digital form. The game's developer had plans to see if it could work on the Wii U, where no doubt a Legend of Zelda-loving audience would eat such a game up, but alas, the hardware just couldn't muster it. However, a year and some change later, the developer has the game ported to the Nintendo Switch, and with their publishing partner Nicalis, an enhanced version of Ittle Dew 2 sees a retail release in addition to a digital Nintendo eShop one. It's time to depart on a new adventure, dear readers!

Adventurers Ittle and her winged dog Tippsie travel along the high seas on a raft, when all of a sudden it crashes upon an uncharted island. Meeting the island caretaker, the two are told to head back to wherever they came from, but before this is done, Ittle notices a map that falls out of the caretaker's pocket. It reveals the location of eight dungeons around the island where the raft pieces are located. Not heeding the caretaker's words, the pair of adventurers heads off to explore their temporary island residence, searching the countryside for secrets, treasure, caves, and dungeons to enjoy themselves in. Ittle Dew 2+'s story is quite meta in its dialog and story, oftentimes poking fun at concepts seen in games like The Legend of Zelda and the many other titles that have been inspired by Nintendo's historic gaming franchise. It makes for some hilarious, tongue-in-cheek dialog and a story that I truly appreciated. It's nice to not have a super serious story for once for a game like this.

Explore the island well, Ittle; there are secrets all over the place.

The first dungeon is marked on the map for players at a nearby location. However, there's no rule that says you have to go there right away or that you have to enter that dungeon first. Of the eight dungeons in Ittle Dew 2+, only the eighth requires you to reach it with all of the previous seven raft pieces. Every other dungeon is free to enter at your leisure. Creating your own order of dungeons has a positive and a negative. For a positive, when you acquire a later dungeon's item and go to an earlier dungeon, you have opportunities for shortcuts to make your trip through it much easier. However, entering dungeons out of order also means that you have a longer distance to travel with more difficult enemies inside and outside a dungeon meant for you to tackle later. The puzzles inside are more complicated as well.

Nonetheless, it's not just dungeons that are open for exploration. Littered and sprinkled around the island are caves, and many of these require a trick to open. Thankfully, they can all be opened with just Ittle's starting weapon, a stick. Some are right out in the open, while others may require a hint from one of the many NPCs occupying the island. With the Nintendo Switch's screenshot functionality, there's no more need to write down these hints or remember them for later. Just hit the screenshot button, and you've got a hint saved in your screenshot folder via the Switch home menu.

The caves all have some kind of treasure inside to make finding cave worthwhile. Some house crayons that add a quarter of health to Ittle's row of hearts, some have lockpicks to open locked dungeon doors without the need for a key, some have secret shards that unlock optional, demanding dungeons, while some special caves have magical doors that transport Ittle to a completely uncharted area of the island, usually requiring a lot of skill to complete them and acquire the special treasure inside at the end.

The stick was cute, but now we're getting somewhere with Ittle's sword!

Ittle comes across a great amount of items within her and Tippsie's adventure. Rather than just ape the items from Ittle Dew 2+'s inspiration, The Legend of Zelda, the game instead comes up with four original items that each have a number of uses. The most basic is Ittle's stick, used as a sword. While it's not much to look at at the beginning of the game, she can level it up (e.g. making the stick turn into a sword at level 2 and then a fireball-shooting mace at level 3) by acquiring the upgrades in treasure chests. Other items mapped to each face button of the Switch controller include a Magic Rod that can hit things from across the screen, Dynamite to blow certain objects up, and an Ice Ring that creates frozen blocks that slide along the ground when pushed. All of these items can work together to solve more particularly taxing puzzles within Ittle Dew 2+.

For instance, in a room where Ittle must activate a northeastern crystal to open a door, if the crystal is guarded by spikes with no means to hit it up close, perhaps spawning an ice block, cutting it in half so the lower right diagonal half of it is gone, and then pushing it diagonally northwest into a corner might start something good. Then, at the bottom left corner of the screen, Ittle can use her rod to shoot a blast of energy out that deflects off the diagonal ice block at an angle and hits the crystal, opening the door. The fun about Ittle Dew 2+ and its puzzles is that there are usually two or more methods of solving them through smart item utilization. Having the player limited to just four items like Ittle Dew 2+ has doesn't mean that there's a limited amount of actions you can do with them. This makes the design on display with Ittle Dew 2+ so brilliant in this regard.

