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A fun bit of lore regarding the flowers, in game, one of the mimiga talks about how king and iirc arthur both took red flowers, but they boiled the petals in a tea so they could get the buffs without the downsides. It's also why king has those red eyes, and why arthur had the flowers in his home.
Yeah a couple people pointed that out to me! It messes with my interpretation a bit since it means King and Arthur were more or less approaching the problem the same way, but doesnt change the fact they were helpless. Making King's eyes pink in the warehouse scene was such a nice little touch I wish it hadnt gone over my head
@@SkyehoppersKing's eyes were pink throughout the whole game. It just doesn't start to make sense until you realize what's going on, so you don't pay attention to it.
@@mh123_ytthis actually isn't mentioned in game from what I've read. but it was confirmed by pixel on his QnA BBS page that king may have cooked the red flower before eating it. no in-game confirmation, then, but this is second best and essentially canon. this is further supported by the red flowers found in the bottom of arthur's house. there is no clear indication that arthur himself would have eaten these (did they appear in his house before or after he died? we can't be sure). it's certainly possible, though - indeed likely given how strong he would need to be to defeat the red ogre.
The logic behind booster surviving the pit, is that since you don't come down, he doesn't give up As we see with Momorin, the booster works as a tool for working with machinery. When he sees you fall in the pit, he knows it's either him or you, but he knows only you can beat the doctor, so he stops fighting, mostly for Sue's sake. If you don't fall down there, he realizes he can't just give up and gets working on the teleporter, eventually producing the booster 2.0 What doesn't make sense is that he just passes away on the spot, but it may just be symbolic or he doesn't actually die in the moment. idk that part is weird, someone should ask Pixel
Lmao good point! I mean the whole joke is that its surprising the monster would be a little bunny rabbit, so i think monty python was also playing with that perception
I feel like the things the player does in order to get the best ending is can be tied into the name of the final area. The “Blood Stained Sanctuary” can be taken in the sense of “I have to do what I have to do even if it means doing some wrongs” which is why you kill the mushroom of ignore Prof. Booster. It’s like a neutral run in undertale, sans says you killed out of self defense or “because you did what you needed to do” Basically, by doing the “right thing” you need to hurt or even ignore a few people
Ooh thats an intetesting read. Yeah that tracks. That whole area is more interesting than I think I gave it credit for. Like it's called blood-stained sanctuary and the song is called running hell...but the enemies arent demons theyre angels. Hmmm. Something to revisit for sure
@@Skyehoppersthe other translation of the name which is closer to the source material might answer that question as it translated as Sacred grounds(Aeon Genesis translation) which explains the angels
I actually like how surprisingly well that works as an explanation for Ironhead's presence, I wouldn't have guessed otherwise since I just saw him as a semi out of place Ika-chan reference.
Bruh what🧍 that’s like the most important thematic significance of bio mechanically enhanced animals bruh it’s visual story telling things don’t just evolve extruding circuit boards
Making the player leave Professor Booster behind is genuinely odd; the implication that you going down to offer him a hand only extinguishes his will to live is genuinely ridiculous; But I like your interpretation of the Bad and Good ending being the 'human' endings since they are very human focused, whereas the Best ending is the Robot ending, where you as the player make calls that would normally not occur to a human brain and act very pragmatically, saving your counterpart and working with her to finish the job you were programmed to do. You, Curly and Balrog, three evidently robotic beings who were just programmed to do specific tasks, have all finished their work forever. They celebrate their success and form their own community, proud with the work they've done, now being beholden to no-one. I don't know if Pixel intended for this interpretation to be what the player takes away, but at the very least I enjoy that the Best ending pulls focus away from the side characters and puts the spotlight on you, Quote, and the people relevant to him.
@@thecoolnerdplaysvr5674 Adding on to that is that the Booster may be what lets him save himself. If he doesn't have it then he would be unable to possibly escape or leave him in a situation where he would do his best to work on it and be able to improve it to the point where he could escape and then give it to Quote since he no longer needs it.
@@josephconover5270yeah my interpretation was always that he used the boosters parts to get the teleporter functional again but without it he can't fix it
@@thecoolnerdplaysvr5674also, doesn't he give you the boosters in that scene? Which means that, without the boosters himself, he couldn't have gotten out? So in the end, you weren't really saving him- you were just showing him how his sacrifice is needed in that moment. So I think this is a misinterpretation of that scene, where relying on booster move forward dooms him in the process
Even Misery's actions play into the brutality of war. the whole reason why the demon crown exist is because she went up to the island and asked Ballos to make it for her
Yeah I think theres definitely something interesting to Misery's character that I couldnt figure out. A really interesting moment is when she tries to turn on the Doctor when he comes back from the dead. Like why is that what sets her off? She has her own twisted moral code and values but it's hard to figure out what it is really with how little information we get.
@@Skyehoppers As narratively unsatisfying as it may be, Misery's defiance at the end may just be her exploiting a loophole in her curse. She's compelled to obey whoever _wears_ the Demon Crown. And at this point in time, the Doctor and the Crown are both reduced to a red mist. So even though the Doctor has the power of the Crown, he isn't technically _wearing_ it, so Misery is able to disobey him then. As far as the mystery of Misery's own moral code, I'd actually be far more interested in a _Cave Story_ sequel focusing on post-Good-Ending Misery and what she does with her freedom, than I would be in further adventures of Quote and Curly. (Besides, they've earned their retirement. Let them rest!)
@@Metaphizzlei suppose that checks out. do u happen to know why misery wanted to have the crown made?? the game doesnt say anything about it other than it happened which is how our plot device was formed in some way
Honestly, there's an easy way to explain why abandoning Booster is the better choice but it requires you think outside the box a little. The moment you go down and talk to him, once he's finished explaining, he immediately dies off. However, if you run right past him, he *doesn't* die. Realistically it's safe to assume that if left alone, he focuses on his *own* life and fixes himself up before his condition worsens to the point where he poofs into smoke. On the other hand, if you *do* try and help the same way as before, he wastes his precious second wind explaining information that in the end, is meaningless since regardless of if you know of the core or not, you're forced to confront it. To me this communicates that, sometimes the best way to help another is to let that person fix the issue themselves. No person can help with every situation they see, and sometimes it's better they don't, lest they worsen the situation instead.
Hmmmm. I see what you mean and that's an interesting perspective I hadn't considered! But idk it still feels unsatisfying to me. Maybe if the player was given some sort of indication of what would happen before making the choice. Like if you could deny the booster power-up in the pit and find your own way out? The way it is now just feels like an inconsistency to me.
Loved this video, I hadn't even realized the Animals being mechanized to become the bosses, never noticed the eyes on the blocks hinting to Ballos, never understood why Curly was there at the start of the sanctuary until now, thank you for putting effort into this, you're perspective is no one I've seen before and really changed how I see My favorite game of all time.
I read somewhere that King cooks the red flowers to mute the rabid effects; hence why he has red eyes and is able to stand toe to toe with Balrog. I like the idea that he learned from Authurs mistake of simply becoming powerful by sacrificing some of that power to retain his humanity. Yet, his fate is still sealed. It could be inferred that Aurthur also cooked the flowers, but i much prefer your interpretation of the events. The idea that he's willing to use a source of war to protect the village is quite interesting to me. Theres a dialogue dump from Jack that describes how he defeated the Last Cave's Red Ogre; perhaps he wasnt under the influence there, but... overcome with responsibility and titles of heroism, decided to protect at an ultimate cost.
btw, amazing vid. Thoroughly enjoyed your synopsis and dissection into the meaning of these events. It was incredibly fun to listen to your thoughts and compare them to my own interpretations from my many, MANY playthroughs of this game.
Thank you for the kinds words! Means a lot. And yeah a couple other people have pointed that out about King, and the original source is an interview with Pixel so it's for sure legit. I don't think it really changes much about my main point, that the Mimiga can't be saved no matter what anyone does, but it definitely changes my perception of the character a little bit. There's probably some interesting analysis you could do with the Red Ogre stuff if you dive into it, especially with what the color red symbolizes with the rest of the game, and the fact that Arthur was actually successful back then. Hmmmmm. Food for thought
Come to think of it the themes of the story found here aren't all surprising given Ikachan's commentary and parody over oppressive leadership structures. Kero Blaster also had interesting themes regarding the importance of empathy vs work, and the expression or bottling up of emotions. Daisuke Amaya is one of my favorite artists ever and I can't wait for him to put out another masterwork.
The thing with the nuclear bomb analogy is that, with many Japanese pieces of media, there is often a slight or overt reference to it. Like Godzilla and Mega Man (Doctor Albert Wily is named after Albert Einstein)
One thing you mention is how "...all the natural inhabitants of the island would be floating peacefully and safely in the sky." But that doesn't really stack up with the Gaudi. The beetle people. One of which even expresses a desire to eat Mimiga flesh. There's also the fact that Arthur had to be a hero to begin with. If everything is peaceful, then why would one need a hero?
One detail you might've missed about King is that his eyes are always pink in game. Daisuke hinted in a FAQ answer that this was because King consumed red flowers too, but instead of eating them raw and whole, he made and consumed a boiled infusion of red flowers. I know, others have pointed it out... Otherwise, that's a neat video essay!
