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 mod of the Cave Story Decomp CSE2 with various QoL, and Cave Story+ with the Aeon Genesis Translation Patch (AGTP).
| Cave Story: Tweaked | Cave Story+ | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | ✔ Free
|
– $14.99
|
| FPS | ✔ 50/60fps toggle
|
✔ 50/60fps toggle
|
| Graphics | – 1X res and fanmade 2X res included
|
– 1X and official 2X res included
|
| Content | – Base game
|
✔ Extra Challenges
|
| Soundtrack | ✔ Original + support for extras
|
✔ Original + remaster, switchable
|
| Translation | ✔ AGTP translation
|
✘ NiCALiS translation
|
| Patches | ✔ None required
|
In order to source the alternative soundtracks for Tweaked, 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+.
- "WiiBalanced" - 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 2x res graphics, they can be copied into the data folder for Tweaked from a copy of CS+.
The new features of Cave Story + are currently only available via a private beta branch and a password is needed to access all the new content:
Branch name: ModdersDelight
Branch Password: ModPizzaParty
for a (nearly) complete list of every Cave story port, check out the ports page at cavestory.one