Push blocks like this from afar with the help of the Magic Rod.

And it doesn't end there with the clever design of Ittle Dew 2+ either. Beyond the meta terminology and dialog of the game, beyond the abundance of compelling exploration to be found throughout the world map, beyond going to dungeons in any order you want, and beyond the smart puzzle design with multiple means to solve them, there is an item system in place that makes it so depending on what items you already have in your possession, the special treasures in dungeons and in the special secret caves change to make it so you're not acquiring them horribly out of order. That's to say that you'll never get a level 3 batch of Dynamite before you get a level 2 batch of Dynamite. Even things like chains that allow Ittle's stick and later mace to have an extended reach or bandannas that allow Ittle more split seconds of invincibility when rolling are acquired in a clear order. With a game with as much freedom as Ittle Dew 2+ from such a smaller developer than Nintendo, it's amazing what Ludosity accomplished here with this game.

Retreat won't look good on an adventurer's resume, but neither would dying to the first enemy in Pepperpain Prairie that Ittle encounters!

If there's anything I have to object to with Ittle Dew 2+ is that while playing it on the Nintendo Switch Joycon controller, I had to switch between using the analog stick and the D-Pad. I needed the analog stick for general movement, but the D-Pad offered better aiming with items and more precise walking, especially on tile-wide pathways over bottomless pits. The Switch Joycon analog stick just isn't precise enough for delicate movements. I fell off enough twisty, turn-filled, narrow platforms to last me a winged dog's lifetime.

New to Ittle Dew 2+ is a collection of five dungeons found in the Dream World, a place Ittle and Tippsie are taken to once they nap in a sleeping bag within the town. The Dream World can be entered at any time, no matter if you have all of the items in the game or not, as these Dream World dungeons supply you with all you need to complete a specific dungeon. These are primarily puzzle-driven dungeons that are the hardest within the game to wrap one's brain around and solve. The rewards for solving these dungeons aren't anything important to the main quest. Instead, they're merely collectible cards with information on the various foes Ittle encounters within the world of Ittle Dew 2+.

The world of Ittle Dew 2+ is quite beautiful to look at. The 3D character models and environments are colorful and hold a lovely cel-shaded style, making everything pop out like a fairy tale world. The character designs are creative, but I really want to get into the environmental design for a second. It's bursting with creativity, especially the dungeons. From pillow forts, to submerged basements filled with underwater foes, to mines that grow and produce potassium, these places are mighty creative and far more innovative than "Oh, the fire dungeon. Oh, the water dungeon." Each dungeon has a take on a modern-day concept like a basement or house that makes for some clever dungeon concoctions.

Don't worry -- like these fire-spewing enemies, Ittle has brought the heat to this dungeon, too.

Last but not least, the music of Ittle Dew 2+ is fantastic. It offers live instruments in a wide variety of genres, moods, themes, and more. There aren't too many indie games that I absolutely love listening to outside of my actual play-through, but Ittle Dew 2+ was definitely one of them. High praise coming from a picky person like myself.

Ittle Dew 2+ takes a familiar formula with The Legend of Zelda and goes wild with it, offering an abundance of humor, meta commentary, and just phenomenal gameplay and design to back it all up. This isn't a Yooka-Laylee situation where the developers made fun of games they were inspired by, yet committed some of the same sins they poked fun at. (That said, I adored Yooka-Laylee, but that was an obvious issue with the game.) While some movement issues and repeated boss battles bring the overall experience down, the 12 original, well-designed dungeons included within the game, over 50 individual caves to find and plunder, and five all-new, particularly challenging dungeons set in the Dream World for this special bonus edition of Ittle Dew 2, makes for a game that is highly recommended for any action-adventure fan. You should definitely do the Dew.

[SPC Says: B+]

Ittle Dew 2 (PS4, XB1, PC) Review

We start the week with a brand-new review. This time, we're taking a look at Ittle Dew 2 from Ludosity, which just launched this past week. The PlayStation 4 version is the one I played for this review, but the experience should be similar across all platforms. Here's the SuperPhillip Central review.

Thank goodness for shipwrecks!