So, theme wise, I think there is a big theme of "loss of childhood innocence / journey to adulthood" for quote, and the player, and the game uses video game tropes, and subversions of those tropes, to hammer that point home really hard. The beginning of the game features quote, and the player, entering a cave with relative quiet, as you are trying to figure out basic movements, how to shoot, etc, with relatively little hand holding. Mostly mechanical exploration, and exploration. Kinda like how babies are when they first enter the world. And sure, you stole a gun from a guy, but like, you don't know who he is, whether he's a good guy or bad guy, how much he needs that gun, etc. It lacks much moral impact, because you don't have the knowledge or context to understand how much it is right or wrong. Kinda like *babies*. Hmmmmmm. And you know what music track is playing while this takes place? "GESTATION". BOOM. MIC DROP. This is similar to how we start in life, but it's also how quote is without any memory. In taking his first steps around the world, without his memory, his development, and mental maturity, makes him basically a super powered human baby. And the game uses video game mechanics to get you into that frame of mind. So anyways, after this, you are dropped into mimiga town. You have people talking about all of this stuff, which is ominous if you really think about it, but you probably won't really think about it too hard, because you're too busy exploring this interesting bright world, jamming out to this utterly happy music. Kinda like children. What talk you hear about their problems, you probably assume is solvable / fixable with a little elbow grease, because all of the problems you've encountered so far have been pretty solvable with some elbow grease, like children tend to think. And the game gets you into the "child like" frame of mind really hard, with the cheery upbeat music, bright color palette, cute character designs, fun to explore world, interesting quirky characters. The game even uses low bit graphics / soundtrack, old school gameplay, a "princess being kidnapped", a fetch quest in the form of bringing the jelly back and forth, all to evoke the mentality of your happier childhood years, in order to bring you into this frame of mind. This mostly continues further into the game until the end of the sand level. At that point, the local parental figure, who you probably assumed was in control and had things figured out, shows themselves to be relatively powerless, and freakin *dies*. Similar how, as we grow up, our parents are shown, at some point, to not be all they're cracked up to be, and there is a scary outside world outside of their control. What's more, Tokoro, the icon of innocence, and reminiscent of your video game princess, also gets CORRUPTED AND DIES. Up until now, this has been one of, if not your primary, video game objective. And the history of video game tropes, along with the history with the game to this point, are all telling you that this should *not happen*, making it all the more horrific. This is a big "end of childhood" moment for Quote, and the player. You, and your parent / hero figures, aren't as powerful as you thought they were. The outside world is way more dangerous than you thought it was. There are scenarios where you will *fail* in a way that utterly cannot be fixed; where the tools you learned as a child hood (aka video game logic) do not get you what you want. Even if those things are really important. In fact, there are some scenarios where, no matter *what* you try and do, you're going to not get what you want. Life may not always have a clear purpose to direct you on where to go next. So overall? Life after childhood freakin sucks sometimes. The themes encapsulated here get hammered home again and again repeatedly later on in the game, using the gameplay to hammer these themes home. After this encounter, you don't get to murder the doctor hardcore (aka the video game logic, childhood logic, solution). Instead, the game teleports you to a labyrinth, where people in there are talking about the futility of trying to get out of the hole, and dead corpses are lying about you. And you're just left there, to *STEW* in your thoughts. Not much satisfying revenge going on here. Your sense of lost purpose, guilt, powerlessness, and lack of ability to fix / redeem things, is brought to an emotional peak, with the mimiga town and the egg corridor revisiting. You enter mimiga town, it's an empty shell of what it once was. All of the other people you thought you could save are missing, maybe even dead. The egg corridor is a bloody mess. You cannot go back to the areas symbolic of childhood innocence. And you barely have any idea of where to go anymore. You're meandering, searching for a hope or solution, when there are very little outward indications that such a thing even exists. And here, when quote / the player is at their lowest point, they are faced with a difficult choice. Either assume that the setbacks they've encountered so far will continue happening, that the things that they cherished from their childhood are forever unachievable, and give up on them. Choosing to scrape together what meager satisfaction they can obtain from their own safety / survival. This might parallel the cynical folks in life, who disregard the values / ideals they learned in childhood, in favor of looking out for themselves. Or: press on anyway, against all odds. Maybe, just like you didn't have the full picture in childhood, you don't have the full picture now. Maybe something will change, in order to make things not as hopeless as they seem. Maybe you've decided that your purpose in life, and those things you learned to appreciate in childhood, are *so* valuable, that you would be willing to die even for the chance of a chance at obtaining them. This might be representing the people who transcend themselves, and are willing to sacrifice everything for a greater cause. Up to this point, continuing to play the game was kind of a given. This is the first time the game is really *giving* you a choice in deciding how you are going to deal with the setbacks you've encountered as a result of your loss of childhood innocence. So it makes your choice much more impactful. The game might be saying that struggling with choices as heavy and impactful as this are hallmarks of being an adult. Along with taking responsibility for the outcomes that those choices result in. Or perhaps the game is saying that you only really get to make the choice to transcend yourself once you reach adulthood, and you have to make those kinds of decisions for yourself. And after you make this choice, you scale the wall with the oh so excellent song "moonsong" playing. And not much dialouge. Just lots of time for the player to contemplate what's happened, and what he is choosing to do. Considering the game is longer, more satisfying, and quote achieves more, from choosing to go on, it is clear that the author has a side on which of the two approaches to dealing with the "loss of childhood innocence" is the better one. After this, things start taking a turn for the better. The player is able to save some of what he valued in childhood, but he can't recoup what was lost. The player is just forced to make the best of this new reality, which isn't as bright as he thought, but it's not all doom and gloom, as kazuma lead you to believe either. In so doing, the game might be saying that adult hood is a mixed bag, of both good, and bad. And the author might also be saying that, while you can't make life as good as you thought it was as a kid, you can still achieve some truly exceptional things. But only if you are willing to hold onto what you value, and sacrifice yourself if need be. I still don't have a super good interpretation on the best ending. My initial interpretation of the best end was just to give the players an option to escape all of the gloomy talk about the death of childhood innocence, if they wanted to. That stuff is pretty heavy and disheartening to think about, so if people wanted, the creator gave them a totally unintuitive way to reclaim much of what was lost during the game, and not need to wrestle with the sad thoughts of the game quite as much. But eh, that interpretation isn't especially robust, considering toroko and king still die. Seems weird to give players only half of an escape. My lack of satisfying "best end" interpretation does shoot *some* holes in my theory. But I still think there's some decently good evidence for it overall, considering the "gestation" thing, the innocent mimigas getting corrupted, the initial innocent areas you started getting all messed up, and giving the player a whole lot of dis empowerment, and meandering without a strong sense of purpose. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
PS, super minor complaint about the video. You mentioned that professor booster showing up later makes no logical sense. The explanation I heard, which makes *some* sense to me, is that he uses the jetpack (which he doesn't give to you) in order to get out of the hole. And I guess he has more will to survive if he realizes that he can get out, which makes him take longer to die?? So, imo, it makes like 1% sense, but not quite *no* logical sense.
Wow! That's an excellent analysis and you supported it really well. I always wondered why that song was called Gestation and it makes perfect sense. My interpretation took things from a broader, more society-focused perspective while yours applies more to individual growth. They're not at all mutually exclusive though! After all my take on Quote's character arc was him learning to become more empathetic, which is also something children have to do as they grow up. My analysis makes Ballos and the best ending work a little bit better I think? The idea of permanently putting a stop to something that affects the entire world isn't what the average person has to deal with as they mature. But the theme of childhood -> maturity makes Quote's character a good deal deeper than I saw it as. I think a more advanced and thorough analysis of the game would include the themes you brought up, especially with regard to Quote. Great work! This is exactly the kind of comment I want to be getting on my analysis videos. Maybe you should try writing your own video essays :)
Hmm that's interesting and like kinda makes sense? It works as a head canon for sure. But like his glasses are broken when you talk to him in the pit but are perfectly fine when he survives and teleports to the village. Did he have another pair in his pocket (and if so why don't those break?)?
@@Skyehoppers thanks so much for reading and commenting on my theory! I don't have friends who are fans of the game, so I've been dying to have someone to explain my thoughts to. Yeah, thinking it over, your good end theory synthesizes reasonably well with the "journey to adulthood" idea. Yes, in adulthood, there is evil worth stopping / dealing with directly, via the expected solution of force(the doctor), as you perceived in childhood. But unlike your childhood viewpoint, there is more to understanding them, and the world, than meets the eye. And understanding them is key to being able to stop them, in a long term way. The whole "unintuitive to demonstrate super human requirements" part of the theory may also be able to be integrated. That theory bit may be an encouragement to quote / the player that, in adult hood, you should seek out the deeper rooted explanations of the setbacks you encounter in adulthood and the world, since they may exist and be fixable. But, finding them is extremely difficult to do, so if you aren't able to achieve them, don't be too hard on yourself. Mild evidence for this is in the fact that the game doesn't guilt the player for not getting the best ending. Video essays would be quite fun, but I'm too lazy and protective of my free time for that, most likely. Most of the time I'm ok with settling for explaining my thoughts to internet strangers and / or my "artsy video game friends". (Though that only works when it's a game we're all willing to play). I'd probably be happy to contribute video essay ideas and / or be a sounding board for video drafts though, if that was something you were looking for. (no worries if not though). Regarding professor booster, my impression was that he'd been up there for long enough to get recovered, and get his glasses repaired, before he met up with quote. But I don't remember the chronology of events at the plantation well enough to be able to say whether that idea entirely holds up. If you meet booster very shortly after his teleporting up, then yeah, that explanation doesn't really work.
I played Cave Story in 2018 on the Switch. But I knew about the game long before thanks to YTPMVs and other media. Since then is became one of my all time favorites. I loved how it felt, the atmosphere and the characters. And for it all to be made by one guy is impressive especially in the early 2000’s. I have dedicated a lot of my time playing it. I even took the time to beat hell under 3 mins. I feel like it doesn’t represented and loved today, but I will hold it dear to me.
God damn, this video really blew my mind. I've loved the game for years now, and I REALLY wanted to see an analysis like this that goes into the themes of the game, I've always felt like there was something deeper but I don't really have the eye for this kind of subtext, you absolutely knocked it out of the park and reminded me the reason why I loved it so much. Outstanding job, It might not be much but this has earned you a new subscriber :)
Well there's one thing that he forgot to mention it's the fact that both King and torico can be saved in the fourth ending also not many people know about it and I don't even know for sure if you can do it in cave story Plus p
Great analysis, very in depth and researched and thought out. One small thing I might put forward is that I'd say "Nuclear Weapons" is less the metaphor I'd go for. I'd lean towards "drugs". It's "a substance that increases your abilities, but will destroy you from within". People who use it "are no longer thinking clearly". The doctor grows it on a Plantation with the Mimiga not only enslaved, but also convinced "This is how you will be helped, this is what will lift you out of danger and give you power". I didn't know about King/Arthur drinking Red Flower Tea, but it also fits. It would represent "using it responsibly", for example taking prescription medication as directed instead of abusing it.
I hope I'm not being too off here. It's been a long time since I've watched this sort of video, so I'm out of practice when it comes to the analysis of stories in video games. But for all the talk about humans being so terrible, being incapable of ultimately doing the right thing, and being the source of all the evil in the game...it sounds bleak, doesn't it? But it's missing something. The robots, Quote and Curly. More or less unquestionable heroes in 2/3 of the ending. In all three, they are at the very least kind and helpful, unlike the destructive, greedy, and cowardly humans. But who made them? Who put them on the island? And in the case of Quote, who gave them the power to change the island's fate? It was humans. Those who are marked as incapable of bringing about lasting good even with the best, most righteous intentions. Humans made the robots. Humans put those robots on the island. And a human, even if it was against his will, gave Quote the Polar Star, the tool he uses to bring about all the good in the game one way or another. How do you interpret this? In my eyes, this is symbolic of a hope for the next generation to do better. All the older humans - Ballos, Jenka, the Doctor, and even characters like Kazuma - all of them either directly or indirectly cause problems on the island, from their actions or inaction. The humans from ten years ago who set robots upon the island did so maliciously, with the intent to take the Demon Crown. But their products, their makings, their *children*, the robots? They managed to do good. They turned a cursed island, a former warzone and a prison, into a safe home for it's inhabitants. They demonstrated empathy and bravery in a way their forefathers could not, or did not. These robots, who are probably not much more than ten years old, were able to do what Jenka could not do in over a hundred years. The humans themselves may not have been able to do good, but they created something that could. That, I think, is a good resolution. And I think it also neatly ties into the unintuitive route to the good ending. The first to play Cave Story did not get the good ending. How could they? It's difficult even if you know exactly what to do, and they knew nothing. They were hopeless. But the players that came after them figured it out. Those players, brought into the game thanks to the earlier ones as the game grew in popularity, were able to do better than their predecessors and achieve the best ending despite the odds, just as Quote and Curly did. Anyways, great video. I love it when a game can exist for over a decade and still have a community discussing it, it's themes, and it's narrative. The Portal series is one of my favorite of all time for the same reason. Cave Story has always held a special place in my heart; it was a world first in many respects, but to me, it was the first time I cared about the characters in a video game, and treated them as people rather than text boxes and sprites. Thank you for reminding me of it.
Absolutely love comments like these, thanks for sharing :) I think thats a really solid interpretation too! A lot less bleak than mine thats for sure. There was a comment that I got a while back in a similar vein to yours that sees Quote's arc not as becoming more human, but as growing up while always having been human. The first track in the game is named "Gestation" after all. I think youre both onto something real, and thats probably where the analysis naturally leads when you dig a layer deeper than my video does. It's easy to forget that curly and quote must have been created *by* someone because the game gives no details as to who that person was and what their motivations were...but there are subtle clues still. This is the kind of conversation I look to create with my channel, just really digging deep into what these little works of art can mean. So thanks!
Leaving Booster does make sense. He is the inventor of the booster, by saving him and giving him an easy way out you take away his reason for living. The situation he is in gives him the final push to perfect the booster and get down and exit via the teleporter. Once you know his reason for living, his invention, it makes far more sense. It also plays into letting him be free to be who he wants to be and not forcing a fate on him, like Balrog and Misery.
if you saw an frail old man fall 2 stories down and appeared to still be living would you try and help them or let someone in their 60s-90s go through some "character development"
@@notasadvertised617 and your choice would be? Also how would you assume Quote would do it knowing he has no way out? And the only door he can see is infont of him.
For the the “counter intuitive” requirement you could actually argue it still flows with the concept of “understanding the source” It’s possible to explain that the reason professors booster survives is because the frog doctor and his nurse helped him to a full recovery. Since they found and helped Curly Brace it’s possible they make rounds looking for poor souls who are injured. Professor booster when giving you the 0.8 booster might have worsen his injuries where as a person experienced in medical care might have known to try and have the injured move as little as possible to make their waning Health worse.
Great video. It's interesting how a story which at first glance is pretty shallow (even for somebody that has gotten the true ending) can be interpreted in such a beautiful and deep way. Also at 11:42 you compare the red flowers with nuclear bombs (which is a valid comparison, because they're used as weapons), but I personally compare them to drugs. I mean the flower that can cause animal-like characters to go insane while making them powerful, that also doesn't have any effect on humans unless turned into a crystal is a pretty good paralel to you know what. Also also, in the switch port of the game they made you able to talk with booster without loosing the true ending, you just need to not take the booster 0.8. It doesn't take away from your point, because who wouldn't take the booster 0.8 without knowing the way to get the good ending.
Whoa thats wild they changed that for the switch port?? I wonder if thats a change Pixel was okay with or just Nicalis messing with the game in response to criticism once again. Its interesting and maybe unsettling that you could get a totally different read on that part of the game if you play the most recent port.
