Cave Story Wii Coming to North America on March 22nd

By: Derek Yu

On: February 24th, 2010

Cave Story Wii has finally been given a release date, at least in North America.

The game includes 5 game modes, including Easy Mode, Hard Mode, Boss Rush, and Sanctuary Time Attack.

Other features:

Standard definition and Wii-exclusive progressive (480p) graphics
New character designs by creator, Daisuke Amaya
Completely redrawn background and interface, exclusive to Wii
Remastered music as well as the original soundtrack
Mix-and-match new/old artwork and music!
Five new play modes (including Sanctuary Time Attack and Boss Rush)
Three-save files, as demanded by fans
Over 20 epic boss battles through Mimiga Island
15 levels to explore in the vast world
10 unique weapons to find and upgrade
Classic Controller compatibility
Three unique endings
A few surprises fans

You can read the full press release here.

Also, here’s a brief interview I did with Pixel about Cave Story Wii last year. Various constraints forbade me from posting it until now. Enjoy!

Derek: Hi, Pixel, it’s nice to get to speak with you again!

Pixel: Thanks!

D: How is the Cave Story Wii project going?

P: Iâ€™ve played it a few times to check the gameâ€™s progress through development. It feels very good. I find the newly re-drawn artwork agreeable and Iâ€™m happy with the newly re-mixed music.

D: Last time I talked with you, you said you were hesitant to do games commercially, and to work in a group where your vision might be compromised. What made you decide to work with Nicalis on this project?

P: I, myself, have thought about making commercial games, but I havenâ€™t had any good ideas about it. When Tyrone first contacted me I was a bit puzzled and didnâ€™t really understand entirely. After our continued discussions I could feel Tyroneâ€™s passion for Cave Story. It surpassed my own and I felt that I could leave it up to him.

D: When did you start working on the project, exactly?

P: When was it? I think maybe Spring or Summer of â€˜08? Tyrone, when was it?

(Tyrone: Thatâ€™s right.)

D: What was the process like, working with Nicalis? Do you talk every day? How did you get around the language barrier?

P: Tyrone’s wife is Japanese and I am grateful for her help in advancing my conversations with Tyrone this far. Heâ€™s currently studying Japanese; we’re not able to communicate entirely with each other with just us when he visits my home. My English studies have not gotten far…I’m sorry.

(T: Derek, heâ€™s being very modest, his English has come a LONG way.)

D: Are you happy with the new features, like the high resolution graphics? How did you and Nicalis decide on these features?

P: I am satisfied with how Cave Story turned out on the Wii. Itâ€™s fun to think about games, but to actually implement them is many times more difficult. Now that itâ€™s come together I feel rewarded thanks to the support of all the players.

D: Are you interested in doing more commercial game development now?

P: I havenâ€™t thought about it yet. I can’t think in my head of what’s necessary.

D: I noticed that fans sent you a DS last year, and you must also have a Wii now. Are you trying out a lot of new games? Are there any that captivate you?

P: I donâ€™t have a Wii yet, but I plan on getting one.

D: Cave Story has made a huge impact on the Western independent game scene. Do you play any indie games or have any thoughts about them?

P: I don’t know too much about indie games. You mean games created by an individual and such, right? I have looked around for free games, but lately, due to time constraints, I havenâ€™t had time to play much.

D: What has the response to the Cave Story Wii project been like in Japan?

P: I received many congratulatory words. I’m happy because many people have expressed interest in a Japanese version for Wii.

D: Have you worked on anything else game-related in the meantime?

P: I’m working a little bit on an RPG, but I’m still barely on the basic systems.

D: Have you worked on anything else creative, like art and music?

P: Right now Iâ€™ve just been making the RPG. I’ve made a bit of pixel art and music for the RPG, but itâ€™s all still temporary.

D: You were a student when you started Cave Story, and you were an office worker when you finished. Now that Cave Story Wii is almost out, is your life even more different?

P: It stopped once I got job. Lately, I’ve been coming home late so I’ve left the house duties and child support to my wife. Saturdays and Sundays are spent doing household chores. Anything creative is typically done on nights during the week.

Cave Story Christmas

D: How often do you play your own games? Do you have any new thoughts about Cave Story now?

P: I test my games until theyâ€™re complete, until I hate them. So, I end up not playing the games I create. But Iâ€™m looking forward to playing Cave Story on the Wii.

I still receive requests for a sequel to Cave Story even now. I don’t have any ideas for a sequel to Cave Story, but if I started making it, I believe I could come up with something. Cave Story was actually developed in that manner.

