Anyway I’ve got a ton of stuff to talk about and dissect when I’ve got the time, hopefully before the end of May the way things are going for me… lolol and all that. A giant Madoka analysis should be the first order of business. After that I’ll discuss the Spring season in earnest when I eventually catch up on those. It would help if I wasn’t more than a month behind on all the current stuff, but slow and steady is the way to go rather than marathoning a bunch of stuff and getting burned out. After tackling those two topics it’s all up in the air. Here’s one final note before I leave.

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

“Just become a magical blogger!”

February 3rd marks the official beginning of the Year of the Bunny Girl Rabbit in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. We the staff (which is mostly just me actually) wish all the best to everyone out there. Don’t blow off your fingers with illegal firecrackers now, you hear? Now if you’ll excuse me, I must spend some time with the bunny girls for a bit…

Image by Kanna Asuke

Found on a FredMeyer book rack.

Had the paper been pressed with flecks of glitter: I would have **** myself.

But seriously though? Forget that he’s a “vampire” for a sec and realize: This is what a bishie looks like at max-level, sweating Calvin Klein and booty-dust.

On The Street | Animated

It’s a video from Bill Cunningham, fashion photographer for The New York Times. From what I gathered the man goes around Manhattan, taking pictures of well dressed people, and talks about style. Take a listen as he quite literally gushes over cosplay fashion. I thought it interesting to hear the style trend of cosplay as it would be seen through the NY fashion world.

Whether he’s right or wrong, who cares. Give yourself a pat on the back because your 18 credits in Advance Sewing have paid off. Next year’s fashion: braces.

New York Anime Festival 2009. Photographer: Anna

You don’t believe my story? Fine. Let’s just say I was sick and have only recently started to feel better. It’s not as interesting, but I guess it’s more believable than dying and coming back as an anime blogger turned zombie pinata. So here I am, back again and very much out of the loop in regards to all things, because I haven’t been on the internet much if at all during that timespan. The state of affairs goes as such:

Anime Backlog – Fallen behind much more so than usual, so it’s time to binge again and slog through the shows recommended to me (currently Moyashimon with Baccano! next) in addition to what’s currently airing.

Twitter – Mostly dead. Good riddance too. Twitter is stupid so that’s one less thing to worry about.

Socializing – …Never did this to begin with. lolol.

Blogging – Wut? Oh right. “Blogging”. Got a couple posts that are waiting to be posted and stuff.

Killing Meu and Stuffing His Corpse with Taiyaki – Already done with extra Uuuuuuu~ for emphasis. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

If there’s anyone out there with experience in Nintendo DS Homebrew who’d be willing to give advice to a total noob on the subject, and perhaps do some troubleshooting down the road, shoot me an email at onepreacher@gmail.com. Any knowledge on the subject is more knowledge than I have–I just want to put Nethack on my DS, really!

And I brought cake!

]]> http://www.wolfhurricane.com/2009/08/13/another-hiatus-another-triumphant-return/feed/ 4 http://www.wolfhurricane.com/2009/04/11/you-might-like-it-scott-pilgrim/ http://www.wolfhurricane.com/2009/04/11/you-might-like-it-scott-pilgrim/#comments Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:30:56 +0000 Mr Bound http://www.wolfhurricane.com/?p=1566 This You Might Like It is a tale of two Scotts for me. You see, the man responsible for introducing me to Scott Pilgrim is Scott McCloud, perhaps the best known critical commentator on comics as an art form. McCloud’s best known for his series of books that approach comics from a scholarly yet accessible angle–Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics. He also did a spectacular series called Zot! which I’m considering for a future YMLI. Anyway, McCloud was touring the states a few years ago to promote his latest work, and during his lecture he mentioned a number of comics he felt were noteworthy in helping to shape the comic medium. One that got the nod was Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim–which if you haven’t heard of yet you certainly will when the feature film comes out late this year or early next (Michael Cera from Arrested Development, Juno and Superbad plays the titular Scott Pilgrim). But why wait on a film adaptation when you could pick up a couple of paperbacks and discover for yourselves the exciting, bizarre action-romance-comedy, with a liberal splash of 1990s gaming nostalgia?

Is this awesome Y/N?

The Quick and Dirty

- Scott Pilgrim is the brainchild of Canadian author Bryan Lee O’Malley.
- Black-and-white comic in a loose anime style, which jives with the often wacky and frenetic plot.
- Basic premise is Scott must fight seven evil ex-boyfriends to get Ramona, the girl of his dreams.
- If you’ve ever asked “what would it be like if life were more like a video game?” this is it.
- Endearing with a few flaws, bends genres like whoa, five of six planned books currently on shelves.