The Legend of Zelda is one of my favorite video game franchises of all time. It's such a historic and progressive series that has such a delightful formula that is rather tough to nail down. It's any wonder why many developers don't even try. However, we've seen a rise in the Zelda-like thanks to various indies. One such indie, Ludosity, already has a Zelda-like quest under its belt with Ittle Dew. Now, the sequel has launched with a 3D makeover, offering an adventure that will make you laugh as much as it makes you ponder how to solve that particularly daunting next puzzle!

Marooned yet again on an island, the duo of heroes, Ittle, a strong-willed girl always ready for an adventure, and her companion, a cheeky fox-like creature named Tippsie, find themselves in uncharted territory once more. There mission is already set in stone... er... I guess wood would be a better word to use, as the two need to find eight wooden raft pieces to craft an escape from the mysterious and hazard-filled island they find themselves on.

We wouldn't have a game if that wasn't the case!

The humor is abundantly apparent within the first few minutes of Ittle Dew 2. Asking Ittle if simply cutting down a tree would be smarter in order to build a raft, Ittle simply states matter-of-factly that "rafts don't grow on trees." The constant winking, lampshading, and mocking of video game and action-adventure game tropes remains from the original Ittle Dew, and it's still as funny and chuckle-worthy as ever.

The adventure is as awesome as ever, too. Ittle Dew 2 challenges you with moving Ittle through an open overworld map connected by zones that house different locales, enemies, obstacles, and challenges. The eight raft pieces are conveniently placed in dungeons spread around the world map. A great part of Ittle Dew 2 is that you need no tackle these dungeons in any order, save for the final one that unlocks once the previous seven raft pieces have been collected. Doing this makes it so multiple playthroughs need not give you the same experience. You can shake and vary things up, which makes repeated plays of Ittle Dew 2 feel vastly different from each other.

Each zone in Ittle Dew 2 feels like its own special place.

Beating dungeons out of order isn't necessarily too big of an issue. Sure, enemies attack stronger and harder if you don't have upgraded weapons and defensive equipment, but you usually can strong-arm your way through the dungeons thanks to the generous checkpoint system and dungeon design. Losing all of Ittle's hearts in a dungeon takes you back to the beginning of the dungeon. However, because the design of dungeons never fails to have it where you're able to open up shortcuts and portals that allow quicker access to deeper parts of said dungeons.

Dungeons house the most amount of puzzles within Ittle Dew 2, and from the beginning dungeons, the puzzles are relatively elementary affairs to complete. Push a block on this switch, step on the other switch to open the door, boom! As you progress in the game and reach later dungeons (or, as I mentioned, if you just go out of order), you'll find that you'll discover truly brain-busting puzzles. What puzzles you faced earlier in your adventure that took no more than ten seconds to figure our the solution to will feature puzzles later in Ittle Dew 2 that can take you ten minutes just to wrap your head around the concept of what the developers want you to do. They're never impossible to solve or have unfair solutions. You'll never feel like you were cheated or mislead. Instead, if you think about how to use four main items you're eventually equipped with, each mapped to one face button, and how to combine their uses to solve puzzles, you'll figure out the solutions.

Stepping on four buttons in order isn't usually too taxing a challenge,
but it is when you've got enemies in your way.

The four weapons that Ittle comes across in the various dungeons of Ittle Dew 2 can also be found in special portals that take you to uncharted destinations not even on the world map. These portals usually house combat or movement challenges in order to acquire a treasure of some type. Many times you'll find one of the four weapons of the game, but if you already have the original, whether you found it in a dungeon or in a portal area first, you'll gain an upgraded version of that weapon. Both weapons as well as special defensive equipment like headbands can be upgraded up to three times through finding them in dungeons or in the wild. Thus, making the process of going out of the recommended order of dungeons much easier to accomplish.

These four weapons in Ittle Dew 2 come in the form of a standard stick that can eventually launch fireballs from its tip regardless of Ittle's health. There's also a wand that shoots balls of magic that can interact with faraway objects and trigger mechanisms like crystals that open doors in dungeons. Then there's dynamite which serves as Ittle Dew 2's version of The Legend of Zelda's generic bombs. Finally, there's an ice ring that can freeze enemies and create one ice block that can be slid across the ground. This is great for summoning an ice block to hold down a button while Ittle stands on the other, successfully unlocking a door in the process.