D: It’s popular to ask a random question at the end of the interview. Last time I asked you what your favorite food was, and you said lightly-salted onigiri (Japanese rice balls). This time I’ll ask you what your favorite movie is!

P: My favorite movie is The Game with Michael Douglas. I watched it twice and enjoyed it both times. Also, A Chinese Ghost Story (Joey Wong) – I saw it when I was a kid, but it was a very uncomfortable feeling. Also, a few more I can recall are Mr. Vampire 2, Aliens, and Pom Poko.

D: Once again, if you have anything else you’d like to say to your fans…

P: Thank you for your support.

I hope that you will some day will be able to play the RPG being created now. Although it’s still into the unforeseeable future…

Posted in Interviews, Platformers, Previews, Wii | Tags: Nicalis, Pixel

benzine

is that mimiga wearing a tie?
Dzzk

Cave story ripoff.
Wizard

Wow, Pixel is really a weird dude.
slappy

Great interview thanks!

Wrong link for Mr. Vampire 2.
http://www.burningnorth.com/ George

Man, I love this guy. So stoked to play this on my TV with a legit controller.
name

I am excited for this.

Good interview, too.
Paul

What does Pixel actually do?

Also, Mr. Vampire 2?!
Ben

Aw shoot, he’s so legit!
Derp

ffffff awesome
paul eres

@paul – he made the original game, and he did a lot of the tiles and music and such for the new one (he worked on the port along with the team). i don’t know the specifics but i’ve heard he was heavily involved in the wii port.
Dan

Does anyone else think Pixel is friggin’ adorable? He’s so modest and nice-sounding!
Ein

Oh, an interview! Nice post, nice interview, happy CS to all!
Deacon Blues

Did anyone else notice how he answered almost none of the questions? I’m onto him.
Jesus

Pixel, Nifflas and Yahtzee are the only good indie developers.
deadeye

>”Pixel, Nifflas and Yahtzee are the only good indie developers.”

Oh come on you, can troll better than that. That’s not even remotely anger inducing.
Jesus

@deadeye:

Probably because it’s true?
Austin Wilburn

Schweet! I am going to buy this the first day it’s available.
Dodger

@Jesus,

You’ve only played 3 indie games? That’s a shame. Yes, you’ve named 3 great indie developers, now go expand your horizons by playing more games. Head over to Pixel Prospector for starters. Then keep your eyes open here and at indiegames dot com slash blog for all kinds of new indie goodness and be sure to check out the links on each site. This way, you’ll eventually know of more than 3 developers and you’ll have a blast while getting to know them.
Dodger

Oh, and Cave Story is looking better than ever! Can’t wait for this gem to come out, less than a month now!
googoogjoob

i like the nicalis blog post

“Nicalis, Inc. is an independent developer and digital publisher with a proven track record for developing well-polished games”

the only published games nicalis lists on its site are two mobile games based on konami properties
Anthony Flack

It’s kind of sad that he seems so entrenched in the life of a Japanese office drone.
paul eres

i guess the more boring your normal life, the better your escapism
Saucer

Oh man… Possible RPGs and a CS sequel! Lookin’ forward to them!!
Jesus

@ Dodger:

Oh, the irony. Someone who thinks that Pixel, Nifflas and Yahtzee made only 3 games tells me expand my horizons.

Anyway, my point is that their games are what Shakespear’s poems are to English literature. They are just the best in their respective genres. If they didn’t exist, no one would take indie games seriously and no one would aspire to make something worthy. We’d have a couple of shitty “art” “games” every year and that’s it.
Derek

I’m scared that you actually believe what you just said.
Hideous

Ironic that Pixel doesn’t know what an indie game is.
Jesus

@ Derek:

I’ve yet to play a metroidvania game with a better plot and gameplay than in Cave Story. Which, by the way, was released in 2004. We sure have made a huge progress, haven’t we?

@ Hideous:

What’s more ironic is that in Middle Ages a lot of people didn’t know they spoke in prose. But they did spoke in prose and we know that.
Super anon

If you haven’t played Cave Story yet, now is your last chance to do it, so you can tell people you played it before it *sold out* and became *mainstream* :)
Jad

Ooooh my, Pixel has a kid @ u @

wau
http://moonloop.vg Eclipse

Jesus fails at playing indie games
indiego

I need to go back and finish this game before it comes out on wii. I got to hell on my first run and couldn’t get through it. But damn it was a good game
TheCube

I love that Pixel just doesn’t seem to have any attachment to the indie game thing, but the community is very attached to him. It’s just so backwards from what you normally see, I.E. people want the community to notice them, but nobody really cares. I’m not even sure if Pixel is aware of the celebrity-ish status he has with certain people.
Dodger

@Jesus,

LOL! (That was my first reaction).