If you read this blog you’ll probably identify a little bit with Scott, the eponymous star of O’Malley’s series. He’s a through-and-through North American nerd, relentlessly optimistic and still a would-be rock star at age 23 (his band is named Sex Bob-Omb). I strongly doubt anyone will completely identify with Scott–he’s oftentimes boneheaded or moronic, his memory is so selective he seems amnesic at times, and I certainly don’t envy his love life, which is a long and complicated subject. Scott’s romantic follies drive the plot of the series; in book one he starts having strange dreams about a girl he’s never met, and then, surprise surprise, he actually meets her. Her name, it turns out, is Ramona Flowers, recently moved to Toronto from New York city, and she works as a delivery girl for Amazon.ca.  Ramona’s delivery routes pass through subspace, which explains why she keeps passing through Scott’s unconscious mind, and also why she’s so very efficient at her job. This is entire concept is introduced with almost no explanation to the reader, the bow shock of the many zany things to come.

Scott falls for Ramona like Bowser when Mario cuts the bridge, but there are two problems. The first is that Scott’s been dating seventeen-year-old Knives Chau, and has to dump her. Knives is floored by this and remains head-over-heels in love with Scott for…well, for all five books, so far. But more pressing is that to really earn Ramona’s affection, Scott has to fight and defeat her seven evil exes. In the process he’ll learn about friendship, love, etc. But as all video gamers know (and Shadow of the Colossus proves) the boss fights are always the best part.

It’s hard to tell if Scott is living in a video game, or if his universe just behaves like one. Toronto’s very real–landmarks like Honest Ed’s appear in the series accurately rendered in all their glory. But at the same time it’s both baffling and completely in character when defeated evil exes dissolve into change–literally, dollars and cents (I suppose “gil” is under copyright, or maybe it just can’t be used for bus fare). Eventually, somehow you suspend your disbelief and learn to enjoy the wackiness for what it is, and cheer on as Scott fights for peace, love and rock n’ roll. His opponents, without giving too much away, are foes you love to hate. Expect to see Scott fight creeps like Matthew, evil ex number 1, who summons demon hipster chicks to do his bidding, and ex number 3 Todd, who earned his mystic powers with the disciplined refinement of mind, body and soul…through veganism. O’Malley’s art and writing style are a good marriage for these kinds of shenanigans–there are frequently little quirks and digressions throughout the series, such as when an entire page is devoted to a recipe for vegan shepherd’s pie, or when Knives has a little box to reintroduce her each time she appears in one single issue as “Knives Chau – 17 years old.”

There are hurdles to my love of Scott Pilgrim, not the least of which is that I’m on tenterhooks for the ending but have no idea when it will be released. Scott’s a lot of fun, for sure, but he can be a bit tiring at times too–sometimes you just want to smack him around and tell him to get his life in order and grow up. But that’s part of the charm, and at least by books 4 and 5 he’s getting there (sort of). Ramona’s also a big issue for me, and for some of my friends who are also fans of the series. She’s supposed to be some kind of dream girl, or at least desirable enough that Scott would be willing to fight for her love. But she’s perhaps the most flawed character in the series–despite liberal hinting that she has some sordid, dark past involving Gideon (evil ex number 7) we still don’t know what it is. She can also be just as short-sighted or frustrating as Scott, and at the end of volume 5 I was practically pulling out my hair at some recent developments.

But I should emphasize that the series as a whole still remains a lot of fun to read, and my hope is that the conclusion of the series will be the epic showdown fans have been hoping for, with the happily ever after I think Scott still deserves. And hey, if not, maybe Sex Bob-Omb will at least play another sweet gig. As for the film adaptation…well, I’m not holding my breath (Michael Cera as Scott simply doesn’t feel right to me) but ideally it’ll be true to what O’Malley envisioned–if the comic reads like a video game, the movie will watch like one, a romantic comedy with a healthy portion of 8-bit nostalgia and rock-and-roll showdowns.

Next week for YMLI, I plan to expand my horizons (and yours too!) with my most ambitious coverage of a series yet–the wildly popular Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett! One of the greatest living fantasy authors, Pratchett is a master satirist and comedian, and his works are both witty and funny. Of course, I’d be silly to try and tackle all 36 (and counting) novels in the Discworld universe, mostly because I’m still working my way through them myself. But I plan to give a rundown of some of my favorites, as well as what I feel are some of the most important novels in the series. So, You Might Like It, the best of Discworld!

