Huzzah! Let's Play Cave Story

Did you remember yet?



It was the assembly hall! Just the latest victim in our string of fire murders.



For dousing the fire, we get a new weapon!

From the Assembly Hall's fireplace. How you use it is up to you.

I mean, I'd like to use it to liven up a 5-year-old's birthday party, but mostly it's intended
for killing stuff.



The bubbler is a pretty unique weapon - or it would be, if Pixel hadn't also included a bubble
gun in his most recent game, Kero Blaster. I guess the guy just really likes shooting bubbles at stuff?

At level 1, the bubbler is beyond useless. It fires out little bubbles that travel about three tiles
and then disappear. If you can manage to hit an enemy with one, it will do a single point of damage.

♪♪On to Grasstown♪♪

You learn something new every day, folks, and today I learned that this background element
actually has an impact on some of the items in the game. Enemies won't cross this barrier
separating Grasstown from Santa's house, and neither will your bubbles! Weird.



At level 2, the bubbler starts to resemble a useful weapon. Not only do the range and damage
double, but it becomes a rapid-fire weapon! Great for lazy players like myself. You might have
noticed that the bubbler has an ammo count in the top-left corner. Unlike the missile launcher,
ammo will refill automatically any time that you aren't actively shooting. I'm pretty sure the ammo
counter is just for show when the gun is at level 1, since it would be really hard to completely
drain it via tap-firing. The bubbler's 100-bubble clip is pretty hefty; just big enough that you'll
forget you don't have infinite ammo until you run out at a critical moment.



At level 3, the bubbler gets really interesting. Now, instead of shooting a stream of bubbles, it
starts to form a cloud of bubbles around you that orbit you briefly before shooting away. The
orbiting bubbles damage enemies, so this effectively becomes a sort of shield.



Here you can see some of the bubbles shooting forward - they turn into lightning-bolt-shaped
things. It's a little hard to aim, since you don't really know which of the orbiting bubbles is going
to start flying forward at any given time. But if you're patient, you can hang back and clear out
the area with it from a position of safety.



The other thing you can do with the bubbler is accumulate a big cloud of bubbles and then
release the fire button to shoot them ALL off at once. It's a sort of soapy shotgun blast, better
for dealing with swarms of small enemies than for trying to pile damage onto a big one. Still
pretty fun, even if it isn't always useful.



Just for the fun of it, I use the bubbler blast to take out the big jelly. GIMME DAT JUICE.



Clearly, Chaco is unaware of our blood fued with the hated fire.





We put out the fire and step through the fireplace, putting us on the other side of Chaco's house at
long last.



Chaco wastes no time relighting the fire - maybe she isn't as keen as Santa to have it doused?
What this really means is that we can't bring the jellyfish juice beyond this point, because we
would have to use it to get through the fireplace again if we wanted to proceed to the right. For
now, we'll have to proceed juiceless.





To the right, we find more bats and more spike pits. The bubbler does a good job of clearing this
hallway out for us - another example of Pixel giving you an appropriate space to try out your new
toys.



We didn't even get to see who this guy was before frying him with our cloud of death bubbles.
Sorry, buddy!



Jumping down, we learn the identity of our mystery victim. It's this...ghost...cactus...creature?
These guys are fixed in place, but shoot them and thet will retaliate with a red energy blast.



Like so! There is also a big frog just chilling up there. For now, we ignore the save point and head
right (yes, I am aware that this goes against my own motto, but I was feeling confident).



Just a little farther and we come across this rectangular building. The door is locked, but...



...if you wait a minute, you'll see someone calling from this crack in the wall. If I had to
guess, I'd say we've found Kazuma!





That's what we're here for! Saying no just makes him a little sad - you can't actually advance
without agreeing to help him. It's a classic but-thou-must situation.



A rusty key.



Unfortunately for Kazuma, there's no way to use the key on this door.



I like the Aeon Genesis translation of this game a lot, but they abuse ellipses periods almost as
much as I do...

Over here we have some kind of fuscia motor bike. It's totally sweet, in an 80s-vision-of-the-future
kind of way, but we can't do anything with it for now. Still, it looks like something out of
Flashback, so it's definitely OK by me.



