Cave Story

Cave Story

Cave Story has had a myriad of ports and re-releases over the years as the creator handed the source code to many people back in the mid to late 2000s before being bought by Nicalis who released Cave Story+ on multiple platforms.

The best way to play Cave Story is split between Cave Story: Tweaked (a fork of the Cave Story decomp CSE2 with various QoL), doukutsu-rs (a faithful rewrite of the engine in Rust), and Cave Story+ with the Aeon Genesis Translation Patch (AGTP).

	Cave Story: Tweaked	doukutsu-rs	Cave Story+
Cost	✔ Free	✔ Free	– $14.99
FPS	✔ 50/60fps toggle	✔ 50/60tps toggle with motion interpolation for higher FPS	✔ 50/60fps toggle
Graphics	– Original and fanmade 2xRes included	– Original and New support (must supply assets)	– Original and New included
Resolution	✔ Multiple 16:9 sizes	✔ Fully Dynamic	✔ Multiple 16:9 sizes
Lighting Engine	✔ Original	✔ Original + doukutsu-rs Custom Lighting Engine	✔ Original + CS+ Custom Lighting Engine
Content	– Base game	✔ Extra Challenges*	✔ Extra Challenges
Soundtrack	✔ Original + support for Extras	✔ Original + support for Extras	✔ Original + Extras
Translation	✔ AGTP translation	– User must provide assets	✘ Nicalis translation
Patches	✔ None required	✔ None required	✔ AGTP-CS+ Translation

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doukutsu-rs

✔ Fully dynamic screen ratio/resolution scaling (up to 4x)

✔ Multiple Soundtrack support

✔ Custom Lighting Engine (togglable)

✔ Lots of QoL settings

– Must obtain assets from Freeware/CS+/Tweaked

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Cave Story: Tweaked

✔ Multiple Platforms supported

✔ Widescreen

✔ Multiple Soundtrack support

✔ Lots of QoL settings

In order to source the alternative soundtracks for Tweaked and doukutsu-rs, you can simply drag and drop the data/Soundtracks folder. Most of these soundtracks are freely available via official sources, but some have to be ripped from copies of Cave Story+.

• "Wii-Rebalanced" - Yann van der Cruyssen and SoloMael
• Arranged - DM Dokuro
• Remastered - Danny Baranowsky and Dustin Kulwicki
• Ridiculon soundtrack - Ridiculon
• Famitracks - RushJet1
• SNES - livvy94

Similarly, if you want the New graphics, they can be copied into the data folder. You can acquire the official graphics from CS+, or use Lethrys's 2xRes texture pack.

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Cave Story+

✔ Widescreen

✔ New Lighting Engine (togglable)

✔ Extra Challenges

✔ Special "holiday" texture packs for Halloween and Christmas

– Requires AGTP-CS+ translation mod for best experience

– Linux support is broken in current version, must use Proton

For a nearly complete* list of every Cave Story port, check out the ports page at cavestory.one.