I don't know what is more dangerous to Ittle here-- the skeletons or the bitter cold!

Ittle Dew 2's puzzles don't just hang out in the eight dungeons of the game. No, the entire world map is littered in the greatest sense of the word with secret caverns and hidden areas. Some are as simple to access as striking a peculiar object or section of wall while others require some deeper thought. Whether it's standing still by a barrel for a few seconds to reveal a hole, hitting a series of pillars in a certain order, or escorting a ghostly spirit to its resting place, there are many clever solutions to uncovering caves. Thankfully, a lot of these secrets have NPCs within the world that don't mind sparing a hint towards them. Additionally, many of the secret caves can become marked on your map by finding special scrolls that reveal some of the caverns' locations. These secret areas are worth investigating, too, as many house the aforementioned portals leading to helpful treasure, to health-boosting Crayon Boxes, and even special shards that when many have been collected, open up three of hidden dungeons across the world map.

Most caves house a short but sweet puzzle to solve to make you really earn your reward.

These hidden dungeons reward you with Forbidden Keys upon clearing them. You also get the fourth and final key through beating the final boss of the game. The four Forbidden Keys can then be used to open up the door to the ultimate dungeon, optional, yes, but very worthwhile. It's full of the hardest enemies, most ingenious puzzles, and greatest dangers, all concluding with a seriously challenging boss.

To see everything within Ittle Dew 2 took me about ten hours of playtime. This includes getting all ten trophies (again, I played the PS4 version), maxing out Ittle's health by finding all of the Crayon Boxes, upgrading all possible equipment to max, beating all eight regular dungeons and the four optional ones, and reaching the end of the game. I can very much see myself replaying Ittle Dew 2, despite having done everything even trophy-wise because it was such a rewarding experience, especially as a big-time Zelda fan.

Ittle Dew 2 isn't without its faults, however. The frame-rate did struggle in more action-intense areas, particularly some boss battles, which cost me precious health when trying to avoid their attacks. The bosses themselves are recycled throughout the main dungeons, only differing in what attacks they add each time. So be prepared to see the same three bosses in the initial seven dungeons multiple times. Even though the developers lampshade this with dialogue even making fun of things like "development costs" as to why the same bosses are being battled, which is very funny, but at the same time, it's still not optimal. In addition to these issues, there is the small one of doorways in dungeons and indoor areas being a bit too easy to be hit back into. It sucks when you're trying to take down an enemy that takes a fair amount of time to beat and it knocks you back into a door, causing you to leave the room. When you return, the enemy obviously has its health back.

Then there's the biggest problem: The price point. Generally I equate massive games with a $20 price point, which something like Ittle Dew 2 really isn't. When you can get a game like Dead Rising on PS4 or Xbox One, which is a much larger game for the same price, it can be hard to recommend Ittle Dew 2 at its current price. However, if you really dig quality Zelda-like experiences, I believe you won't feel TOO much sticker shock with the price.

Hmm. Don't I recognize you from somewhere? Why, yes, that OTHER dungeon. My mistake!

Despite these issue minor and a little more major, Ittle Dew 2 is a satisfying adventure. Finding hidden areas and dungeons, not knowing what hazards, puzzles, and treasures await, makes for a very fulfilling quest. Solving particularly challenging puzzles after taking minutes to comprehend what exactly it is the designers had in mind for you to do is especially gratifying and feels great. Ittle Dew 2 is a worthy adventure that uses its inspiration from Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series wonderfully, packing in its own brand of self-referential humor to make it a delightful game from start to finish, and for repeated plays.

[SPC Says: B+]

Review code provided by Ludosity.

Better Late Than Never Reviews: Cave Story 3D (3DS) Review

Cave Story is a wonderful indie game that released in 2004 on PC. That version was and still is free, so how does one explain recreating the graphics of the game into polygon form and charging $40 for the new creation, Cave Story 3D? Let's see if we can't find out with this Better Late Than Never review.

Should You Cave In and Buy This Game?