Just to the right, we find this tower-shaped building with a skull over the doorway. I haven't saved
in a while, so we should definitely go inside.



That's...ominous. There's nothing overtly threatening in this room that is supposedly designed for
killing folks, but I've played enough videogames to know a thwomp when I see one.



Indeed, as soon as you pop that star block, the red eye on the purple rectangle opens and it tries
to squish you. These things are instant death no matter how many HP you have, so tread lightly.



Once the thwomp has fallen, we can use it as a stepping stone to get to the next level. We destroy
the other one to make a path to the life capsule.



Sweet!



All right, I haven't saved in a while and I'm feeling antsy. Rather than proceed to the right, we'll
head back and stop in at that room we skipped earlier. This frog is going to make the jump across
here a pain, so let's deal with him.





That'll teach him! The missile launcher is an expedient way to deal with enemies that are just out
of reach of the Polar Star (and the hole makes the fireball a non-starter).



Not a lot to say about this room.



Down to the lower left of the save room is this little door, which I have thus far been ignoring.
We couldn't get in before, but now it looks like we've found a use for that key!





Poor guy, he was probably expecting to get some POWER, here in the POWER ROOM.



I guess that little guy is MALCO? Unless his name is Fans. Five points to anyone who comes up with
a good backronym for his name.



Hit it!

♪♪Gravity♪♪

Turning the power on brings MALCO to life, but he doesn't seem happy to see us. Looks like we're in for a fight!

~UNLESS?~

♪♪Balrog's Theme♪♪

(Note that Balrog has a huge grin for that last line.)

♪♪Gravity♪♪

Balrog has a new trick up his sleeve - now when he jumps, he can flap his arms to fly a short distance
before landing (on you). He'll occasionally send out a few of those white energy circles, kind of like
Igor did. You can also apparently stand on his head and just drop fireballs on him, which I really
wish I had known before taking all these pictures.



Switched to the missile launcher, just to mix things up a bit. This still isn't a very hard fight.



When you beat Balrog, he exits by jumping straight up off the screen. This is typically how he enters
and exits scenes, when he doesn't have a door to knock down.



He leaves us with a very interesting question to ponder.



Huzzah!



We should probably go help out that murderous robot that Balrog squished. After all, no good deed
goes unpunished, right?

Yeah that doesn't sound like it would help us at WAIT A SECOND

Have I mentioned that our little guy here is what you'd call a silent protagonist? Conversations
tend to be a little one-sided in this game.

Nice use of the Oxford comma there, Aeon Genesis.

Anywho, now we have a shopping list to complete. But hey, we already have the charcoal! Turns
out that we weren't just being a dick when we doused Santa's fire. As for the Jellyfish Juice, we
clearly know where to find it, but how can we get back to the left side of Chaco's house? And then
bring some back here when we have to use it to get through Chaco's fireplace?

♪♪On to Grasstown♪♪

With the help of our good friend Fans, that's how! These little fans are scattered around
Grasstown. They were pretty unremarkable back when the power was off, but now they have the
ability to send up flying way up high.



Like so! Now we can backtrack and go pick up some more juice.



THERE IS ONLY JUICE. HAIL TO THE JUICE LORD.



Conveniently, there's another fan right outside Chaco's house. This lets us skip the whole
fireplace dealie and save our precious juice for explosives-making.



I check back in on the door, it's just doing its door thing. Let's go run this bomb plan past
Kazuma, see what he thinks.







Time to find some sort of gum room! We've seen all there is to see to the left, so instead
we head right, where we enact some PURE CARNAGE. These guys thought the executions only
happened inside the chamber, but it turns out they were standing on the execution patio.



If you aim the fireball up, it sends out shots at a very slight forward angle. They won't travel
nearly as far before disappearing, but you can occasionally use this technique to land a couple
shots on a higher platform, like so.

To the right there's a big pit with a whole bunch of death spikes at the bottom. Just a quick hop...



