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, 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	✔ 50/60fps toggle	✔ 50/60fps toggle
Graphics	– 1X res and fanmade 2X res included	– 1X res and fanmade 2X res support (must supply assets)	– 1X and official 2X res 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	– Base game	✔ Extra Challenges
Soundtrack	✔ Original + support for extras	✔ Original + support for extras	✔ Original + remaster, switchable
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 ration/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+.