Usagi Yojimbo's author prides himself on historical accuracy. Except when awesome.

The Quick and Dirty

- Usagi Yojimbo is authored by Stan Sakai, who writes, illustrates and even letters every issue.
- The second longest-running comic done entirely by a single author, running since 1984.
- Titular character is Miyamoto Usagi, a rabbit and ronin, who wanders Edo period Japan on a warrior’s pilgrimage.
- At times lighthearted humor, at others intense action, still other times deeply moving.
- Some historical liberties are taken (and come on, the cast is a bunch of animals–literally!).
- Not a furry comic, really more like Disney’s Robin Hood meets Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

I first encountered Usagi Yojimbo as a footnote in the Wikipedia page of another comic–Dave Sim’s Cerebus, which at 300 issues is the longest-running comic done by one man. Usagi‘s run is slowly closing in on Cerebus, but as we all know, it’s not about the size of the series–it’s about how you use it. Stan Sakai, first and foremost, is consistent–when you’ve been doing a comic for 25 years and you’ve rarely hit a sour note, that’s incredible. Along the way Usagi’s had trials and tribulations, has met an enormous cast of rogues and heroes, has fought supernatural evil and scheming feudal lords. And behind it all is Stan Sakai, who’s grown Usagi from a rough-hewn sketch of a samurai with ears for a topknot into a lithe warrior to rival the greatest in trade paperback or technicolor.

Let me back up a bit–I think I might be losing the trees for the forest, as it were. There’s a lot of sweeping vision in Usagi Yojimbo but I don’t think that’s what you’re here to read about. Let’s start with the basics–Usagi, that is, Miyamoto Usagi, is a ronin, made masterless after his lord was killed at the battle of Adachigahara, a bloody affair that Usagi narrowly escaped from. Instead of committing seppuku to preserve his honor, Usagi wanders Japan as a yojimbo (bodyguard for hire) on a warrior’s pilgrimage, an equally honorable pursuit that allows him to ply his skill as a swordsman. And what a skill it is–Usagi’s master, the lion Katsuichi, taught him a unique style that refuted established schools of swordsmanship and which has served Usagi well. Usagi needs it, too, because he’s a bit headstrong and has a tendency to poke his nose into any wrongdoing he smells, regardless of whether or not it’s a good idea.

The supporting cast is enormous. Some characters pop up with frequency, like Gennosuke, called Gen, a rhino bounty hunter who’s more interested in gold than honor. Gen is Usagi’s equal in swordplay, and not a bad guy either, even though he constantly tries to stick Usagi with the bill at whatever inn they’ve frequented most recently. More adherent to the role of a traditional samurai is a character like Ame Tomoe, a female samurai in service to the young but wise Lord Noriyuki (a panda!). Usagi earns Tomoe’s respect in the first issues of the series, and the two have fought side-by-side many more times since then. There’s a subtle undercurrent of romantic tension between the two, so subtle that you even wonder if Sakai intends to write it, though Usagi is committed to his life as a wanderer and bachelor and has turned down several offers to enter into a lord’s service again.

Batman, eat your heart out.

I could keep going on about minor figures like Sasuke, a demon-hunting exorcist fox, or Inspector Ishida, a jitte-wielding investigator whose small number of appearances are inversely proportional to his immense popularity among fans. Other characters are Sakai’s fond way of poking fun at famous Japanese manga or cinema, such as Yagi, an assassin who travels the countryside with his young son, spoken of in fear as the Lone Goat and Kid (a play on long-running, extraordinarily violent manga/film series Lone Wolf and Cub, which used the same premise).

It’s my firm conviction that villains make or break a series, and Usagi’s foes cast long shadows. There’s three clans of fiendish ninja–cats, bats and moles, and Usagi’s fought each of them over the run of the series, and once or twice has fought alongside them instead! Perhaps the most popular villain, Jei, is a sociopathic fox who’s convinced that he’s been chosen by the gods to root out evil in the world. Jei’s hell-bent on killing Usagi, and nothing has stopped him yet–not even death. Most mysterious is Lord Hikiji, who’s almost never seen, but whose influence is felt repeatedly as the puppetmaster behind ninjas and evil samurai, moving incrementally towards his ultimate goal of dethroning the shogun himself.

