This fact makes a lot of sense when you take into consideration that Pixel, up until starting to work with Nicalis on ports and remakes of Cave Story (specifically Cave Story 3D), worked as a simple salaryman. On its surface, the thematic thoroughfare of Kero Blaster is… maybe, possibly, a teensy-tiny, itty bitty, little bit definitely, absolutely anti-capitalist. That’s not what makes Kero Blaster interesting.Īnd here is where I start to don my tin-foil hat and get into the nitty gritty about the intent of this article. It’s a side-scrolling action platformer where you shoot baddies with a variety of guns that you progressively upgrade (though they’re upgraded via currency you acquire from chests and enemies, not mysterious triangles this time). Kero Blaster is functionally very similar to Cave Story, so I won’t get too much into that aspect of the game. I’m not exactly known for my punctuality. Kero Blaster, developed by Pixel (Daisuke Amaya) and Kiyoko Kawanaka, and published by Playism.Īnd four years after its launch, I finally played it. Ten years after the initial release of Cave Story, Pixel came out with a new game. (Not as elegant of a title screen as Cave Story, unfortunately.) Secrets galore, graphics that were charmingly retro even back then, a soundtrack that still gets stuck in my head to this day… So where’s the ‘no’ in that ‘yes and no’? The writing and the characters are dripping with so much charisma that it’s hard to come out of the game without liking most or even all of the characters (or disliking the ones that you’re supposed to dislike). The combat is diverse due to the game’s wide range of weapons, allowing you both a variety of ways to handle any given situation and allowing the game to make simple combat-oriented puzzles based on which guns you have at any given moment. The movement is tight but not so tight that there’s no margin for error, making the platforming a fun challenge. Everything about it is… pretty much perfect. It’s hard, almost impossible, to debate the fact that Cave Story is a fantastic game. So that’s it, right? Nothing changed and I continued to love Cave Story for the rest of my life as the classic indie gem that it is, yeah? I sat down, booted up a computer next to my friend, and spent the rest of my lunch period playing Cave Story for myself… and loving it. The idea that a game could be made by a single person took me by surprise. “Cave Story.” They responded after I had asked what they were playing, then going on to explain that the game had been developed exclusively by one man.Īt the time, my only real experience with video games was whatever I could get my hands on for the Genesis, N64, or, at that current time, PS2. It’s 2009 and I have just entered my high school’s computer lab, finding my friend playing what looked to be a strikingly retro game. In no way am I intending to pass unsubstantiated ideas as facts, but rather intending to express my ideas and thoughts surrounding this specific topic because it is something that has weighed on my mind for quite some time. I would like to preface this article by mentioning that a good majority of it is based on conjecture, inference, implication, and hypothesis. (Or How Kero Blaster Retroactively Made Me Incredibly Cynical About Nicalis’ Handling of Cave Story)
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