Most likely not, it still is incredibly hard to get the true ending even here, still proving your point about how hard it is to end supression permanently. It just makes that part less weird, while (imo) not taking away from the story.
This is a good analysis, but it's not perfect... 1) Arthur, King and the Red flowers - First of all, props for Arthur. He was a Hero. I'm not saying it to glorify him, it's said so on the medal you get from the Red Ogre in the Last Cave. Arthur defeated the ogre himself and saved the village. Now King - look at his eyes. They are pink. The "half way there" color of red. Red eyed Mimigas are frenzied Mimimgas that ate the red flower. Also, normal Mimigas are bad fighters, but two "normal" Mimigas aren't: the one with pink eyes, and the one with red flowers in his basement. It's almost canon that King and Arthur had found a way to get the powers of the flower without losing their mind, getting "only" as aggressive as King did. 2) The Spur, the old man, and dormant power - first of all, the first time I defeated Ballos I did it with the machine gun. Just flexing. But the old man can be a part of your conclusion: Quote could be a good boy and not steal that gun. But then he wouldn't be able to change a thing. He wouldn't be able to fight bats, or bunnies, or doctors, let alone a living god of rage and madness. Once he seized power, even though immoral means, he could start change things for the better. If we shift perspective we get a similar result - the gun could have been left alone and be worked on by the old man, being perfected, and being unused. Great power unused, letting evil run amok, is evil unto itself. Lastly, the old man. On first playthrough, a curious player would return to the old man without the gun. The old man goes "I had my gun, but someone stole it! Shame, it was not perfected". Ok, that was a side quest that I failed. Next playthrough I'll be a good boy and return the gun, the smart gamer says to themselves. Instead they're scolded. Great, I didn't use that weapon neither for trade nor merging, and I lost my gun, the smart gamer says at first. They then has to listen to the old man lecturing them on how stealing is wrong. But then he comes around. He realizes that Quote used the gun a lot, and returning it means they're good, so he used that power for good... The first philosophy of the old man is sound on the surface, but he understands he was wrong. Power that isn't yours can be used for good... 3) Professor Booster and stretching too thin - I'll admit, the way to the good ending is unintuitive. Certainly unattainable in a blind playthrough. But some will say philosophy and ideals are unattainable, so let's talk about why not saving the Professor can work with the theme of empathy. Let's talk about capabilities. There is a teleporter. It's broken, but the professor can fix it. Now you could try and help him, but you know what happens to someone who helps endlessly? Exactly what happens to a back that carries too much load - it breaks. It's not enough to help everyone, because then you won't be able to lend a hand when you do need to. Professor Booster can handle himself. Curly, drowned in that room, cannot... 4) Why? - I don't have a clever answer for the last point because it's a question. The essay claims that humans can never end oppression because they are humans. The essay shows how the game (in text and in meta text) support that claim, but not why. Why humans can't stop oppression? A claim, even when supported by evidence, without explanation of how can only prove that the opposite didn't happen yet. It's like communism. We've seen it not working, but without an explanation as to why it cannot work we can only prove it didn't work yet, not that it can never work... All that deep thought couldn't have been achieved without the essay, so thanks for the amazing essay! It was great! Just a bit rough around the edges...
1) Yeah this has come up a few times! Supposedly there's an interview with Pixel where he confirms that King did eat the flowers but boiled them to reduce the negative effects or something. My main point with that section was that whether they used the flowers or not their fates didn't change, which shows the helplessness of peoples caught in war (or as I see it now as a close parallel to colonialism), and I dont think that changes too much with that new information. 2) Okay this is really cool and I never thought about that angle before! I guess the whole mechanic of trading in your weapons is one of the few I totally didn't consider in my analysis so that's a dope observation. 3) That's a good read too I like that. I don't know though when you do try to help him (or just miss that jump) it seems like no he can't handle himself? Still don't see anything that makes me understand why he dies only in that situation. 4) I think the game shows that people can't end oppression because the tools that would require are impossible to achieve. We can't savescum and our world is too complex to pinpoint the root cause of every problem. I could have dived into why a little more, but I feel like that would have taken the video off the rails a bit? It wasn't in the scope of my essay to try and read a bunch of tangentially related books or anything, which I think further exploration of that theme would demand. Also I don't even think I agree with that perspective, just that's what I think cave story communicates. But thanks for engaging with the video so deeply! It's refreshing to talk through different viewpoints on analyzing the game and you have good counterpoints for me. I love getting comments like this and they're pretty rare cause my channel is so small. So thanks :)
1) That's fair. Whether King ate the red flowers or not, whether Arthur gave into temptation or not, it doesn't matter. In the end, they both died, which is the main point. I addressed that because the essay is a bit harsh on Arthur... 2) Thanks! I might have heard this point from another video about Cave Story and power, but I think you can extract a lot about power from this game. Whether it's how the game tries to make you give up the gun in favor of better weapons, finally rewarding you with the best weapon if you didn't give into temptation, the red flower as temptation of power for the mimigas, the crown, which not only was created at the request of misery for more power, but is why the whole conflict started in the first place (the whole human sending robots to the island? Yeah, that was also about the crown), Cave Story has a lot to say about it. I don't think it condemns power as a whole, but it advocates it's player to use as much power as they need, not as much as they want. Power earned through temptation is bad, because it reveals that the one gaining it really wants power for power's sake. I don't know how King's Sword works into that thesis though. It's not a bad weapon, fully upgraded it's amazing, but it takes a lot to fully upgrade it. It can be traded for a weapon which is the complete opposite - kicks major ass on level one, though once upgraded it loses power - after doing a bizarre side quest. I guess you could extract something about tradition? Like, tradition has it's values, but don't let it stop progress? Maybe the troll weapon wants to communicate something about greed? Need some more thinking... 3) Let me profess (heh) once again - Professor Booster being saved by not talking to him is strange and unintuitive game design. Even if I can excuse it, a lot of hindsight is needed. Now let's excuse it: The Professor had the Booster 0.8 on him. That might be how he was able to fix the teleporter. So him giving it to you might be how he died (that and the whole hopelessness of the situation...) So why did he help you? Because he thought, like you, that without his help you cannot escape, even though you can (at least in the updated versions of the game. Pretty sure the original game didn't even had the red helpful pixel that tells you where you should start the jump from...) Heck, even the jump itself is seemingly impossible without help, but it is. It's the same philosophy of stretching yourself too thin, though in the Prof. case, it comes it's either him or you, and he chooses you. As for the tow rope? I think I have a (lame) excuse for that too. It's about Quote, really. After so many loses, Toroko, King, the island, the professor, and now Curly, he just too hopeless to find the tow rope. It's not a question of whether the tow rope is there or not. It's there regardless. It's a question of whether Quote finds it or not, and that depends on his mental health... Very shakey, especially since you could say that desperation could lead someone to try even harder, especially if what's on the line is Curly's life... 4) I guess I understand your point, although I don't think that's a proof we can't end oppression, just that it's very hard. If anything, it can be a message of hope. Yes, you will make mistakes, mistakes that will lead to dire consequences that you'd have to deal with. But a happy ending is possible. You'll have to make sacrifices, and it'll be hard, but it's possible... Again, thank you for making this essay! It inspired me to think more about this lovely game...
Answering the Tow Rope question: My idea, shakey still admittedly as is everything with justifying the Good Ending, is that in the time you spend talking to Booster the tow rope washes away. In fact, if we could rework Cave Story then instead of making the moral quandary be about talking or not talking to Booster and those implications, instead give the player the knowledge after the end of the normal playthrough that the tow rope exists and came from the core room, like it got washed away and basically somehow guiding the player into the thought of "if you made it here faster you could have snagged it before it washed away." Maybe somehow after the normal end maybe after credits roll, if you completed some arbitrary objective (discovered some secret or only suffered X amount of damage I'm the final boss or found all the life capsules or didn't use the life pot etc) the game would show a cutscene of the rope in the core room washing away, then Maybe the sounds of Quote and Curly entering the room off screen messing with the doors, and MAYBE even the sounds of the booster to try and clue them in not to grab it. For further explicitness you could then, after this was unlocked, have a dialog prompt after you go down and talk to booster that you "hear the sound of something washing down stream" or something like that. Ultimately the point is to try to instead make the player realize that "if I don't try and save Booster I can instead save Curly" Though th3n this is flawed too since a repeat player KNOWS that they cannot save booster, but video game Conditioning will force them to always talk to booster cause surely that's what you have to do. The philosophy of getting the good ending is entirely from a gameplay perspective and out of universe thematics and story telling. Instead of looking in-universe as to the message of Quote ignoring Booster, if we look out of universe we see that only those that are able to "think outside the box" even attempt unintuitive and unconventional solutions can truly make progress in this world. The player must reject their humanity and conditioning if they want what is truly the best outcome. 99 percent tof players, blind, will not do this. They play it once, think that is all that it has to offer, and are done. Even repeat players probably wouldn't attempt to avoid booster until a decent amount of replays and only then out of sheer curiosity since there is no promise of anything greater for ignoring Booster THAT IS if we ignore the book in the shack right before the final boss. The one that has Booster talking about not having finished the booster and it being incomplete, just like the Polar Star That book is your clue to ignore booster, and then hopefully the player inquisitive and sharp enough to find the book will find the tow rope as well. With the Polar star you have the immediate knowledge of "Give back to old man" => "gun becomes stronger" Meanwhile there is no sane person that thinks "Don't talk to booster leave him in the pit" => "maybe he will decide to work on the booster and make it complete and I get it from him later somehow?" I wish the book had some notes of like "I think I can find the parts I need to complete it in the labyrinth" OR Maybe even Have some mechanical parts somewhere that you need the booster to get to that theoretically could be used to upgrade the booster maybe something the player would only know with the book knowledge, and then bla. You could also literally just give an actual dialogue option for Quote to say "no, you keep it" for the booster or something like that that only happens on a repeat playthrough since It accomplishes the same goal that Pixel wanted anyway "no one gets this on the first playthrough" but maybe the mad lad really wanted to see if anyone did get it 1st run. Regardless I have brainstormed enough here. The game is rough around the edges, but I love it to bits.
11:40 - I always assumed the red flowers were a metaphor for drugs. Performance enhancers, Stimulants, or Sedatives. Real life flowers are used in the production of some narcotics (such as Heroin which is made from Poppy, a Red Flower), and their use causes a cycle of vicious addiction which accelerate you towards destruction. Arthur used them, there was probably less stigma then, and he does so understanding the danger so he was careful and used moderation. He only has a little plant in his house. So contrast that with the bad guys. They're literally medical staff with a Mad Doctor, a Nurse Witch, and a Giant First Aid Box. These are professionals would know how to utilize the flowers, even if understanding is limited by rank in the hierarchy. As it's doubtful Balrog understands the plan, After all he is just a thug whose use is practical and mercenary much like how First-Aid is the most practical and easiest to use form of medicine. Misery knows more as a nurse, she has a lot more knowledge, but the doctor? The doctor is in a league of his own, he's a master of practical and the theoretical applications of medicine. He's not just able to scheme and plan, he can find new uses for resources most people (like misery) would take at face value (to clarify, Misery uses Balrog's potential to turn him into a frog, but she can't create a new Balrog, she doesn't have that kind of power). The Doctor even takes the flowers himself and gets ripped doing it, he becomes "The Muscle Doctor" and even after losing his mind and his death his soul entangles everyone involved with him and brings them down with him. It destroys communities, kills people, it's grown with slavery on a plantation, it's used by outsiders who came to exploit the land and its people to destabilize said land and the rest of the world for their profit. I also like the idea it's a nuclear weapon even if the deterrent power of nuclear weapons makes them a good thing.
I've always felt that Cave Story's best ending is a bit "too good to be true". It requires you to take a series of convoluted and seemingly nonsensical steps, then dumps an entire chapter of the game's lore on you through exposition boxes, with a never before seen super secret mega bad-guy that was actually the source of the evil all along. I especially don't understand why Misery was the one to create the Demon Crown, if she was later imprisoned and made to serve it, as well as why killing Ballos would somehow keep the island floating in the air after Quote destroyed the core. What I mean to say is, even thought there is no "canon" or "canonical" ending to Cave Story, I think the "normal" ending is the one that makes the most sense and best ties everything together. The best ending might be the most "happy" and optimistic one - Curly survives, the power behind the crown is banished, the island doesn't crash - but it feels artificial and forced by the very fact that you probably had to look up a walkthrough to even know how to do it. My bet is that most people got the "normal" ending on their first playthrough, and that it was THAT ending that had the most profound emotional impact on them. The best ending likely felt satisfying due to it's sheer challenge, more than the way it was written.