Released a decade ago on PC, Cave Story is a game that many indie developers owe a lot to. Its developer showed that with enough skill and drive anyone can create a deep, compelling, worthwhile game. Six years later in 2010, Cave Story was ported to both Nintendo's current platforms in digital form on WiiWare and DSiWare. While the original PC release was freeware, these ported version held a double digit price tag. A year later and the first retail release of Cave Story ended up on the Nintendo 3DS. This version, Cave Story 3D, is the one we're focusing on today, a game that at launch carried a $40 price tag. With multiple cheaper alternatives for those with a hankering for Cave Story, is this 3DS remake worth it?

The story in Cave Story 3D revolves around an amnesiac who awakens inside of a cavernous complex. Wandering through this cave, the main character eventually meets up with rabbit-like residents who claim that a sinister man simply known as the Doctor is plotting to coerce the cave's residents into serving as his army to take over the world. While the tale certainly has a wide variety of somewhat intriguing characters, I found myself not becoming attached to any of them. I quickly forgot their names, which meant that if another character told me that an item I needed was held by *insert name here*, I'd either have to aimlessly wander around the game's world or consult a guide (an absolute last resort, mind you) to find them.

One big issue I have with how many events in Cave Story 3D progress is that are an abundant number of tedious fetch quests. It seems in each new area of the cave you enter, there is an incessant amount of backtracking just to fetch this, find that, bring this back to that character, etc. It just seems like unnecessary padding, and quite frankly, it's just not that much fun.

Now, while that may seem like a sour way to introduce my thoughts about Cave Story 3D, there's a lot to love about the game. Let's start with how the game plays. Cave Story was based of the creator's love of franchises like Metroid, and Cave Story is loosely modeled on that Nintendo classic's structure. While you don't gain as many new abilities to access new areas, various transporters open the way to totally different sections of the game as the story progresses. Following the Metroid structure, there are multiple hidden heart containers that bestow increased health to our hero (he can now reach 100 health as his max), as well as plenty of boss battles that can pop up when you least expect them, usually foreshadowed by a save point in the room before it. These break up the exploration of Cave Story 3D rather well.

Cave Story 3D's unnamed protagonist will have to deal with plenty of challenges, both platforming and combat-related. For combat, he comes across new weapons, such as a machine gun, missiles, a blaster that sprays out bubbles, a flamethrower, among others. Defeating enemies with these weapons results in them dropping health, missile ammo, or yellow triangular shapes. These yellow triangles allow your currently equipped weapon to gain experience. Gain enough experience with a weapon and it levels up, giving it greater firepower and capabilities. As easy as it is to level up a given weapon to its maximum, it's also just as easy to lose a level, performed by taking enough damage by either enemies or cave hazards.

Depending on whether or not you satisfy certain conditions within Cave Story 3D (some more obvious than others), you will either get a normal ending after facing off against the supposed last boss, or the special ending, which has you entering a super secret level that is full of deathtraps and other obstacles. It is without a doubt the hardest challenge that Cave Story 3D will throw at you, but the satisfaction of completing it is quite high.

Cave Story veterans and longtime fans know that the original freeware version paid homage to classic games with its graphical style. Cave Story 3D offers an entirely updated look, full of polygons, more interesting backgrounds, and a highly detailed world. It doesn't just linger on the plane our hero runs, jumps, and shoots on. No, it permeates into the background and foreground, creating a substantially more immersive world than its predecessors. Of course, there are some drawbacks to the new 3D graphics. For one, being in a cave and all, one would expect it to be dark. Well, in this 3DS remake, it is certainly dark in many areas, perhaps too dark, as the color palette of Cave Story 3D is less than bright and cheery. This makes knowing where you can and can't jump a little difficult in some places. However, the lower screen map does alleviate some of this trouble.

Also updated in this version of Cave Story is the music. The updated themes sound great, but to those who have known the 8-bit sounds of past Cave Story iterations might find it hard to get accustomed to, and there is no way to play the game with the classic soundtrack.

Cave Story 3D is a game that when it launched, it cost $40. The asking price now is higher, even for copies that aren't even new. This makes recommending Cave Story 3D a tough proposition, especially since now there's a downloadable version with the classic sprites, visuals, and music available on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. If you must have a physical copy of Cave Story, then you probably already have this title in your collection from when it released. If not and you deem the minor additions of content and all-new polygonal graphical style to be worth the cost, then prepare to pay a fine penny for this game. I don't think it's worth it, but then I've never been one to cave in on costly purchases.

[SPC Says: 7.0/10]