It went over your head. I said 3 games because your comment was simply ignorant. You sound like a jaded 13 year old… in which case, it did go over your head. I’m surprised you know how to spell irony.

I can’t wait to play Cave Story on the Wii either, but you really should get out of your cubicle once in a while and explore the world of games (indie games in this case).

BTW – Shakespear?!?!? Bwahahahahahaha!

I’m sorry, couldn’t help it.
Le Shad

Hot damn, Jesus is retarded.

Anyway, interesting stuff! I look forward to play the Wii version of the game. I’m a big fan of the original.
Paul

@PaulEres – lol, I meant as a job. It’s a shame that he doesn’t do game development full-time and that he is so self deprecating. However, that he’s doing some life sucking office work instead? The thought makes me weep.

So, does anyone know what he does?
Yougiedeggs

I bet Jesus couldn’t find a dwarf in a Dwarf Fortress :D
Memphis-Ahn

I see where Jesus is coming from, to be honest. There won’t be a game as amazing as Cave Story in the genre for many, many years to come.
Not to mention Nifflas’ ability to make amazing exploration games, I’m still waiting for Velella to come out to see if it can trump any of his games.

“BTW – Shakespear?!?!? Bwahahahahahaha!”
Now you sound like a 13 year-old.

Some of you seem to be misunderstanding his comment, or maybe it just went *whoosh* over your heads.
Dodger

@Memphis-Ahn,

Obviously you don’t see the humor in his comment. I’m not attacking him, but I had a great belly-laugh at that comment. Yahtzee wouldn’t regard himself as Shakespeare, he’d regard himself as a twat and then he’d call you and me a twat. I appreciate a good game as much as anyone else, however, to snub other great developers and their games on one hand and then to raise Pixel, Yahtzee, and Nifflas to such a level by stating that what they did for gaming is equivalent to what Shakespeare did for literature is a little hilarious on it’s own. Hearing someone who sincerely believes is not only funny though, it’s a little bit creepy.

Perhaps you thought I was making a personal attack against Jesus, and if that’s the case then I my comments were misunderstood. I was poking fun at his comment, hilarious and unbelievable as it might seem, if that’s what he truly believes then he really must love those developers, though it still proves my point that he hasn’t played many games and certainly not many games by different developers. Statements like that put a WTF?! :-/ or O.o on Yahtzee as well.

I agree that all 3 developers are great, but I would never compare them to Shakespeare, nor would I say they are in a league of their own when I could name another couple dozen indies (some of which comment on this very site) who are extremely creative and have made some seriously good games as well.

Cave Story is what it is, a very good game. It’s a testament to the greatness of indie games and what is possible by a single person or just a small group of people, but lets not blow smoke up each others asses. We can have an intelligent conversation without trying to insult each other.

I’m just happy that Cave Story has made the jump on to the Wii, and I would be just as happy if it could possibly jump on to the PS3 as well… Same with Spelunky… *(Hey, hey, you listening Derek???)* ;-)
Paint by Numbers

@Dodger

When you say that someone has the relative intelligence of a typical thirteen-year-old and imply that they are an ignorant shut-in, well, I usually think of those as personal attacks.

Also, why wouldn’t you regard Pixel as something like Shakespeare? Both are regarded as sort of the artistic height of their respective mediums. Unless you’re suggesting indie games don’t count as a medium, and you want to start the art debate *again*, you should probably explain yourself there.
Jesus

@ Dodger:

1. Did you forget that Derek compared indie games to Impressionism a couple of posts ago? And he was dead serious.

2. I’ve played a lot of indie games, especially of the metroidvania variety. Probably more than you. Unfortunately, none of them come even close to Cave Story in terms of craftsmanship and emotional power of the story. And believe me, it’s hard to impress me by story and/or gameplay in any game, indie or not.

“We can have an intelligent conversation without trying to insult each other.”

Who insulted you? Me? Memphis-Ahn? And even if you believe someone did, they were probably insulting _your comment_, not you personally. *wink wink nudge nudge*

People like you always amuse me. First they act like assholes then shake their heads in disappointment when someone tells them about it. Fucking hypocrites.

