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I've beaten the game with the normal ending, and I don't really know how this game got a lot of praise other than that it's made by one person. I didn't find it very hard (and by not very hard, I mean "died less in that game than Threads of Fate" not very hard), and it's more of a 2D version of Super Mario 64, exploration-wise, than Metroid or SotN. The settings, music, and plot won't win any awards, either. The leveling system is a neat idea, but not neat enough to salvage this game beyond "mediocre." The puppy fetch quest didn't help, either.
I wonder if people who found this game hard used a keyboard, and/or if the only truly difficult parts are the optional bonus dungeons required to get the good ending.
Comments
Not many musical things go on to win awards, but Cave story's music was good for me, and that was enough for me.
Yes, the fact that it's a one-man work does probably make people more sympathetic to it, but even so, it is still has a non-simple plot with good presentation and pacing, multiple endings, a solid gameplay system that's kinda fun and innovative (even if not overwhelmingly so), a catchy soundtrack, and decent 16-bit-quality visuals. And it's not got any major bugs or flaws.
I still won't ever figure out why people call it a metroidvania. It's not a metroidvania; if anything it could be considered a "semi-metroidvania" in the style of the Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX games.
For some people, having areas you can freely roam (and return to) and getting access to more and more of them as the game goes on makes a game count as a metroidvania. Not for me; I think that the areas require significantly more interconnection and/or internal nonlinearity.
In my opinion, CS follows the MMZ/MMZX style of having areas that you can return to but are basically linear themselves. FWIW, MMZX is a bit more interconnected a bit more metroidvania-y than CS or the MMZ games.
^ Nice, a Samus avatar.
Why did you just compare a side scrolling shmup to a platformer? The only aspects in which they are similar are "You move in a 2D plane" and "You shoot stuff".