On the surface it seems like it would be easy to put Sakai’s work into any number of boxes based on its presentation or subject matter, but Usagi Yojimbo’s inner rabbit wants to run free. It’s certainly not manga, though Stan knows his history and does his research, and frequently incorporates the slow, cinematic pacing typical of manga into his story arcs. But Usagi‘s not what most people associate with America comics either–it never tries to shock and though there’s sometimes supernatural overtones, deus ex machina to wrap up story arcs are rare. The characters, for being rabbits, foxes and cats are amazingly human, and Usagi as a whole occupies a niche of humor and action alongside the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with whom Usagi’s shared several crossover issues and animated series appearances. And Stan Sakai probably wouldn’t be thrilled if you called his comic a furry comic outright–he doesn’t identify as one, he was hesitant about attending any of their conventions until a couple of years ago, and most importantly, he never draws his characters with tails.

So what is Usagi Yojimbo, at its core? Intense. I was impressed by how much I cared about the characters, to the point where I was actually gasping aloud when it looked like someone might not make it out of a fight alive, and when I was right I felt my stomach clench. It’s also entertaining all around–there’s violence, sure (though very little blood), and there’s a lot of visceral “hell yes!” moments when Usagi and Gen cut their way through a mob of brigands, side by side. But the series has plenty of lighter moments–it’s hard not to crack a grin when Sasuke summons a giant frog to ride into battle against a spider demon. And Sakai tries to make his readers think, and to really put them in a setting that isn’t just fun but feels real, because it’s firmly grounded in the real, or at least in mythic history. “Grasscutter,” one of the best received arcs, both popularly and critically, has several prologues just to explain the history surrounding the legendary Japanese blade Kusanagi. It’s that sort of detail that makes it that much more gripping when Usagi and company are suddenly tangled up in the fate of the most famous sword in Japanese history.

I salute Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo hooked me quickly, and held my attention like a vise–I literally read through fifteen years worth of comics in less than a week, and every one was a page turner. It was one of the most exhausting and rewarding reading experiences I’ve ever had, and I’m proud to suggest that You Might Like It.

At some point in the future I’m going to have to do a comic on the game that made this column late (Linley’s Dungeon Crawl variant Stone Soup) but for next week I think I’m going to tackle another comic. Am I just doing it now to get in before the movie comes out? No, I swear not, even though I’m not really sold on Michael Cera as the main character…what am I talking about? Well, you’ll find out next week as You Might Like It boldly suggests that you can enjoy (and maybe even identify with) the comedy-action-romance-indie comic hero Scott Pilgrim.

This minigame sums up almost every deathtrap in Spelunky in one go.

The Quick and Dirty

- The original forum thread for Spelunky, with download link, at TIG Forums.
- Fan-created Wiki also available, continuing the fine Roguelike tradition of spoilers.
- Freeware platformer with procedurally generated levels and rock-solid original gameplay.
- Loads of enemies, items, and traps over four cave areas.
- Snag golden idols for loot! Snag women for extra health! Use women as weapons for your own amusement!
- Very fun, a great challenge, lots of secrets and unlockable minigames to keep you hooked.

Spelunky is the brainchild of Derek Yu, a freeware, freelance game designer and developer who’s best known for either Eternal Daughter, a platform adventure game, or I’m O.K., a self-branded “murder simulator” created in response to a challenge by infamous anti-video game crusader Jack Thompson. Yu released the first public build of Spelunky in January, and has been updating it incrementally since, working on bug fixes as he presses on towards 1.0!

Spelunky‘s basic gameplay is somewhere between Lode Runner and Super Mario Bros., or more precisely like Spelunker (NES), though I’m hesitant to mention that one simply because of name confusion. You run, you jump, you collect loot and hopefully make it all the way through the four cave areas to fight a mysterious final boss, itself a callback to a famous Mario boss fight. The only resources at your disposal are your trusty whip (of course!) and your lightning fast reflexes. Well, and some ropes, for climbing when you can’t pass an area or need to jet out of a jam. Oh, and some bombs too, that can kill particularly durable enemies, or blow a hole through the universally-destructible levels, or end your game (if you’re not careful).

The similarities between Spelunky and Roguelikes are several, starting with the level creation. Levels are procedurally–that is, randomly within an algorithm–constructed from a variety of square sub-areas of a certain size. You’ll see the same level features emerge if you play enough, with similar traps and pitfalls, but the “dungeon” is fresh every time. It keeps you on your toes–doubly so considering Spelunky also shares the Roguelike tradition of being unable to save your game and come back. If you lose your four points of health, you’re dead, and you go back to square one. Extend your life while you can by rescuing the stranded dames who sometimes appear, who will bestow a kiss for another point of health (and while you’re at it, make liberal use of them as thrown weapons–they’re surprisingly durable!). Sadly, there’s no suspended game feature yet, but Spelunky’s in active development, so perhaps there’s one around the corner.