Yes exactly! The best ending just doesn't mesh with the rest of the writing. Maybe Pixel just felt kinda bad for making such a bleak game tbh. That's why when you take the best ending in stride it complicates the meaning of the game as a whole so much
I like the 'Best Ending' because it's in my opinion, what Quote wants to accomplish. The Normal ending is focused on the human group that went to the island, and their struggle in righting their own mistakes and escaping. The Best Ending is the one where Curly and Quote pick up their original mission where it left off, and destroy the source of the Demon Crown's evil. It's not easy, but these two robots are absolute badasses and a cut above the rest. The game rewards your skilled play with an ending that it's deserving of. You destroy the ultimate evil, and then you, your robot girlfriend, and your cool giant soap shaped bro go hang out and build a party house for robot chads. You're too good for those lame human scientists. The 'Best Ending' is representative of the game developer wanting to give a skilled and shrewd player the option to make everything right. I don't exactly buy all of it, but I'm glad it's there. The story's no longer about the Sakamoto family and their robot helper, it's about you getting down to business.
This was a really cool analysis! It definitely makes sense to see the game as an analogy for war. Though to be honest, I really dislike the interpretation that the best ending is the "non-human" ending. It feels too pessimistic, which I especially dislike in the face of today's political climate. Instead, I think it's better to interpret the best ending as a result of human ability, though not of any single person. Referencing your own analysis, this ending basically requires the collaboration of multiple human efforts, whether that be learning its secrets from your friends or from looking up hints from others on the internet, but it's that collaboration that allows the player to reach the true final boss. A single person may not even know about Ballos, but the knowledge and effort of multiple people is what allows Ballos to be discovered and defeated -- much like how in the real world, a single person can't do much to enact change, but multiple people spreading their message and working together can identify systemic oppression and defeat it from its true core.
Refusing to help, or leaving the doctor, could also mean it is sometimes better to let people solve their own problems. Growing in strength and independence on the way. The old saying ''Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Give a man a rod and you will feed him for a lifetime''. And indeed, the doctor does help himself and even improves his jetpack.
Loved this video Skye! I think it’s really interesting how you pointed out that you have to be pretty much inhumanly perfect at the game and have inhumanly deep and specific knowledge in order to pull off the good ending (though as players we can replace that skill with save states and the knowledge with online guides). That’s also supported by the enormous difficulty spike the end of the good ending presents - you have to go through the hardest area of the game AND the hardest boss (who doesn’t even stop after two phases) with no saving - you have to complete the level and each phase of the boss essentially perfectly or have to do it all again, including the level. I thought the good ending was strangely obscure but your explanation makes a lot of sense. The only issue left for me with it though is that when I found out it was possible to save Curly with some extraordinarily obscure sequence of actions, I couldn’t help searching for something similar for Toroko and King. It was frustrating that there was a way to “break” the game to save Curly but not them.
I played this game since so much Had the best ending a couple of times And overall liking the games but i was a little concerned about some stuff Suddenly finding someone just like me and saying what was in my mind Thank you
i think this video covers it super super well, i like that you included all the endings, it really shows what kind of difference you can make and how everything reflects
Really good job with the video, I enjoyed it a lot! I have some fond memories of Cave Story, I remember watching lets plays of it over a decade ago and being completely entranced by the idea that it was entirely made by one person. I wasn't as media literate at the time, so I didn't really ponder on its thematic significance, but watching this video made me want to go through it myself and really think about what it is the game is about.
Man, I've still never finished the good end. A number of years ago, back when Cave Story+ was still new, I gave it a crack, and had an absolute blast, because it's a fantastic game. But then I got to the waterway with a drowning Curly, got her on the bed, and couldn't figure out what to do next. So I just left her there, figuring she'd sort herself out and catch up. Didn't think I'd have to grab a book on CPR. After a day or two of trying to tackle the hall of angels, I saw a video of someone going through where I was with Curly on their back, and that's when I realized I'd missed something. Quit and never went back after realizing I literally left the best girl to die.
24:03 this is wrong. You don’t have to redo the save if you miss the jump. You can climb your way back up and the professor only dies if you talk to him
It should be noted Cave Story is inspired by retro games, where very obscure procedures for unlocks where more common So perhaps the steps for the best ending don't have any real meaning, Pixel just wanted to follow the steps of other games and make it REALLY hard to find, so it would be more exciting to discover it Remember the classic school yard chat about unlocking X in Y game? with lots of obscure steps that made no sense? this is that, but real
I like your analysis. You even pointed out some lore secrets I missed, despite having been playing the game for 12 years. (Did get one minor thing wrong, but it's understandable since it was only answered by Pixel himself in an interview and not in the actual game). The only thing that gives me pause is that I fear this might be a case of the literature professor overanalyzing the color of the drapes. Considering Pixel's development process of the game, I doubt the profound implications of the story were intentional. More than half of the five-year development process of the game was in making the beta version that does not resemble the final version at all. Then it was more or less scrapped entirely when he got feedback that it wasn't fun to play, meaning that the masterpiece we got was put together in about two years, save for many of the assets he designed. What's more, the good ending was thrown in at the last minute after being asked to make it more challenging. And I think that's key to understanding the few bad design choices. Professor Booster was always supposed to die. Curly was always supposed to die. Balrog was always evil. There was never a tow rope. Ther was never a Ma Pignon. The binary choice Kazuma gives you was always, Run Away or Destroy the Island. Saving the island was never a possibility. The Normal ending was supposed to be the real ending. But because of some last-minute changes, things were added to increase the fun of playing the game with less regard for how it fits into the story or contradicts the theme. The justifications you give are a great thought experiment, and I like the conclusions you draw, but I can't help but think it's wishful thinking. Pixel would probably be stunned if he sees this video. It brings me no joy to say this because I still regard Cave Story as my favorite video game of all time.
Yeah that's all fair! My style of analysis leans more into death of the author territory which isn't for everyone. I'm more interested in what meaning emerges when you take something at face value than what the creator consciously decided would be the message. Although I do still think that he going for *something* meaningful with Balrog. It would've been easy to make him straight-up evil like the Doctor but instead we got a pretty nuanced backstory for a secret boss. Also what did I get wrong? Was it that King did eat the red flowers?
Just today I beat my first ever playthrough of the game. Only got the "neutral" ending since just like you said I didn't know how to save Curly until I looked it up, but at that point I had already saved and it was too late. Won't watch the whole video now because I want to get the good ending for myself first, but it's great so far, bringing attention to quite a bit of stuff about the story I didn't really pick up on on my own
This is amazing omg, you have so much quality and professionalism, you need so much more subscribers and views!! I hope you will get them, meanwhile I subscribed and liked the video.
Your analysis is pretty amazing. This has always been one of my absolute favorite games, but I think this video really helps me understand it a lot better, and for that I thank you. I have a few thoughts about the true ending, primarily in regards to Booster's death and his role in building the Booster V 2.0., but to make a long story short I don't think it was entirely flubbed, I think it does fit in with the game in terms of plot, story and mechanics, even if it's a pretty convoluted detail. I wouldn't mind taking the time to share if anyone's interested! I'd rather make this a thread than a giant mini essay, so I'm all ears if anyone's interested in replying.
Thanks! And sure, what are you thinking? I think Booster's death/non-death produces an interesting message, but it's definitely dissonant with other aspects of the game so I'm curious what your perspective is
@@Skyehoppers To start off, overall I totally agree with the viewpoint you presented in your video. The themes of conflict make sense as does the role of the characters in the story, as you described them. I see how Booster's death can be quite dissonant since it breaks the flow of the normal story line. However, I don't believe it's impossible to figure out how to get the best ending without an outside guide. Pixel doesn't explicitly include any clues on how to directly save Booster anywhere in Cave Story. He DOES offer some insight on how to acquire the Booster 2.0, an item which players likely won't find on their first go around. The clue comes in the form of a journal entry left in the prefab house just outside of the throne room. In it Professor Booster explicitly states that he can complete an upgraded version of the Booster 0.8... ...Provided he lives long enough to do so. Not only has the player been trained to help the innocent, but also to seek out upgrades and life capsules, meaning this clue isn't just a throwaway piece of dialogue. I think this is the first important puzzle piece needed to figure out the best ending since the blood stained sanctuary absolutely requires the upgraded booster in order to navigate it successfully. And if Pixel implies that an item can be acquired by ensuring the survival of one character, then maybe other characters can potentially be saved too. Your thoughts?
Since I was younger ( I’m still young) I loved cave story. I would come back from school and try to tell everybody how good it is. My family love it but I was devoted. I played it on every console (and it burned a hole through my allowance) but it was so gratifying to beat ballos. This was an amazing video and even taught me things that I didn’t know like Arthur using red flowers. I loved this video and I really hope you do good
Wow, this was a great analysis and video. I’ve been a cave story fan for what feels like forever, and you summed the game up perfectly. However, more that I’ve thought about it, the part where you jump over the gap where booster falls make sense, but only after the fact. When you take the booster 0.8, I like to think that it is getting rid of boosters only way of getting out of the labyrinth. Jumping over the gap let’s him keep and upgrade the booster, not only to escape, but to give you a better version. Just a thought :)
I feel like you could interpret the good ending as a "what if" sort of ordeal, as all of the choices are ones which can realistically only be made with experience gained after making them. By ignoring Booster, by not taking the Booster v0.8, maybe Booster would've found a way to survive. After all, there was a teleporter down there. Plus, in the bookshelf in the Prefab Building, you can find Booster's memo detailing that he did have plans to use the Booster v0.8 to make the Booster v2.0, meaning that he could have had been able to continue had he kept the Booster v0.8 After Curly sacrificed herself, when you regained consciousness, maybe she wasn't dead yet. Maybe there was something lying around in the Core that you could've used to get her out, and you just didn't notice. From there, an entirely new storyline is enacted where stuff turns out perfectly BECAUSE you were able to save them. A storyline where, that weird mushroom that asked if you had any business with it could be used to restore Curly's memory. And where Curly's memory happened to hold the secret to stopping the mountain from crashing whilst releasing Balrog and Misery from their curse and saving the world from trouble, permanently. The key to that success, of course, being tied to that weird passageway with the statues of the previous Demon Crown holders. Ballos's existence is (afaik) only revealed to the player AFTER they've ignored Booster. Plus, the door to enter the bloodstained sanctuary is only open when you've completed the requirements prior. Also, on a neutral pt, the dialogue when interacting with Curly in the core says "No reply..." and ends it there, but in a good pt, the dialogue is extended to indicate that she is still alive. Now, there is a 100% chance this reading way too far between the lines and probably not intended by Pixel, but I still think it's a neat theory
I think you've understated or missed the effect that despair and hopelessness can have on the characters. Take Professor Booster, for example. He's presumably thrown into the Labyrinth at the same time that The Doctor and/or Misery comes to abduct the remaining Mimiga. I don't think he's aware of Itoh's or Momorin's status, so as far as he's aware, the only ones left to stand against the Doctor are himself, Sue, Kazuma, and that silent robot who's been cooperative. Kazuma had hidden away, and was never much of a fighter to begin with. Sue was kidnapped with the rest of the Mimiga. All that's left is Quote, so it's my understanding that seeing his last hope to stop The Doctor at the bottom of the same pit he was tossed into drained what little fight he had left in him. All he could do was hand over his unfinished invention to let at least one of them get out of there. In the case where you pass by him and don't try to help, he remains as pragmatic as you've noted he is. Injured as he may be, he'll crawl to the teleporter at the bottom of the pit, repair it, and escape to safety. He can assume that Quote is still out there somewhere if he doesn't have any reason to believe otherwise, and he knows that Quote is everyone's best hope for survival. This isn't to say that the game is punishing the player for making the empathetic choice, rather that there's more nuance to it. Empathy alone isn't the solution to the crisis facing the island. There's a reason that there's no option to talk things out with The Doctor or Ballos at the end. There's countless games out there with varying degrees of morality systems that let you make the 'empathetic' choice from start to finish. That's all well and good, but if you want to compare it to real world situations (as you do towards the end of the video), then it's not an all-encompassing solution. That's not to say that empathy is wrong or that active hostility is right, only that the right approach for the situation should be considered. I think it's no accident that the player is guided towards the bad or normal endings on a first playthrough, because either ending leaves hints that there's more to discover. The prefab building before the fight against Misery has a note from Booster himself stating plans to improve his device over time. The waterway cabin is a place to rest and save on any kind of playthrough, so if you manage to make it there with Curly and rest, the player is clued into this place being important when she's left on the bed (it's even more obvious when you get the message that she dies if you skip it). Some of the methods needed to reach the good ending are obtuse for sure, but if it were easy to reach then it would invalidate the need for the bad or normal ending. Players would aim for the good one on their first playthrough and only be disappointed by the other two despite their narrative purposes. I also have to push back against calling Kazuma a coward. It's a good point to notice how he and his sister differ in their approaches to problems on the island, but again, there's more nuance to it. When Sue tries to fight Igor, she gets defeated almost instantly. Once more, the message isn't "don't try to fight", but knowing how to pick your battles. Sue remains helpful later in the game because she refuses to give in, but if Quote wasn't there to save her in the Egg Corridor, then she probably would have been fed a red flower and turned into a monster. At the same time, Kazuma hiding from The Doctor's attack on the village allowed him to escape to the Egg Corridor and hatch a dragon egg before the whole place was destroyed. If he was captured instead and the rest of the game played out as normal, then Sue and Quote would've jumped off the island to their apparent doom with no one around to catch them. Again, right approach for the situation. Lastly, it feels like an odd point to compare using saves to some sort of meta-narrative point. That's not a function unique to Cave Story or the protagonists being robots, that can basically be true of any game without autosaving or permanent fail-states. It's too broad and generic of a mechanic to extrapolate any kind of meaning from it in this context. There are games out there which aim to derive a narrative purpose from saving or retrying, but Cave Story isn't one of them.