Uh, well, you didn't think I was going to NOT show you the spike death, right? Totally intentional.
Thankfully, I had saved after the Balrog fight not long ago. Also, this reminded me that I had skipped
some stuff, so let's go take care of that before we return to Spikey Town.



Next to Kazuma's bunker is one of those fans. It's hard to notice in this shot, but in the game
there is an animation of swirling air to tip you off to its existence.



We ride the current up and see a dilapidated building to the left.



There's a door! There's also a treasure chest on the other side - we'll go take care of that next.



Inside, we see a fireplace (sadly unlit), a bed and...



Red flower petals? Historically, I associate those with murderous mutant bunnies. But of course,
correlation is not causation.



Is it the tingling of sadness that someone got to this fire before I could?



Anyway, we open the chest and get a missile capacity upgrade! Very nice.

~SUDDENLY, OUT OF THE FIRE PLACE~

♪♪Gravity♪♪

Killer bunny attack! I take back what I said about correlation!



This guy is scary, but he isn't a proper Boss (note that there's no health meter at the bottom of
the screen). He's a little hard to hit, since he's faster than big ol' Igor, but the room's boxy shape
makes it a good spot to deploy some fireballs. Mr. Hare here only has about 40 hit points.



We don't get any fanfare when we beat this guy. Just silence.

Adorable bunnies shot: 3

♪♪On to Grasstown♪♪

That treasure chest we saw earlier is on the other side of a wall, so we have to go around to the left
to pick it up. There's a passageway above the save room that I didn't explore earlier, which I guess
makes my earlier claim that I'd been everywhere a lie. :O



Just a couple precise hops...



...and bingo! No killer bunnies to rain on our parade, either.

We head back to the right (after saving!) and this time I make the jump over the spikes.

Actually, if memory serves, I screwed it up a second time and had to reload again. Look,
it's a pretty long jump, OK!?



This kind of happens naturally most of the time, since you're usually jumping up to higher levels
when you use the fans. But these fans blow horizontally! They're going to help us clear some
enormous gaps. Over that pit of deadly spikes. That's already killed me twice.

There's no way this can go wrong. =/



YES PLEASE.

...well, we aren't getting any younger here.



Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!



The save point mitigates the stress of having to make these jumps, which end up in fact being
pretty fun to pull off. On the other side there are some goodies we can collect if we're low
on health or missiles (since there wasn't a health recharge station to go with the save point).



Woooooohoooooooooooo!



The Gum Key does its thing and we're in!



I really love that this place is just called Gum.



That's what we're here for! Now we can bring this stuff to MALCO and get explodey. But first:



Misery materializes before us.

♪♪Balrog's Theme♪♪

And with that, Misery transforms Balrog into Balfrog (note: that's his canonical name), then splits.

♪♪Eyes of Flame♪♪

New boss theme time! Balfrog is by far the hardest boss fight we've seen so far and as such, he
warrants a more intense boss theme. That's great and all, except now I'm going to have to double
check which boss theme is used in every fight from here on out, because I can never remember. =/



Balfrog takes slow, ponderous hops around the room and occasionally stops to shoot red division
symbols (?) at us. These can be can be destroyed, so the best strategy is to just shoot like crazy
every time he opens his mouth (you can't damage him otherwise). I like using the fireball for this
fight, but to do so you have to position yourself at just the right distance so that the fireballs
bounce up into his mouth, instead of passing under it. The video that I'm watching to remind me
what song plays when taught me that there's a faster, if more dangerous way to beat him: stand
directly under his mouth and unload the missile launcher into it when it opens. It puts you in harm's
way, but you'll do a lot more damage per cycle.



Balfrog is big enough that you can't jump over him, and running underneath his hops is pretty
dicey. Instead, you're supposed to use the clusters of fans on either side of the room to soar
overhead when he gets close enough.

Aside from assaulting you with math(s), Balfrog will summon frogs here and there. They're a
nuisance, but they also drop health and Doritos, so you can sometimes use them to get your
weapons back up to level 3 after you take a hit.



After a while, Balfrog will stop moving toward you and make a big jump. This unleashes...