Because of the one-life-one-shot model, Spelunky‘s difficulty curve is steep. It’s softened a little with the appearance of the Shortcut Man, who for a nominal fee will build shortcuts from the level-select area to areas 2, 3 and 4, but novice spelunkers should expect to die. Lots. The traps are the stuff of pulp fiction, including the traditional Indiana Jones-style rolling boulder trap, the when-idol-is-removed-you’re-dropped-into-water/lava/spikes trap, and sundry arrow shooters, spear towers, spring platforms and flying blocks of doom. Some of the more elaborate traps will yield golden idols, which are worth a pretty penny of loot if you can bring them to the door at the end of the level. The most deadly and rare trap holds the crystal skull, worth several times a mere gold figurine, but which releases a slow yet unstoppable ghost, whose mere touch kills. Creepy.

The levels aren’t just trap-packed, there’s also a wide range of harmful flora and fauna ready to kill you, from lowly spiders and snakes to fearsome yetis and mummy lords. Eventually, your whip becomes insufficient to deal with most foes, and your bombs too imprecise, so you need to upgrade your arsenal. You can scour the levels for valuable crates, which typically hold ropes or bombs, but more rarely will contain a variety of items to round out your spelunking arsenal. Who knows what you can find? Jetpacks? Teleporters? The remarkably worthless parachute?

Sometimes crates are few and far between. If you’ve got a lot of cash on hand, a shopkeeper will be your best friend…sort of. Shopkeepers charge a mint for their wares, which range from (still more) bombs and ropes to the “kissing booth,” where a lady of negotiable effection will trade greenbacks for smooches (and the points of health that come with them). Most prized is the weapon shop, which may carry the powerful handgun or the even-deadlier shotgun, arguably the best weapon in the game. You’ll quickly learn, however, that shopkeepers are armed for bear and have a trigger finger that could really use some cortizone. Any aggressive action against them, their shop, or attempts to walk out without paying will end up with you on the business end of a shotgun blast. Robbing shopkeepers is a dangerous art, and killing them is an even riskier acquired skill, but looting even one or two shops can swing the game into easy mode (at least, until you die yet another stupid death on the next level).

Ah, shopkeeper, we meet again. What a nice shotgun. May I borrow it...to kill you?

Make no mistake: Spelunky is hard. Really hard. It took a little over 1000 lives for me to set high enough scores to unlock two of the minigames, and in that time, I died a lot just because of terrible luck. You’ll have blind falls onto spikes, giant spiders will hunt you down across entire levels, angered shopkeepers will send their unions after you until you’re punished for your transgressions. But Yu understands why a Roguelike is great, and translated it into a platformer amazingly well. When you finally make it to a new area for the first time, the feeling is one of elation; when you stumble upon a shopkeeper ready for the slaying, the adrenaline starts to pump. Yu’s taken a well-established but not widely-known subgenre and has made it instantly accessible to the masses, albeit incarnated as a platformer. Go forth, Yu prophets, and preach the word: Spelunky’s a dive worth taking.

Next week for You Might Like It, I think I may tackle something other than a free video game for once. Those of you with comprehensive knowledge of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may be familiar with this one…one of the longest running comics written, illustrated and even lettered by a single author, you might like Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo.

Well, this isn't the worst place I've woken up with a hangover...

The Quick and Dirty
- Cave Story info, walkthrough, and downloads for the game and translation patch at
http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/
- A platformer in the vein of Metroid or Castlevania
- Freeware, made single-handedly by one-man team Studio Pixel
- Other draws: emotive and adorable characters, original weapons and power-up system, holds its own against classics in the platformer genre. It’ll also be coming to the Wii via Wiiware in the future!

Now, I’m going to get a bit…scholarly.