Oh man, I subscribed sooooo hard, seeing a great theme analysis on one of my favorite games of all time. Seriously though, super excellent job. You made me dislike the good ending probably like 20% less than I do currently. And it was soooo satisfying to hear another person call out Balrog for still being a terrible person, sheesh!
i love how the clip in 29:03 perfectly depicts how this was his first time playing this game, trying to interact with up, instead of down Also, this was a great video, this is one of my favorite games and i never thought in analizing it this way, really great video, it made me think and i appreciate it. Thank you
Cave story literally made my childhood. I had played games like Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time, etc. Games with heavy themes and a focus on morality above all else, but Cave Story was different for me, and I think it was because the game is inherently more personal. Link is a destined hero, he does exactly what he was born to do, but Cave Story lacks such a narrative. I remember the profound sadness the game wrought within me the first time I played. I remember growing used to the formula of the game, expecting it to be another level-by-level approach, Egg Corridor, Grasslands, Sandzone, and Mimiga Village acting as a hub of sorts. But then You get sent to the Labyrinth and the entire formula gets turned on it's head, at exactly the same point as the narrative does. I remember feeling like I lost the game, I was in Ocarina of Time's worst timeline. I remember watching Curly die in the core, and the abstract sadness I felt when making my way through the waterway. Although I was mostly too young to put my thoughts and feelings into words, I remember distinctly thinking "Well, I have to carry on, simply because I haven't died yet." I think that the player doing the "normal" ending first, where Curly dies and you escape the island, is absolutely essential for the games narrative, a requirement, even. I think it bolsters the true ending's narrative in a deeply profound way. Once you find out about the true ending, that you can save Curly and Professor Booster, the second playthrough is emboldened by a sense of determination, you will fight like hell, do whatever is necessary to save them and get your only good ending. I think a good game should be great when you first play it. But I think a great game should stand up to being replayed.
The last time I played this was before I had more of an appreciation for game design or even knowing about different endings being possible, so I'm almost certain I would have taken the coward ending and assumed I was done with it. I gotta play it again now
Can't believe that two years later, this is still such a relatively unseen video in the Cave Story community. This is such a rock-solid analysis of the meaning behind the game.
Good and interesting stuff! I've watched all of your videos now, and while I initially thought I would mostly be interested in the speedrun content, this video has really won me over for media analysis stuff as well. I hope to see more great things from you soon! :)
Also the weapon that curly uses during the sanctuary is nemesis which is gotten from a really simple quest: go under the balcony where kazuma is after you say no to the worst ending then go into the door under there then talk to one of the tiny people. Then go all the way back to the graveyard to pick up the tiny human then go all the way back there to trade the blade for nemesis. Nemesis is probably the strongest weapon in the game it basically has a reverse gimmick where level one is a spammy long range 30 damage thunder gun and a single exp chip levels it up making it worse but getting hit resets its level to 1 its really good and I would recommend getting it if the blade isn’t doing much for you.
@@dewah7775 tbh I prefer nemesis since it fires fast bullets but yeah blade works really well Also (this is a hot take) I like the machine gun more since at the labyrinth you can get the speedloader that helps although keeping polar star for the charge weapon (I forgot its name) is way better because it just does more damage and Dosent need to bother with ammo or needing EXP
Ironhead had that helmet before the events of Cave Story, probably as a prosthetic made by one of his disciples before his right-hand-man decided to become a Discord Moderator personified. I wonder how he got hurt, or if he even got hurt at all? I would say it could be a possible battle implement, but he wasn't expecting to see Ikachan at the end of the events of, well, the game 'Ikachan'. Also, his eye on the mech side is red, which might mean that it was burnt or scraped in some way. Man, imagine having a job at the burn ward of an underwater village, what a useless sounding job.
Cave story is a game that leaved a mark on my life and honestly i never think about the depth that the game has, yes i was sad for king, toroko and even more sad with the death of curly, but never thought of the meanings that the game could possibilly have, thanks for your interpretation :D
Glad it could do thar for you :) Honestly its very encouraging to see people still engaging with my videos even 3 years after theyre released. Feels like all the effort will last
I saw this video recommended to me last night at like 3am and nearly had a mental breakdown as my brain only processed the word “human” and the red arrow in the thumbnail pointing to something that looked decidedly inhuman to me. I’m glad I actually found this video today after getting some sleep, it’s really interesting and definitely eased the crisis I had when it first popped up lol
I absolutely agree about "Booster jump" and tow cable placement being weird, but actually brilliant. I think idea behind those is that you SHOULD get bad/not-good ending on your first try. Narratively, to show that bad things happen even to good people, inactive (like most Mimigas) or active (Toroko and King, and all that you failed to save, including people/critters that died in island falling down). Game design-wise, because otherwise people would almost 100% get best ending (there is no reason why cable just disappears from core room after it is flooded, in fact it would make perfect sense for Quote to search floor for something helpful in saving Curly. Hell, part where cable is is already underwater. And leaving Booster to "die" in labyrinth just rubs me the wrong way).
I think there is a subtle message in the choice regarding the professor's death. There's an important understanding in Revolution, that those with their heart truly set on change can't get bogged down trying to save everyone. It's tragic and often there's nothing you can do. But in spite of that things sometimes work out. The good ending revolves around hard choices, not about making good or kind decisions but the necessary ones. It asks us to accept and to move on when our elders die often either by the forces of time or a simple accident like and unfortunate fall. It asks us to steal our nerve and kill one of the only "enemys" that demonstrates an overt desire to live. Combine that with the mechanical Challenge and it can be seen as the game asking us if we really have what it takes. Where the neutral ending is built on a theme of Hope and altruism the good ending is one of drive and purpose. Organically only ever found after countless play throughs repeating again and again the same cycle of War tragedy and strife; only after accepting the futility and making the leap of faith that A New Path unfolds. Rekindled by the survival of a man the game had previously taught you was unsavable. Even in the long string of questions the answer is persistence. You either give up hope find a better world the same hope that drives one to reject the opportunity to leave. Leaving you only to eventually tire and give up on that faith or double down and refuse to quit until you are face-to-face with the heart of nye all human conflict, jealousy, power, isolation, and abuse. It's important in that ending not only that they are machines but that they are soldiers and how that relates to what's asked of the player.
11:39 "Had the red flower not been there, the Mimiga wouldn't be here at all." It was only the Doctor who thought of using the Mimiga against the surface.
I think the path to the Good Ending being convoluted and unintuitive kinda of mimics what you said about Curly. Just like how she had to understand the systems that create the conflict of the story, you as the player must understand all the inner workings of the game and it's world to obtain the best resolution. Most players won't ever get this ending on their first try because they will be playing blindly, but once you share that experience online and see what other people have to say about Cave Story, be it in the form of reviews, guides, analysis or anything else, the player will have a better understanding of the game's story and mechanics, and will them be able to obtain the best ending. Whether it was intended by Pixel or not, to truly reach the best outcome, players must have had to work together and share their experiences/knowledge to figure out the route to the Good Ending, just like how the only way to successfully dismantle the systems that cause oppression is by working together and having an understanding of each other. idk what any of that has to do with the mushroom boss tho. i think pixel just wanted to write a mushroom character who's kinda of a dick and them you killed him.
Thanks for this interesting analysis. It got me thinking and I have a slightly different and more optimistic take. In the normal ending you, the player, defeat the enemy by following the path you see in front of you and working persistently. But if you want to do more than defeat your enemy, if you want to dispel the evil and injustice that creates enemies, that's not something you can possibly know how to do on your own. You need to know to step back and research to find out what others have learned. You have to make choices that will feel nonsensical or just wrong, you have to do things the hard way, and ultimately when you know you are on the right track you will face the hardest fight you have ever faced. But if you do all this and follow through you can bring about a more fundamental change than had even seemed possible.
Re: Misery and Balrog's thematic roles: they are followers, soldiers. They follow orders. But there are 2 types of obedience. Balrog obeys without question, but for a reason. He is named after a monster, obeys a monster, and does monstrous things. But he cares about Misery. He may once have been a person, or maybe a creature, but became a machine in order to lessen the burden on Misery, a mirror to quote's journey (as covered in your video). Balrog obeys because his family/friend obeys and he is a team player, full stop. He will do his best to achieve whatever the team needs of him. This is also why Balrog has absolutely no trouble leaving the island at the end of the game: there is nothing left for him there. With Misery dead, Balrog loses his last connection to humanity, but luckily for us then does the totally robot thing where he NEEDS a master, and so imprints on the next most familiar person he knows: Sue. Who then immediately orders him to save you. Misery on the other hand, is still partially human when we meet her and this shows in her motivations. She doesn't follow orders because she wants to, or because she believes in the cause or whatever. She actually seems more than willing to disobey once given a chance. Misery obeys only in order to avoid suffering. Yet despite this desire, we see her get punished for failing and taking out her anger on her oldest/only friend. We see her taking pleasure where she can find it in order to feel any kind of happiness, all the while having this aura of sadness about her. Her facial expressions are exaggeratedly evil, even when laughing, but at the last moment she finally says something real - just before she tries to kill you (again). She is evil in order to avoid pain, but end up doing nothing except cause and suffer pain. Her name is apt, for it describes her existence perfectly. Where Balrog's blind obedience resulted in his robotic appearance, then Misery's avoidance of pain and fear caused her to shed all the good parts of herself and truly become evil - as shown by her having similarly coloured skin to curly and quote - becoming nothing more than a killing machine. Especially by the end when she looses her last bit of humanity as punishment for turning her magic against her master.
24:02 Ahhh, I was wondering why you were using the machine gun (All jokes aside, great video! I like your reinterpretation of the steps needed to get the best ending, I never really thought about it that way)
Should note that two Mimiga DO survive. We know that Santa and Chaco survive and don't become Rabid, and the father Mimiga in the Plantation does too (thanks to hiding) The Colins, and the Mimiga Villagers are more ambiguous though
its interesting seeing the mimiga/bunny faction as the "characters who had no choice" and how the design supports this even sue here, because she was apparently dragged to the island by her familys insistence acc. to prof booster. small, but a cool detail for me
Some thoughts: - Jake's fate isn't disclosed after the jail scene. It's likely they survive if mimigas like Santa is showed rescued in the Normal Ending. - My take on the red flower in Arthur's house is just he's aware of the existence and danger of it. But I did read something interesting in wiki that states Pixel once mention King's red eyes indicates that he had ate red flower, but he did not lose his mind because he cooked it first. Although it contradict to what doctor said when King is knocked out. - I never thought of the origin of those metal bosses, it make senses if the technologies comes from the ground along the robots. The weirdest one would be Balrog, if he's also cursed by the crown that means he's prior to the robot invasion era. - A man who can eat cockroach isn't a coward - Itoh is pronounced like eetoe, it's Japanese.
23:48 if you look closely at the ground, you'll notice a red mark on the floor. This red mark, I believe, is supposed to mark where exactly you should jump to make it.