...a rain of frogs! How biblical.



Mash it out! Remember, you're limited by the number of fireballs on screen at any given time.
But if they're hitting the boss and/or his projectiles, then the only limit is your imagination.
And your thumb speed.



We land the last hit...



...and Balfrog reverts to plain old Balrog.

♪♪Victory!♪♪

Let's get out of here.

♪♪On to Grasstown♪♪

We stop off to visit Kazuma on our way back to MALCO. He's getting a little snippy. Don't snark
at me, man, you have no idea what kind of frogs I've had to deal with to get your stupid gum.

Back at the Power Room, we give MALCO the goodies.







There's something charming about the sheer delight MALCO expresses when you bring him the ingredients.



An explosive for blowing up doors and such.

You know, all your household detonation needs.





(The explosion looks cooler than this, but I didn't manage to snag it. Dust everywhere!)



And we're face to face with Kazuma at last! See you next mission.

♪♪Gestation ♪♪

Would you like some jellyfish juice? It's that or the lipstick.

You think maybe this would have come up earlier in the conversation. Yes, I've met your sister. Do
people ever tell you you look nothing alike?

~WHEN SUDDENLY~

Someone arrives via the teleporter!



It looks like the text is cut off, but all you're missing is a "?!" at the end of the line.
So who's this radical old guy, anyway?





We're going to have a few complicated, lenghty conversations soon, so I'm going to change up the formatting:

Booster comes over to take a look at us.



Smooooooooth, Booster. No-one suspects a thing.

The music cuts out here.



Booster and Kazuma head outside, and a save point and health station appear. Before we leave,
let's just check out the teleporter.



Feh. Out we go, then.





SPOILER: he can't

Kazuma and Booster hop on the bike, which starts careening back and forth across the screen.



If you think I didn't count the number of Os in stop, you would be mistaken.

♪♪On to Grasstown♪♪

The return of the lighthearted music makes it clear that we shouldn't worry too much about Booster
and Kazuma. They're headed back to the teleporter to Arthur's house, but we're going to have to
follow on foot. Of course, there's one thing we need to pick up on the way back.



JUUUUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCCCEEEEEEEE



The motorbike Kazuma was driving. It's not looking so hot anymore.

Looks like the hovercycle didn't survive the trip. Hey, maybe it can't cross the vine fence either?



Let's head back to the Mimiga village and see how everyone is getting on.

♪♪Mimiga Town♪♪

Hey, Sue managed to talk her way out of the cage! By explaining to the bunnies how a madman
wants to turn them into a bunch of rabid murder machines.


*Weapon of Death was the name of my 1984 heavy metal album.



Inside Arthur's house, Booster and Kazuma are recovering from their wild ride.

~SUDDENLY, SUE~

Enter: King



Enter: whoever we are supposed to be

♪♪Safety♪♪

Let's make the rounds.



That's the spirit!



You can also talk to King, and even go outside and check in with the glutton in Mimiga Village.

Of course we won't!

Jack's also available up in the assembly hall.

Real Talk here, I didn't know about Jack's very enlightening speech until today. Talking to
Sue inside Arthur's house triggers the next part of the story, and I don't think a lot of players
will think to go explore the village before doing so. I certainly never did!

Jack's monologue is chock-full of important backstory stuff, including things I didn't even know
about. I won't go into all the details for some time, but there's stuff here that a new player could
definitely understand. By now, you've probably made the connection that red flowers = monster bunny.
Who had red flowers in their room? Arthur did! Which means that Arthur seemingly used the
power of the red flowers to become a giant monster without going crazy and attacking everyone.
As for who or what this red monster is that he defended the village from, that's a question that won't
be answered for a loooooong time. But suffice to say that for me, as someone who has played
this game a whole bunch, I was very surprised to learn that Arthur and this creature had crossed paths.
That he survived at all is really quite impressive - he was a true hero, indeed.

All right, enough of that. Let's get the story back into gear.



Metal Gear?! It's kind of weird how Booster repeats himself there. I don't know if that's a quirk of the
Aeon Genesis translation, or if it's based on the original script. We'll eventually look at the Nicalis
translation of the game, remind me to double check this part (or do the work for me in this thread!).