I consider myself something of a conoisseur of the third-person platform shooter. It’s a tough genre to give a name to (and I disagree significantly with how Wikipedia defines it), though I can rattle off my favorite titles and series in the genre with ease–Metroid, Mega Man, Ratchet & Clank. In an earlier era I think the games might have been uniformly filed under “action-adventure,” but with the advent of the first-person shooter, there’s a need to distinguish. I can articulate without too much trouble why I find the genre so compelling–when it’s done well, the same elements contribute to its success, regardless of whether it’s a decade old or this month’s top seller. The controls are tight, the guns and enemies get bigger and badder throughout the entire game, and the player has to feel like a badass. The Metroid games are a perfect example of this–the franchise has had a decade to hone the gameplay from charge beam to missiles to ice beam to super missiles to the point where the formula is predictable but the player still feels like they’re kicking ass like ass has never been kicked before.

You’ll notice I left out any mention of plot or story in my description of what makes a great platform shooter. I don’t think it needs it–the Mega Man series has been popular from its inception, but in my experience has never been big on intricate plots or deeply sympathetic characters. By and large it’s been about having Mega Man go fight eight bosses and then Wily or Sigma or whoever. By the same token, Psychonauts fell flat for me. The characters were great, the plot and concept were amazingly inventive, but the controls were wishy-washy and hampered my enjoyment significantly.

The big draw of Cave Story isn’t that it has an out-of-this-world amazing plot. It’s a good plot, no mistake–I’d put it on par with, say the GBA Metroid games. Your character, an unnamed robot, awakens deep within a floating island, and ultimately must escape, but in the process learns how to be a hero. The Doctor, a mysterious and evil man, is capturing the Mimigas, innocent rabbit-like folk, for nefarious purposes. The characters are strong, for as little as some of them talk (namely our protagonist, who isn’t actually named unless you complete several of the steps en route to the good ending). There’s a real tear-jerker moment about halfway through the game, and the cast is by and large sympathetic, if not flat-out adorable. Perhaps most confusing to me as a gamer is that the bulk of the plot is never seen by the player–there’s an entire section of backstory that’s only related if you get the good ending, and to do that you have to go through a nightmarishly hard zone at the end of the game, en route to a second, substantially harder final boss. Most people will give up long before they get the whole story, but settling for the second-best ending isn’t awful.

All that stands between me and the plot is Kid Icarus?

What Cave Story’s creator understood is that gameplay comes first, and though he falls back on a few tropes here and there the gunplay gameplay is fresh and the handling on the player character is dreamy. By “dreamy” I mean there’s a bit of a floaty feel to the platforming element–think of how the original Super Mario had sort of a strange jump arc and you’ll get the idea. You can do some light flying, too–either with a jetpack you get mid-game or by swapping out your first gun, the Polar Star, for the Machine Gun, which has recoil powerful enough to send you skyward if aimed down. The rest of your arsenal ranges from the functional to the fanciful. The Fireball shoots a rolling, bouncing projectile along the ground; the Missile launcher is particularly powerful against swarms of flying enemies; the Bubbler shoots…bubbles?

Most interesting is the mechanic by which weapons level up. Enemies will drop glowing orange triangles when killed that fill your weapon’s power gauge. With one exception, every weapon has three power levels, and with another exception, the third kicks the most ass. When you take damage, your weapon power also takes a hit, which becomes a real consideration in boss fights–it promotes strategies of careful evasion over sitting still and unloading everything you’ve got.

Speaking of boss fights, there’s both variety and challenge–the final fight in the “normal” part of the game took me numerous tries to beat, and there were several other bosses that stymied me for a short while. I should also mention the most famous character from Cave Story: Balrog! The gray, toaster-shaped henchman leaps into action repeatedly with a trademark “Huzzah!” and is memorably bizarre. Anyway, speaking more about difficulty, there’s an area or two where the save points are spaced a little bit thin and the terrain between is pretty tedious to journey over, but this doesn’t dampen the experience significantly. If you’re an accomplished player you might be able to beat Cave Story in as little as five hours, maybe as little as four on a second, efficient play-through.

I feel before I give some sort of summary I need to stress how impressed I was that the entire game was done by a single man. Particularly the music–a game being coded by one person is impressive, but to also have a catchy, professional-sounding score with several dozen tracks is another achievement that speaks to how Cave Story is a cut above most freeware. It provided me an enjoyable nine-hour first playthrough and I even went back a second time to take a stab at the good ending (though sadly I fell short). I’m proud to give Cave Story my hearty recommendation and let you know that You Might Like It.

One more freeware title next week before You Might Like It branches out to discuss some other odds and ends, but this next one is one you’ll be sure to see at the end of the year on freeware “best-of” lists. From the the man who answered Jack Thompson’s call for a murder simulator with the pee-on-the-brains romp “I’m O.K.,” YMLI will review Derek Yu’s Spelunky!