Bit late but the main issue of doctor boosters death is in the original game just talking to him kills him and the pits inescapable… they did kinda fix that in cave story plus but it seems to be more in context clues like the broken teleporter but you wouldn’t know that in your first playthrough there are some other things that explain it like in the house at the end has a book by the doctor saying he’s got plans for upgrading it but yeah never would have known on your first playthrough
killing rabid tokoro was the only time a video game made me feel guilty, that feeling of "what the fuck did i just do" made me realize that i had stumbled apon a game like no other.
im on my 3rd or 4th watch and i have urgent news i must share “Part 6: Conculsion” not spelled correctly Otherwise this video is so great i keep coming back to watch it every now and then, the points you bring up about the contradictory message is not something i have even considered but it makes so much sense. 10/10
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A fun bit of lore regarding the flowers, in game, one of the mimiga talks about how king and iirc arthur both took red flowers, but they boiled the petals in a tea so they could get the buffs without the downsides. It's also why king has those red eyes, and why arthur had the flowers in his home.
Yeah a couple people pointed that out to me! It messes with my interpretation a bit since it means King and Arthur were more or less approaching the problem the same way, but doesnt change the fact they were helpless. Making King's eyes pink in the warehouse scene was such a nice little touch I wish it hadnt gone over my head
@@SkyehoppersKing's eyes were pink throughout the whole game. It just doesn't start to make sense until you realize what's going on, so you don't pay attention to it.
I always kinda thought the flowers being turned into tea was sort of a parallel to opioids and poppy flowers irl
Oh, wow! Where does it say King boiled the petals to get the upsides but not the downsides?
@@mh123_ytthis actually isn't mentioned in game from what I've read. but it was confirmed by pixel on his QnA BBS page that king may have cooked the red flower before eating it. no in-game confirmation, then, but this is second best and essentially canon.
this is further supported by the red flowers found in the bottom of arthur's house. there is no clear indication that arthur himself would have eaten these (did they appear in his house before or after he died? we can't be sure). it's certainly possible, though - indeed likely given how strong he would need to be to defeat the red ogre.
The logic behind booster surviving the pit, is that since you don't come down, he doesn't give up
As we see with Momorin, the booster works as a tool for working with machinery. When he sees you fall in the pit, he knows it's either him or you, but he knows only you can beat the doctor, so he stops fighting, mostly for Sue's sake.
If you don't fall down there, he realizes he can't just give up and gets working on the teleporter, eventually producing the booster 2.0
What doesn't make sense is that he just passes away on the spot, but it may just be symbolic or he doesn't actually die in the moment. idk that part is weird, someone should ask Pixel
I think booster dying in the spot is just to tell you that he died, if he didn't you wouldn't know
Maybe it's just a split in realities.
His fall simply isn't that bad if you make the jump, but it is if you don't.
"Rabbits are universally recognized as timid, harmless creatures"
Someone's never seen Monty Python & The Holy Grail
Lmao good point! I mean the whole joke is that its surprising the monster would be a little bunny rabbit, so i think monty python was also playing with that perception
or the animals of watership down
Donnie Darko
Or a video of a mother Rabbit defending her kits from a snake.
Someone’s never owned/ had a friend who owned a rabbit
Are they timid? Sure. Harmless? Fuck no.
I feel like the things the player does in order to get the best ending is can be tied into the name of the final area. The “Blood Stained Sanctuary” can be taken in the sense of “I have to do what I have to do even if it means doing some wrongs” which is why you kill the mushroom of ignore Prof. Booster. It’s like a neutral run in undertale, sans says you killed out of self defense or “because you did what you needed to do”
Basically, by doing the “right thing” you need to hurt or even ignore a few people
Ooh thats an intetesting read. Yeah that tracks. That whole area is more interesting than I think I gave it credit for. Like it's called blood-stained sanctuary and the song is called running hell...but the enemies arent demons theyre angels. Hmmm. Something to revisit for sure
@@Skyehoppersthe other translation of the name which is closer to the source material might answer that question as it translated as Sacred grounds(Aeon Genesis translation) which explains the angels
But you ignore prof. Booster falling just so he doesn't give up and end up passing away in the pit.
I never put the idea of the robotic bosses being unnatural in my head. Good point you raised there.
yo its techhjomwoeorvenocne
I actually like how surprisingly well that works as an explanation for Ironhead's presence, I wouldn't have guessed otherwise since I just saw him as a semi out of place Ika-chan reference.
Bruh what🧍 that’s like the most important thematic significance of bio mechanically enhanced animals bruh it’s visual story telling things don’t just evolve extruding circuit boards
Making the player leave Professor Booster behind is genuinely odd; the implication that you going down to offer him a hand only extinguishes his will to live is genuinely ridiculous;
But I like your interpretation of the Bad and Good ending being the 'human' endings since they are very human focused, whereas the Best ending is the Robot ending, where you as the player make calls that would normally not occur to a human brain and act very pragmatically, saving your counterpart and working with her to finish the job you were programmed to do. You, Curly and Balrog, three evidently robotic beings who were just programmed to do specific tasks, have all finished their work forever. They celebrate their success and form their own community, proud with the work they've done, now being beholden to no-one.
I don't know if Pixel intended for this interpretation to be what the player takes away, but at the very least I enjoy that the Best ending pulls focus away from the side characters and puts the spotlight on you, Quote, and the people relevant to him.
It does kinda make sens3 from a gameplay perspective, because it ensures the player wont get the best ending 1st try
I think it's "I need to get this to quote. I can't give up yet" vs "he's gotten what he's needed." And let's go. Which does happen IRL.
@@thecoolnerdplaysvr5674 Adding on to that is that the Booster may be what lets him save himself. If he doesn't have it then he would be unable to possibly escape or leave him in a situation where he would do his best to work on it and be able to improve it to the point where he could escape and then give it to Quote since he no longer needs it.
@@josephconover5270yeah my interpretation was always that he used the boosters parts to get the teleporter functional again but without it he can't fix it
@@thecoolnerdplaysvr5674also, doesn't he give you the boosters in that scene? Which means that, without the boosters himself, he couldn't have gotten out? So in the end, you weren't really saving him- you were just showing him how his sacrifice is needed in that moment. So I think this is a misinterpretation of that scene, where relying on booster move forward dooms him in the process
Even Misery's actions play into the brutality of war. the whole reason why the demon crown exist is because she went up to the island and asked Ballos to make it for her
Yeah I think theres definitely something interesting to Misery's character that I couldnt figure out. A really interesting moment is when she tries to turn on the Doctor when he comes back from the dead. Like why is that what sets her off? She has her own twisted moral code and values but it's hard to figure out what it is really with how little information we get.
Asked? She forced him to do it.
@@Skyehoppers As narratively unsatisfying as it may be, Misery's defiance at the end may just be her exploiting a loophole in her curse. She's compelled to obey whoever _wears_ the Demon Crown. And at this point in time, the Doctor and the Crown are both reduced to a red mist. So even though the Doctor has the power of the Crown, he isn't technically _wearing_ it, so Misery is able to disobey him then.
As far as the mystery of Misery's own moral code, I'd actually be far more interested in a _Cave Story_ sequel focusing on post-Good-Ending Misery and what she does with her freedom, than I would be in further adventures of Quote and Curly. (Besides, they've earned their retirement. Let them rest!)
@@Metaphizzlei suppose that checks out. do u happen to know why misery wanted to have the crown made?? the game doesnt say anything about it other than it happened which is how our plot device was formed in some way
@@luiss428Considering the immense power the wearer gets when it's worn, I assume Misery was wanting that power for herself.
Honestly, there's an easy way to explain why abandoning Booster is the better choice but it requires you think outside the box a little. The moment you go down and talk to him, once he's finished explaining, he immediately dies off. However, if you run right past him, he *doesn't* die. Realistically it's safe to assume that if left alone, he focuses on his *own* life and fixes himself up before his condition worsens to the point where he poofs into smoke. On the other hand, if you *do* try and help the same way as before, he wastes his precious second wind explaining information that in the end, is meaningless since regardless of if you know of the core or not, you're forced to confront it. To me this communicates that, sometimes the best way to help another is to let that person fix the issue themselves. No person can help with every situation they see, and sometimes it's better they don't, lest they worsen the situation instead.
Hmmmm. I see what you mean and that's an interesting perspective I hadn't considered! But idk it still feels unsatisfying to me. Maybe if the player was given some sort of indication of what would happen before making the choice. Like if you could deny the booster power-up in the pit and find your own way out? The way it is now just feels like an inconsistency to me.
@@SkyehoppersI am pretty sure you are given the option to deny it in the switch version. I can be wrong though.
You also take his only method of escape
Fun fact, the little red mark in the Professor Booster room marks where you are supposed to jump to get over the gap!
Loved this video, I hadn't even realized the Animals being mechanized to become the bosses, never noticed the eyes on the blocks hinting to Ballos, never understood why Curly was there at the start of the sanctuary until now, thank you for putting effort into this, you're perspective is no one I've seen before and really changed how I see My favorite game of all time.
I read somewhere that King cooks the red flowers to mute the rabid effects; hence why he has red eyes and is able to stand toe to toe with Balrog. I like the idea that he learned from Authurs mistake of simply becoming powerful by sacrificing some of that power to retain his humanity. Yet, his fate is still sealed.
It could be inferred that Aurthur also cooked the flowers, but i much prefer your interpretation of the events. The idea that he's willing to use a source of war to protect the village is quite interesting to me. Theres a dialogue dump from Jack that describes how he defeated the Last Cave's Red Ogre; perhaps he wasnt under the influence there, but... overcome with responsibility and titles of heroism, decided to protect at an ultimate cost.
btw, amazing vid. Thoroughly enjoyed your synopsis and dissection into the meaning of these events. It was incredibly fun to listen to your thoughts and compare them to my own interpretations from my many, MANY playthroughs of this game.
Thank you for the kinds words! Means a lot. And yeah a couple other people have pointed that out about King, and the original source is an interview with Pixel so it's for sure legit. I don't think it really changes much about my main point, that the Mimiga can't be saved no matter what anyone does, but it definitely changes my perception of the character a little bit. There's probably some interesting analysis you could do with the Red Ogre stuff if you dive into it, especially with what the color red symbolizes with the rest of the game, and the fact that Arthur was actually successful back then. Hmmmmm. Food for thought
Come to think of it the themes of the story found here aren't all surprising given Ikachan's commentary and parody over oppressive leadership structures. Kero Blaster also had interesting themes regarding the importance of empathy vs work, and the expression or bottling up of emotions. Daisuke Amaya is one of my favorite artists ever and I can't wait for him to put out another masterwork.
Oh thats really cool! I should for sure get around to playing his other games soon
The thing with the nuclear bomb analogy is that, with many Japanese pieces of media, there is often a slight or overt reference to it. Like Godzilla and Mega Man (Doctor Albert Wily is named after Albert Einstein)
One thing you mention is how "...all the natural inhabitants of the island would be floating peacefully and safely in the sky." But that doesn't really stack up with the Gaudi. The beetle people. One of which even expresses a desire to eat Mimiga flesh.
There's also the fact that Arthur had to be a hero to begin with. If everything is peaceful, then why would one need a hero?
One detail you might've missed about King is that his eyes are always pink in game. Daisuke hinted in a FAQ answer that this was because King consumed red flowers too, but instead of eating them raw and whole, he made and consumed a boiled infusion of red flowers. I know, others have pointed it out...
Otherwise, that's a neat video essay!
So, theme wise, I think there is a big theme of "loss of childhood innocence / journey to adulthood" for quote, and the player, and the game uses video game tropes, and subversions of those tropes, to hammer that point home really hard.
The beginning of the game features quote, and the player, entering a cave with relative quiet, as you are trying to figure out basic movements, how to shoot, etc, with relatively little hand holding. Mostly mechanical exploration, and exploration. Kinda like how babies are when they first enter the world. And sure, you stole a gun from a guy, but like, you don't know who he is, whether he's a good guy or bad guy, how much he needs that gun, etc. It lacks much moral impact, because you don't have the knowledge or context to understand how much it is right or wrong. Kinda like *babies*. Hmmmmmm. And you know what music track is playing while this takes place? "GESTATION". BOOM. MIC DROP.
This is similar to how we start in life, but it's also how quote is without any memory. In taking his first steps around the world, without his memory, his development, and mental maturity, makes him basically a super powered human baby. And the game uses video game mechanics to get you into that frame of mind.
