Why is Cave Story so well received?

Am I the only one who doesn't understand why this game gets so many good reviews? The tonal whiplash, nonsensical actions needed to be taken to achieve the best ending and random difficulty spike in said ending are all major issues that not many people take offense to.

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It's supposed to be an optional, hidden, secret ending. If you looked up a guide to find out how to reach the hidden level then you should know to expect a massive difficulty spike, it's not going to catch you by surprise.

If it really bugs you so much, just pretend Sacred Grounds doesn't exist. The game is already really great even with the normal game content. The final levels are just a bonus side thing if you want a challenge

>nonsensical actions needed to be taken to achieve the best ending and random difficulty spike in said ending
I think you're not suppose to get the true ending on the first run since you are only made aware of the conditions at the end of the game. By the time you play through the game the second time, you should've gotten gud enough to beat Hell.

cause its a good fucking game

To be honest I haven't played Cave Story in a while so you may need to refresh me

But why does the doctor survive if you leave him alone? I can't remember if the game tells you but it makes no sense at all from what I can recall. Plus the fact that Quote shows no emotion from the events ocurring such as King and Toroko's deaths and him just fucking walking away from the doctor who looked like he could have just died by falling. It's like Quote is forced into being a role in the story rather than an outsider looking in, a role he'd be much better suited for. I will concede on the difficulty spike aspect, it being an ending you're supposed to learn about after the fact does make sense.

> Plus the fact that Quote shows no emotion from the events ocurring

He's LITERALLY a robot. He doesn't have emotions.

>nonsensical actions needed to be taken to achieve the best ending

That's the game's only fault. I never noticed any random difficulty spike (you must be pretty bad). Game has some cool characters, good level design, good atmosphere and good music. Controls feel good and it's pacing is good. It's a solid game with only one real flaw, far from many major issues.

What's the difference between + and the original? Is there any download link?

>Plus the fact that Quote shows no emotion from the events ocurring

Do you think your keyboard shows emotions when you punch it?

By random difficulty spikes I meant the difficulty in attempting to achieve the best ending.

Curly Braces is a robot and yet she is shown to have alot of emotion.

>his keyboard doesnt
get a load of this faggot

+ comes with "upgraded" graphics, a really poor FPS boost that fucks up the physics due to the original being locked to 50 instead of 60, two optional extra versions of the soundtrack that, while they each have a couple okay tracks, are overall inferior to the original, and a really botched translation that sucks a lot of the emotion from everything and turns Balrog into a kool-aid joke. Pixel also gets almost no money from sales of the rereleases due to Nicalis fucking him over on the publishing deal.
Just play the original and buy Kero Blaster instead.
cavestory.org/download/cave-story.php

i like all the 2d metroid games
i like la-mulana
i like iji

i dont like cavestory. why the fuck not? ive tried it 3 times and each time i only get 2 hours in at most.

You're holding the game to a different standard than what was around when it received all that praise. When it was released for free and translated to english it was the first game of it's quality developed by a single man to catch on. Now that it has a bunch of remasters / remakes it's not quite as novel, which makes it easy to try and unfairly compare it to other, newer games.

I know it's tempting to compare it to other "indie" games that, in recent memory, have tried to focus on more emotional journeys, but it wasn't a part of all that. It's more gameplay-focused with an odd, japanese approach to narrative.

Cave Story doesn't have that much exploration like most Metroidvanias, there's no really 100% map exploring and there are few collectable items.

Let me guess, Sand Zone?
I don't blame you. Sand Zone fucking sucks.

>cute story and characters that avoid pretentiousness, 2deep4u elements, social/political commentary, etc
>fun weapons
>extremely good controls and movement
>varied and challenging enemies
>great boss battles
>decent music
>great platformer design
>pixel graphics actually look good

It's just a well made freeware game, and one of the first successful indie games in the internet era. It's not 10/10 greatest game ever, but Pixel's attention to detail and craftmanship in this freeware game is more or less the defining game for the entire indie scene.

The only thing that I hate is during the best possible ending, no-one fucking mentions King and Toroko. I mean what the hell man? If you kill them off at least show some characters feeling sad about it, the way it plays out makes it look like everyone just forgets, which I think is the same thing that happened to Pixel.

I don't think that robots dwell on the past too much, they saw many people die in war, they won't just go on and cry about 2 more people dying. They moved on to a better place.

> Plus the fact that Quote shows no emotion from the events ocurring
Man, come the fuck on
You're Quote.
The point of a silent protagonist is for the player to self insert in to the story. Quote is less of a character then a vehicle. Thats the whole point. Its like you've never played a game with a silent protagonist.

Ok yeah, I admit after I wrote that it did sound pretty fucking retarded. Still, I don't still see a huge reason Quote HAD to be a silent protagonist, him being a vocal one would have worked just fine.

this. but it is a 10/10

something that I've always appreciated about cave story that nobody seems to talk about is how the architecture of each area is at least semi-realistic, there aren't platforms floating in nothing, obvious obstacle course sections, copy pasted platforming challenges