***WARNING: Possible Spoilers ahead!***
The plotline is as follows: Seven people, all seeking something they desire, travel to the one place where they know they can achieve it, this place is The Cave. However, darkness lies in all of their hearts and the cost for their dreams may be too high. Characters are only known by their appearance: From left to right - The Adventurer, The Scientist, The Knight, The Monk, The Twins, The Hillbilly and The Time-Traveller. Each playable character has their own story to tell; one is looking for love, another redemption, another freedom and so on, not even to mention each character's special ability. While the game has seperate stories for all the characters, three main missions will have to be completed throughout your playthrough, not counting the Gift Shop.
The game is narrated by The Cave and the game makes light about this. "Yes, I'm a talking cave. D-d-d-d-d-don't laugh. It makes dating hell." The Cave is voiced by Stephen Stanton and his low monotone voice matches the comedic style of a Double Fine game extremely well from punchlines to sarcasm.
The game's audio is limited, but well thought out. The squish of a hot dog to the crunch of sand, the audio is effective in this retrospect. While the musical score is very, very limited, the sudden onrush of success after beating a puzzle makes the completion of a task much more satisfying. The only level (That I have thus found on two playthroughs) that has any constant music is The Carnival, which happens to be The Hillbilly's storyline.
Gameplay is addictive, but quite flawed. Missing crucial means of completing a task will cause characters to die over and over and more often than wanted, glitch through walls. This has happened several times, however only during The Adventurer and The Scientists' main mission. The Zoo is definitely the place for bugs, as using The Knight's ability of no damage while free-falling has caused me to continutely fall over and over.
The storyline of the game has many twists and plots within plots you can swear that the game was designed by M. Night. Shyamalan. Many plot points will have you going "No way, that's evil!" and curse the characters you have chosen. And while many main critics are unimpressed with the lack of increasing difficulty of puzzles throughout the game, I applaud it. I have no shame to admit that I struggle with puzzle games, especially side scrollers. For me, each puzzle was especially difficult, even more so if you did not have the right tool, forcing you to backtrack through the confusing paths. The brilliantly smart gameplay and interactive storyline are the main attraction of the game, the puzzles (In this gamers eyes) are just the bonus.
Overall, The Cave offers gamers an addictive side scroller, with seven main stories to finish to a horrifying end (my favourite/most horrified ending is The Twins), a bunch of hidden backstory Cave Drawings to find and much more, The Cave is definitely worth a look at for lovers of a 2 hour game.
Out of 10, I give The Cave an 6.5/10
Good points
+ Storyline was amazing for Indie Title
+ Gameplay was simple, yet fun.
+ Endings will definitely leave you wanting more
Bad points
- Glitches are never fun, tend to repeat
- Lack of sound effects/musical score
- Voice acting limited to few
- Lack of checkpoints = lack of allies following
- Price is a bit much for an Arcade title...
The Cave is out now for 1200 MSP ($20)
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