So anyways, after this, you are dropped into mimiga town. You have people talking about all of this stuff, which is ominous if you really think about it, but you probably won't really think about it too hard, because you're too busy exploring this interesting bright world, jamming out to this utterly happy music. Kinda like children. What talk you hear about their problems, you probably assume is solvable / fixable with a little elbow grease, because all of the problems you've encountered so far have been pretty solvable with some elbow grease, like children tend to think. And the game gets you into the "child like" frame of mind really hard, with the cheery upbeat music, bright color palette, cute character designs, fun to explore world, interesting quirky characters. The game even uses low bit graphics / soundtrack, old school gameplay, a "princess being kidnapped", a fetch quest in the form of bringing the jelly back and forth, all to evoke the mentality of your happier childhood years, in order to bring you into this frame of mind.
This mostly continues further into the game until the end of the sand level. At that point, the local parental figure, who you probably assumed was in control and had things figured out, shows themselves to be relatively powerless, and freakin *dies*. Similar how, as we grow up, our parents are shown, at some point, to not be all they're cracked up to be, and there is a scary outside world outside of their control. What's more, Tokoro, the icon of innocence, and reminiscent of your video game princess, also gets CORRUPTED AND DIES. Up until now, this has been one of, if not your primary, video game objective. And the history of video game tropes, along with the history with the game to this point, are all telling you that this should *not happen*, making it all the more horrific.
This is a big "end of childhood" moment for Quote, and the player. You, and your parent / hero figures, aren't as powerful as you thought they were. The outside world is way more dangerous than you thought it was. There are scenarios where you will *fail* in a way that utterly cannot be fixed; where the tools you learned as a child hood (aka video game logic) do not get you what you want. Even if those things are really important. In fact, there are some scenarios where, no matter *what* you try and do, you're going to not get what you want. Life may not always have a clear purpose to direct you on where to go next.
So overall? Life after childhood freakin sucks sometimes.
The themes encapsulated here get hammered home again and again repeatedly later on in the game, using the gameplay to hammer these themes home.
After this encounter, you don't get to murder the doctor hardcore (aka the video game logic, childhood logic, solution). Instead, the game teleports you to a labyrinth, where people in there are talking about the futility of trying to get out of the hole, and dead corpses are lying about you. And you're just left there, to *STEW* in your thoughts. Not much satisfying revenge going on here.
Your sense of lost purpose, guilt, powerlessness, and lack of ability to fix / redeem things, is brought to an emotional peak, with the mimiga town and the egg corridor revisiting. You enter mimiga town, it's an empty shell of what it once was. All of the other people you thought you could save are missing, maybe even dead. The egg corridor is a bloody mess. You cannot go back to the areas symbolic of childhood innocence. And you barely have any idea of where to go anymore. You're meandering, searching for a hope or solution, when there are very little outward indications that such a thing even exists.
And here, when quote / the player is at their lowest point, they are faced with a difficult choice.
Either assume that the setbacks they've encountered so far will continue happening, that the things that they cherished from their childhood are forever unachievable, and give up on them. Choosing to scrape together what meager satisfaction they can obtain from their own safety / survival. This might parallel the cynical folks in life, who disregard the values / ideals they learned in childhood, in favor of looking out for themselves.
Or: press on anyway, against all odds. Maybe, just like you didn't have the full picture in childhood, you don't have the full picture now. Maybe something will change, in order to make things not as hopeless as they seem. Maybe you've decided that your purpose in life, and those things you learned to appreciate in childhood, are *so* valuable, that you would be willing to die even for the chance of a chance at obtaining them. This might be representing the people who transcend themselves, and are willing to sacrifice everything for a greater cause.
Up to this point, continuing to play the game was kind of a given. This is the first time the game is really *giving* you a choice in deciding how you are going to deal with the setbacks you've encountered as a result of your loss of childhood innocence. So it makes your choice much more impactful.
The game might be saying that struggling with choices as heavy and impactful as this are hallmarks of being an adult. Along with taking responsibility for the outcomes that those choices result in. Or perhaps the game is saying that you only really get to make the choice to transcend yourself once you reach adulthood, and you have to make those kinds of decisions for yourself.
And after you make this choice, you scale the wall with the oh so excellent song "moonsong" playing. And not much dialouge. Just lots of time for the player to contemplate what's happened, and what he is choosing to do.
Considering the game is longer, more satisfying, and quote achieves more, from choosing to go on, it is clear that the author has a side on which of the two approaches to dealing with the "loss of childhood innocence" is the better one.
After this, things start taking a turn for the better. The player is able to save some of what he valued in childhood, but he can't recoup what was lost. The player is just forced to make the best of this new reality, which isn't as bright as he thought, but it's not all doom and gloom, as kazuma lead you to believe either. In so doing, the game might be saying that adult hood is a mixed bag, of both good, and bad. And the author might also be saying that, while you can't make life as good as you thought it was as a kid, you can still achieve some truly exceptional things. But only if you are willing to hold onto what you value, and sacrifice yourself if need be.
I still don't have a super good interpretation on the best ending. My initial interpretation of the best end was just to give the players an option to escape all of the gloomy talk about the death of childhood innocence, if they wanted to. That stuff is pretty heavy and disheartening to think about, so if people wanted, the creator gave them a totally unintuitive way to reclaim much of what was lost during the game, and not need to wrestle with the sad thoughts of the game quite as much. But eh, that interpretation isn't especially robust, considering toroko and king still die. Seems weird to give players only half of an escape.
My lack of satisfying "best end" interpretation does shoot *some* holes in my theory. But I still think there's some decently good evidence for it overall, considering the "gestation" thing, the innocent mimigas getting corrupted, the initial innocent areas you started getting all messed up, and giving the player a whole lot of dis empowerment, and meandering without a strong sense of purpose.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
PS, super minor complaint about the video. You mentioned that professor booster showing up later makes no logical sense. The explanation I heard, which makes *some* sense to me, is that he uses the jetpack (which he doesn't give to you) in order to get out of the hole. And I guess he has more will to survive if he realizes that he can get out, which makes him take longer to die?? So, imo, it makes like 1% sense, but not quite *no* logical sense.
Wow! That's an excellent analysis and you supported it really well. I always wondered why that song was called Gestation and it makes perfect sense. My interpretation took things from a broader, more society-focused perspective while yours applies more to individual growth. They're not at all mutually exclusive though! After all my take on Quote's character arc was him learning to become more empathetic, which is also something children have to do as they grow up.
My analysis makes Ballos and the best ending work a little bit better I think? The idea of permanently putting a stop to something that affects the entire world isn't what the average person has to deal with as they mature. But the theme of childhood -> maturity makes Quote's character a good deal deeper than I saw it as. I think a more advanced and thorough analysis of the game would include the themes you brought up, especially with regard to Quote.
Great work! This is exactly the kind of comment I want to be getting on my analysis videos. Maybe you should try writing your own video essays :)
Hmm that's interesting and like kinda makes sense? It works as a head canon for sure.
But like his glasses are broken when you talk to him in the pit but are perfectly fine when he survives and teleports to the village. Did he have another pair in his pocket (and if so why don't those break?)?
@@Skyehoppers thanks so much for reading and commenting on my theory! I don't have friends who are fans of the game, so I've been dying to have someone to explain my thoughts to.
Yeah, thinking it over, your good end theory synthesizes reasonably well with the "journey to adulthood" idea. Yes, in adulthood, there is evil worth stopping / dealing with directly, via the expected solution of force(the doctor), as you perceived in childhood. But unlike your childhood viewpoint, there is more to understanding them, and the world, than meets the eye. And understanding them is key to being able to stop them, in a long term way.
The whole "unintuitive to demonstrate super human requirements" part of the theory may also be able to be integrated. That theory bit may be an encouragement to quote / the player that, in adult hood, you should seek out the deeper rooted explanations of the setbacks you encounter in adulthood and the world, since they may exist and be fixable. But, finding them is extremely difficult to do, so if you aren't able to achieve them, don't be too hard on yourself. Mild evidence for this is in the fact that the game doesn't guilt the player for not getting the best ending.
Video essays would be quite fun, but I'm too lazy and protective of my free time for that, most likely. Most of the time I'm ok with settling for explaining my thoughts to internet strangers and / or my "artsy video game friends". (Though that only works when it's a game we're all willing to play). I'd probably be happy to contribute video essay ideas and / or be a sounding board for video drafts though, if that was something you were looking for. (no worries if not though).
Regarding professor booster, my impression was that he'd been up there for long enough to get recovered, and get his glasses repaired, before he met up with quote. But I don't remember the chronology of events at the plantation well enough to be able to say whether that idea entirely holds up. If you meet booster very shortly after his teleporting up, then yeah, that explanation doesn't really work.
@@corbettcappon6220 Yeah Ill for sure ask you for input on scripts/drafts/ideas :)
I played Cave Story in 2018 on the Switch. But I knew about the game long before thanks to YTPMVs and other media. Since then is became one of my all time favorites. I loved how it felt, the atmosphere and the characters. And for it all to be made by one guy is impressive especially in the early 2000’s. I have dedicated a lot of my time playing it. I even took the time to beat hell under 3 mins. I feel like it doesn’t represented and loved today, but I will hold it dear to me.
God damn, this video really blew my mind.
I've loved the game for years now, and I REALLY wanted to see an analysis like this that goes into the themes of the game, I've always felt like there was something deeper but I don't really have the eye for this kind of subtext, you absolutely knocked it out of the park and reminded me the reason why I loved it so much.
Outstanding job, It might not be much but this has earned you a new subscriber :)
This is probably one of the best if not the best cave story videos ive ever seen.
Thank you :) Im glad you liked it
This was a fantastic essay. You've earned yourself a subscriber.
Same here
Well there's one thing that he forgot to mention it's the fact that both King and torico can be saved in the fourth ending also not many people know about it and I don't even know for sure if you can do it in cave story Plus p
@@Funnyso869 there's no such a thing as a 4th ending .
@@Funnyso869 bro it was fake the guy that made the video said it's an April fool's prank. So it was made for just entertainment
Great analysis, very in depth and researched and thought out.
One small thing I might put forward is that I'd say "Nuclear Weapons" is less the metaphor I'd go for. I'd lean towards "drugs". It's "a substance that increases your abilities, but will destroy you from within". People who use it "are no longer thinking clearly". The doctor grows it on a Plantation with the Mimiga not only enslaved, but also convinced "This is how you will be helped, this is what will lift you out of danger and give you power".
I didn't know about King/Arthur drinking Red Flower Tea, but it also fits. It would represent "using it responsibly", for example taking prescription medication as directed instead of abusing it.
I hope I'm not being too off here. It's been a long time since I've watched this sort of video, so I'm out of practice when it comes to the analysis of stories in video games. But for all the talk about humans being so terrible, being incapable of ultimately doing the right thing, and being the source of all the evil in the game...it sounds bleak, doesn't it? But it's missing something.
The robots, Quote and Curly. More or less unquestionable heroes in 2/3 of the ending. In all three, they are at the very least kind and helpful, unlike the destructive, greedy, and cowardly humans. But who made them? Who put them on the island? And in the case of Quote, who gave them the power to change the island's fate?
It was humans. Those who are marked as incapable of bringing about lasting good even with the best, most righteous intentions. Humans made the robots. Humans put those robots on the island. And a human, even if it was against his will, gave Quote the Polar Star, the tool he uses to bring about all the good in the game one way or another.
How do you interpret this? In my eyes, this is symbolic of a hope for the next generation to do better. All the older humans - Ballos, Jenka, the Doctor, and even characters like Kazuma - all of them either directly or indirectly cause problems on the island, from their actions or inaction. The humans from ten years ago who set robots upon the island did so maliciously, with the intent to take the Demon Crown. But their products, their makings, their *children*, the robots? They managed to do good. They turned a cursed island, a former warzone and a prison, into a safe home for it's inhabitants. They demonstrated empathy and bravery in a way their forefathers could not, or did not. These robots, who are probably not much more than ten years old, were able to do what Jenka could not do in over a hundred years. The humans themselves may not have been able to do good, but they created something that could.
That, I think, is a good resolution. And I think it also neatly ties into the unintuitive route to the good ending. The first to play Cave Story did not get the good ending. How could they? It's difficult even if you know exactly what to do, and they knew nothing. They were hopeless. But the players that came after them figured it out. Those players, brought into the game thanks to the earlier ones as the game grew in popularity, were able to do better than their predecessors and achieve the best ending despite the odds, just as Quote and Curly did.
Anyways, great video. I love it when a game can exist for over a decade and still have a community discussing it, it's themes, and it's narrative. The Portal series is one of my favorite of all time for the same reason. Cave Story has always held a special place in my heart; it was a world first in many respects, but to me, it was the first time I cared about the characters in a video game, and treated them as people rather than text boxes and sprites. Thank you for reminding me of it.