@ Yougiedeggs:

Dwarf Fortress is good, but it’s a spartan sandbox game. It’s like chess – addictive and self-contained, but lacks in the art department. Is DF a technical achievement? Probably. Is it a good game? Certainly. But will it move you and impress in the same way Cave Story did? I’m afraid not. That’s why Cave Story is superior.
Dodger

@Paint by Numbers,

Lets not talk about art while you choose to go by that name. BTW – that was a joke, not an insult, try not to take it to heart.

I really wish you would read the full comment *before* posting a reply to another comment. Please tell me where I said indie games don’t count as a medium. I’d really like to see that quote. Again, please read before a comment in its entirety before you decide to post a reply. Also, just to clear things up, I never suggested that Jesus had the “intelligence” of a 13 year old. I said he sounded like a jaded 13 year-old, jaded and 13 year-old don’t go hand in hand. Get it? It wasn’t an attack, it was a comment referring to the fact that from what he stated he hasn’t played a large variety of games. But if he has played a lot of games, then making such a claim is kind of irrational. I thought I made the comment pretty clearly, but just for clarity, I wasn’t attacking him. I did honestly laugh at the comment that he made regarding Shakespeare, but that’s only because at first I thought it was a joke, and then when I realized it wasn’t I still had to laugh because it’s a funny statement. It still sounds funny to me.

Is Pixel to game design what Shakespeare was to literature? He’s great and he sounds like a nice guy as well, but to answer your question IMHO, no he is not. I reserve those types of grand statements for areas of gaming that I believe are revolutionary. Cave Story, while great, is not revolutionary, it simply is a great fun game. Again here’s my honest opinion, it’s a great game and is truly a testament to indie games since it is yet more proof that an individual or small group of people (indies) can in fact make good games. That’s basically what I stated in my comment.

@Jesus,

I didn’t say you insulted me, I said we can have an intelligent conversation without having to insult each other. That doesn’t mean either side insulted the other – yet – I was anticipating a conflict of opinions from the tone of the comments and so rather than getting to that point where we’d end up insulting and swearing at each other, I was trying to let Memphis-Ahn that wasn’t where I was trying to direct the discussion. I didn’t state it as clearly as I could’ve and obviously you still don’t understand what I meant.

But, people like myself amuse you. I was a total asshole to you, everything that I said about you and how I tore you a new one… I’m a fucking hypocrite.

BTW, that’s not an insult, just sarcasm.
Jesus

@ Dodger:

You’re right, it’s definitely me overreacting. It’s not like you called me a troll for no apparent reason and then said:

“It went over your head. I said 3 games because your comment was simply ignorant. You sound like a jaded 13 year oldâ€¦ in which case, it did go over your head. Iâ€™m surprised you know how to spell irony.”

I mean, who could possibly see anything insulting about this quote?
Jesus

Anyways, what do you mean by “revolutionary”?

Shakespeare didn’t invent drama. Sure, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language etc., but he didn’t make anything “new”. He was just a very talented and influential person. Yet it was enough for you to call him revolutionary. How is Pixel any different?
paul eres

personally i preferred aquaria to cave story, but i agree that yahtzee and nifflas would be in my top 10 of indie developers. not my top 3, but my top 10.
salade

But of course, cave story is free, so it is automatically better (I kid).

And about comparing shakespeare and pixel… who cares? Pixel made a great game, Shakespeare wrote really good plays, life is good. It’s not like there is some cosmic coincidence that there are parallel artists in every medium.
alastair

I’m glad they made a hard mode, the original game was horribly easy.
C.A. Sinclair

@Jesus: I don’t know about you but someone whose entire visible internet activity seems to consist of writing inflammatory blog comments bound to cause drama is a troll in my book.
judgespear

I can’t see why people are surprised. Pixel never is and never has claimed to be “indie.” He’s just a normal, humble everyday Japanese salaryman who just happens to program freeware games as a hobby. A hobbyist developer, if you will.

People always treat him as some sort of god of indie gaming. Like he’s the one who gave rise to this generation of people creating platform games or quitting their jobs and going “indie.” In reality, if you brought that point up with him, he’d honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.
Harry

I like ACDC and Led Zeppelin they are two of my favorite bands.
SonicBlaze

Finally, I’ll be able to play CS on the god of all controllers: SNES Classic Controller babeh >:D! Throw in some La-Mulana and magic will be made, people. MAGIC!!!