It's me??



DUN DUN DUN!!

I suppose it's not terribly obvious that your character is a robot (outside of the smoke-cloud
explosion and roboty sound effect the game makes when you die), but you certainly don't look
like the other humans in this world. I'm not quite sure what everyone thought you were
supposed to be, mind you. Maybe they figured you were just some kind of mime? It would
explain both the pale complexion and the total lack of speech.

The professor turns to us.

I'll say this for Booster, he's more polite than either of the Sakamotos ever was to us. It's not 100%
clear what Booster's relationship is with Sue and Kazuma, but clearly they respect him. Or rather,
that's very clear in the Aeon Genesis translation and not quite as obvious in the Nicalis one. I have
to assume there are a bunch of honorifics happening which were treated slightly differently by the
different teams.

From here, we regain control and can talk to everyone again.





No pressure!



Shucks, flattery will get you everywhere, sugar. But what do you mean you hadn't noticed?
What do people look like where you come from??



We now have a third destination for our teleporter.



What mysteries and dangers await our hero in the deadly Sand Zone? Tune in next time to
find out. Huzzah!

...

Phew, that was a big update! It'll have to last you for a while, since I'm going to be away for
a conference and then on vacation, and I don't plan on bringing my computer with me while
I'm gone. I'll hopefully be able to drop the next update some time during the week of July 24,
but no promises! Be good while I'm gone, my phone number is on the fridge.

Kaneda Kazuma has The. Best. Bike. Ever.

The lead-up to the charcoal was hilarious.

I also did not know about Jack's story of Arthur! And yeah, that explains a lot about his heroism.

I'd never thought to speak to King at that one point in the game, and thus I am extremely surprised to learn that Arthur fought SUPER SPOILER SECRET and lived

Love this LP, learning so much!

That monologue is crazy!

...wait a second

but

how

why is a scout robot anatomically accurate

So many different ports and re-releases of this game with "improved" graphics, yet I still prefer the chunky sprites of the original.

Great LP so far, Mike!

BECAUSE WHY WOULDN'T A SCOUT ROBOT BE ANATOMICALLY ACCURATE?

BECAUSE WHY NOT.

This is a fantasy world with magic artifacts and energy-based weaponry, but it would strain disbelief to have a world where the foremost advances in robotic science weren't made by the sex toy industry.

Fully armed and operational.

anatomically correct or not, the robot has hands

Oh man, looks like Photobucket caught up to MCBanjoMike

Ouch!

yeah, photobucket ate the lp

FUCK photobucket.

Yeah, I guess I was living on borrowed time. I'm away from home for a while, so I don't know when I'll be able to figure out a new hosting solution for the images. Then I'm going to have to convert all the previous posts over, which will be tons of fun. =/

Think of it this way, at least it happened now instead of when you're in the endgame.

If your final names stay the same, you should be able to just do a find-replace for the new domain URL.

Also, Lady is offering a hosting place!

Including hosting for this very LP! Her gracious offer will make the changeover about as painless as possible. However, I'm in the country for a week and won't be able to move the images over until I get back. So the LP will be restored in about a week, and hopefully the Sand Zone update will follow a week later.

In the meantime, I'm still waiting on those MALCO backronyms!

Mecha-Armament Linked Companion Operator, which of course means "robot that helps people by making them explosives".

MOTORIZED
AUTOMATON (that)
LOVES
COMBUSTING
ORBS

And we're back! Thanks to Lady for doing what Photobuckedoesn't. Now that the images are back online, I'll start work on the next chapter - with any luck, it'll appear toward the end of the week. Let me know if anything seems out of place with the LP so far, I just did a whole lot of copy-pasting and I could very well have missed something. Also, if anyone cares about their posts that quoted images, you'll have to update the URLs to make them reappear. Blame the failings of a faceless corporation!

These are great! It's a pity we won't be seeing MALCO again this LP. But we'll all know.

I have Creator of Ordnance for the last two letters but don't have anything that I feel works for the first three.