Cave Story+

A landmark of independent game development

Cave Story's underlying reputation isn't reviewer hyperbole — it's one of the most consistently cited examples of what a single, dedicated developer can achieve. "Absolutely phenomenal Metroidvania, created entirely by one man. One of the classics and one of my personal favorite games of all time," reads a 2021 review, a sentiment echoed almost universally across this review base regardless of how reviewers ultimately rate the specific product being sold. The game follows a memory-loss protagonist through a subterranean world of rabbit-like Mimiga, robots and a memorable cast of characters, built by Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya largely alone over roughly five years and released for free in 2004. That achievement — genuinely excellent pixel art, music, writing and tightly designed action-platforming from essentially one person working outside the commercial industry — is the foundation every review in this sample, positive or negative, is ultimately responding to.

An unusually large protest vote against the publisher

What makes this specific remaster's review base distinctive is how many reviewers explicitly separate their opinion of the game from their recommendation of the product. "This is a fantastic game... however, I cannot in good conscience recommend[ it]," reads a representative 2013 review, one of dozens in this sample following an identical structure: praise for the underlying game, followed by an explicit thumbs-down aimed specifically at publisher Nicalis. "Cave Story is a game I've played since I was 12. It means a lot to me... [but] Nicalis... [s]tole from the original creators, and refused to [credit them fairly]," reads a 2020 review. A 2020 review states the pattern most directly: "Awesome game, but the original version is free AND the current publisher from whom you buy it here, Nicalis, does not compensate properly at all the original dev and artist, Pixel, who made the game all by himself." This review cannot independently verify the full financial and legal history behind these claims, and reports them here as a widely and consistently repeated characterisation from the game's own review community rather than as confirmed fact. What this review can confirm directly: Nicalis issued DMCA takedown notices against a Cave Story fangame in 2020, a specific, real instance of the publisher asserting intellectual-property control in a way that drew visible community criticism at the time, consistent with the broader pattern reviewers describe.

Years of reported technical neglect, now largely addressed

Separate from the ownership controversy, a large number of reviews spanning more than a decade describe this specific Steam version as visibly under-maintained. "For some reason, the Steam version of Cave Story+ has been left in an utterly abandoned and jank state. The frame rate feels really off," reads a 2022 review. A 2023 review reports a specific, concrete bug: "It's not playable on an ultrawide screen because the image gets totally cropped on the top and bottom." A 2020 review adds: "Full screen mode doesn't work, Achievements are broken." This review checked Nicalis's own update history directly and found a striking, recent turn: after years without major updates, a substantial "Cave Story+ Update 2026" shipped in June 2026, adding two-player co-op, official mod support and enhanced visuals — changes multiple reviewers who had been critical for years explicitly acknowledged. "UPDATE: THEY FINALLY ADDED IT!!!" reads one review's added note, and a separate review updated in April 2026 states plainly: "as of the newest beta branch... this has been updated to a newer build based on the 'enhanced' switch version. after all these years, they've finally addressed" the core technical complaints. That's a genuine, verifiable improvement worth weighing against the years of complaints that preceded it.

A recent update that fixed some things and broke another

It's worth being precise about what the June 2026 update did and didn't resolve. This review confirmed directly, via independent gaming press coverage referenced in Nicalis's own news feed, that the same update removing years of stagnation also dropped the game's native Linux version — a real regression for existing Linux players, even as it resolved long-standing frame-pacing, achievement and ultrawide-display complaints for the large majority of the audience on other platforms. That's a mixed, rather than unambiguously positive, outcome from an otherwise clearly welcome update.

Weighing the free alternative honestly

For a reader specifically weighing whether to buy this remaster at all, it's worth stating the practical alternative plainly: the original 2004 freeware version of Cave Story remains available at no cost from multiple sources, including the original developer's own site, and several reviewers recommend it directly as the more ethically comfortable way to experience the core game, accepting lower-resolution visuals and the original soundtrack in exchange. This remaster's specific value proposition — updated visuals, additional content, and now co-op and mod support since June 2026 — is real, but it's reasonable for a prospective buyer to weigh that against the freeware alternative and the reported history around this specific publisher before deciding which version to play.

Final verdict

Cave Story remains a genuine landmark of independent game development, and this review has no reservations recommending the underlying experience to any platformer or metroidvania fan who hasn't played it. What keeps this specific remaster's score below what the game alone would earn is a combination of a widely and consistently repeated community concern about publisher conduct — which this review can only partly verify directly, but reports transparently as a dominant, sustained theme — and years of documented technical neglect that a substantial June 2026 update appears to have largely, though not entirely, resolved. This is an easy recommendation for the game itself; readers uncomfortable with what's reported about its publisher should know the free original remains a legitimate alternative.