Absolutely love comments like these, thanks for sharing :) I think thats a really solid interpretation too! A lot less bleak than mine thats for sure. There was a comment that I got a while back in a similar vein to yours that sees Quote's arc not as becoming more human, but as growing up while always having been human. The first track in the game is named "Gestation" after all. I think youre both onto something real, and thats probably where the analysis naturally leads when you dig a layer deeper than my video does. It's easy to forget that curly and quote must have been created *by* someone because the game gives no details as to who that person was and what their motivations were...but there are subtle clues still.
This is the kind of conversation I look to create with my channel, just really digging deep into what these little works of art can mean. So thanks!
You’re intelligence when it comes to this game is quite masterful. I commend you for that.
@@Jawn-x86 Aww, thanks, haha. I'm just inspired by folks like Skyehoppers! And all the other lovely video game analysts on TH-cam.
Leaving Booster does make sense. He is the inventor of the booster, by saving him and giving him an easy way out you take away his reason for living. The situation he is in gives him the final push to perfect the booster and get down and exit via the teleporter. Once you know his reason for living, his invention, it makes far more sense.
It also plays into letting him be free to be who he wants to be and not forcing a fate on him, like Balrog and Misery.
if you saw an frail old man fall 2 stories down and appeared to still be living would you try and help them or let someone in their 60s-90s go through some "character development"
@@notasadvertised617 and your choice would be? Also how would you assume Quote would do it knowing he has no way out? And the only door he can see is infont of him.
For the the “counter intuitive” requirement you could actually argue it still flows with the concept of “understanding the source”
It’s possible to explain that the reason professors booster survives is because the frog doctor and his nurse helped him to a full recovery. Since they found and helped Curly Brace it’s possible they make rounds looking for poor souls who are injured. Professor booster when giving you the 0.8 booster might have worsen his injuries where as a person experienced in medical care might have known to try and have the injured move as little as possible to make their waning Health worse.
jack doesn't actually die btw, he just doesn't show up for the rest of the game.
Great video. It's interesting how a story which at first glance is pretty shallow (even for somebody that has gotten the true ending) can be interpreted in such a beautiful and deep way.
Also at 11:42 you compare the red flowers with nuclear bombs (which is a valid comparison, because they're used as weapons), but I personally compare them to drugs.
I mean the flower that can cause animal-like characters to go insane while making them powerful, that also doesn't have any effect on humans unless turned into a crystal is a pretty good paralel to you know what.
Also also, in the switch port of the game they made you able to talk with booster without loosing the true ending, you just need to not take the booster 0.8. It doesn't take away from your point, because who wouldn't take the booster 0.8 without knowing the way to get the good ending.
Whoa thats wild they changed that for the switch port?? I wonder if thats a change Pixel was okay with or just Nicalis messing with the game in response to criticism once again. Its interesting and maybe unsettling that you could get a totally different read on that part of the game if you play the most recent port.
Most likely not, it still is incredibly hard to get the true ending even here, still proving your point about how hard it is to end supression permanently. It just makes that part less weird, while (imo) not taking away from the story.
This is a good analysis, but it's not perfect...
1) Arthur, King and the Red flowers - First of all, props for Arthur. He was a Hero. I'm not saying it to glorify him, it's said so on the medal you get from the Red Ogre in the Last Cave. Arthur defeated the ogre himself and saved the village. Now King - look at his eyes. They are pink. The "half way there" color of red. Red eyed Mimigas are frenzied Mimimgas that ate the red flower. Also, normal Mimigas are bad fighters, but two "normal" Mimigas aren't: the one with pink eyes, and the one with red flowers in his basement. It's almost canon that King and Arthur had found a way to get the powers of the flower without losing their mind, getting "only" as aggressive as King did.
2) The Spur, the old man, and dormant power - first of all, the first time I defeated Ballos I did it with the machine gun. Just flexing. But the old man can be a part of your conclusion: Quote could be a good boy and not steal that gun. But then he wouldn't be able to change a thing. He wouldn't be able to fight bats, or bunnies, or doctors, let alone a living god of rage and madness. Once he seized power, even though immoral means, he could start change things for the better. If we shift perspective we get a similar result - the gun could have been left alone and be worked on by the old man, being perfected, and being unused. Great power unused, letting evil run amok, is evil unto itself. Lastly, the old man. On first playthrough, a curious player would return to the old man without the gun. The old man goes "I had my gun, but someone stole it! Shame, it was not perfected". Ok, that was a side quest that I failed. Next playthrough I'll be a good boy and return the gun, the smart gamer says to themselves. Instead they're scolded. Great, I didn't use that weapon neither for trade nor merging, and I lost my gun, the smart gamer says at first. They then has to listen to the old man lecturing them on how stealing is wrong. But then he comes around. He realizes that Quote used the gun a lot, and returning it means they're good, so he used that power for good... The first philosophy of the old man is sound on the surface, but he understands he was wrong. Power that isn't yours can be used for good...
3) Professor Booster and stretching too thin - I'll admit, the way to the good ending is unintuitive. Certainly unattainable in a blind playthrough. But some will say philosophy and ideals are unattainable, so let's talk about why not saving the Professor can work with the theme of empathy. Let's talk about capabilities. There is a teleporter. It's broken, but the professor can fix it. Now you could try and help him, but you know what happens to someone who helps endlessly? Exactly what happens to a back that carries too much load - it breaks. It's not enough to help everyone, because then you won't be able to lend a hand when you do need to. Professor Booster can handle himself. Curly, drowned in that room, cannot...
4) Why? - I don't have a clever answer for the last point because it's a question. The essay claims that humans can never end oppression because they are humans. The essay shows how the game (in text and in meta text) support that claim, but not why. Why humans can't stop oppression? A claim, even when supported by evidence, without explanation of how can only prove that the opposite didn't happen yet. It's like communism. We've seen it not working, but without an explanation as to why it cannot work we can only prove it didn't work yet, not that it can never work...
All that deep thought couldn't have been achieved without the essay, so thanks for the amazing essay! It was great! Just a bit rough around the edges...
1) Yeah this has come up a few times! Supposedly there's an interview with Pixel where he confirms that King did eat the flowers but boiled them to reduce the negative effects or something. My main point with that section was that whether they used the flowers or not their fates didn't change, which shows the helplessness of peoples caught in war (or as I see it now as a close parallel to colonialism), and I dont think that changes too much with that new information.
2) Okay this is really cool and I never thought about that angle before! I guess the whole mechanic of trading in your weapons is one of the few I totally didn't consider in my analysis so that's a dope observation.
3) That's a good read too I like that. I don't know though when you do try to help him (or just miss that jump) it seems like no he can't handle himself? Still don't see anything that makes me understand why he dies only in that situation.
4) I think the game shows that people can't end oppression because the tools that would require are impossible to achieve. We can't savescum and our world is too complex to pinpoint the root cause of every problem. I could have dived into why a little more, but I feel like that would have taken the video off the rails a bit? It wasn't in the scope of my essay to try and read a bunch of tangentially related books or anything, which I think further exploration of that theme would demand. Also I don't even think I agree with that perspective, just that's what I think cave story communicates.
But thanks for engaging with the video so deeply! It's refreshing to talk through different viewpoints on analyzing the game and you have good counterpoints for me. I love getting comments like this and they're pretty rare cause my channel is so small. So thanks :)
1) That's fair. Whether King ate the red flowers or not, whether Arthur gave into temptation or not, it doesn't matter. In the end, they both died, which is the main point. I addressed that because the essay is a bit harsh on Arthur...
2) Thanks! I might have heard this point from another video about Cave Story and power, but I think you can extract a lot about power from this game. Whether it's how the game tries to make you give up the gun in favor of better weapons, finally rewarding you with the best weapon if you didn't give into temptation, the red flower as temptation of power for the mimigas, the crown, which not only was created at the request of misery for more power, but is why the whole conflict started in the first place (the whole human sending robots to the island? Yeah, that was also about the crown), Cave Story has a lot to say about it. I don't think it condemns power as a whole, but it advocates it's player to use as much power as they need, not as much as they want. Power earned through temptation is bad, because it reveals that the one gaining it really wants power for power's sake.
I don't know how King's Sword works into that thesis though. It's not a bad weapon, fully upgraded it's amazing, but it takes a lot to fully upgrade it. It can be traded for a weapon which is the complete opposite - kicks major ass on level one, though once upgraded it loses power - after doing a bizarre side quest. I guess you could extract something about tradition? Like, tradition has it's values, but don't let it stop progress? Maybe the troll weapon wants to communicate something about greed? Need some more thinking...
3) Let me profess (heh) once again - Professor Booster being saved by not talking to him is strange and unintuitive game design. Even if I can excuse it, a lot of hindsight is needed. Now let's excuse it:
The Professor had the Booster 0.8 on him. That might be how he was able to fix the teleporter. So him giving it to you might be how he died (that and the whole hopelessness of the situation...) So why did he help you? Because he thought, like you, that without his help you cannot escape, even though you can (at least in the updated versions of the game. Pretty sure the original game didn't even had the red helpful pixel that tells you where you should start the jump from...) Heck, even the jump itself is seemingly impossible without help, but it is. It's the same philosophy of stretching yourself too thin, though in the Prof. case, it comes it's either him or you, and he chooses you.
As for the tow rope? I think I have a (lame) excuse for that too. It's about Quote, really. After so many loses, Toroko, King, the island, the professor, and now Curly, he just too hopeless to find the tow rope. It's not a question of whether the tow rope is there or not. It's there regardless. It's a question of whether Quote finds it or not, and that depends on his mental health...
Very shakey, especially since you could say that desperation could lead someone to try even harder, especially if what's on the line is Curly's life...
4) I guess I understand your point, although I don't think that's a proof we can't end oppression, just that it's very hard. If anything, it can be a message of hope. Yes, you will make mistakes, mistakes that will lead to dire consequences that you'd have to deal with. But a happy ending is possible. You'll have to make sacrifices, and it'll be hard, but it's possible...
Again, thank you for making this essay! It inspired me to think more about this lovely game...
Answering the Tow Rope question:
My idea, shakey still admittedly as is everything with justifying the Good Ending, is that in the time you spend talking to Booster the tow rope washes away.
In fact, if we could rework Cave Story then instead of making the moral quandary be about talking or not talking to Booster and those implications, instead give the player the knowledge after the end of the normal playthrough that the tow rope exists and came from the core room, like it got washed away and basically somehow guiding the player into the thought of "if you made it here faster you could have snagged it before it washed away."
Maybe somehow after the normal end maybe after credits roll, if you completed some arbitrary objective (discovered some secret or only suffered X amount of damage I'm the final boss or found all the life capsules or didn't use the life pot etc) the game would show a cutscene of the rope in the core room washing away, then Maybe the sounds of Quote and Curly entering the room off screen messing with the doors, and MAYBE even the sounds of the booster to try and clue them in not to grab it.
For further explicitness you could then, after this was unlocked, have a dialog prompt after you go down and talk to booster that you "hear the sound of something washing down stream" or something like that.
Ultimately the point is to try to instead make the player realize that "if I don't try and save Booster I can instead save Curly"
Though th3n this is flawed too since a repeat player KNOWS that they cannot save booster, but video game Conditioning will force them to always talk to booster cause surely that's what you have to do.
The philosophy of getting the good ending is entirely from a gameplay perspective and out of universe thematics and story telling.
Instead of looking in-universe as to the message of Quote ignoring Booster, if we look out of universe we see that only those that are able to "think outside the box" even attempt unintuitive and unconventional solutions can truly make progress in this world.
The player must reject their humanity and conditioning if they want what is truly the best outcome.
99 percent tof players, blind, will not do this.
They play it once, think that is all that it has to offer, and are done.
Even repeat players probably wouldn't attempt to avoid booster until a decent amount of replays and only then out of sheer curiosity since there is no promise of anything greater for ignoring Booster
THAT IS if we ignore the book in the shack right before the final boss.
The one that has Booster talking about not having finished the booster and it being incomplete, just like the Polar Star
That book is your clue to ignore booster, and then hopefully the player inquisitive and sharp enough to find the book will find the tow rope as well.
With the Polar star you have the immediate knowledge of
"Give back to old man" => "gun becomes stronger"
Meanwhile there is no sane person that thinks
"Don't talk to booster leave him in the pit" => "maybe he will decide to work on the booster and make it complete and I get it from him later somehow?"
I wish the book had some notes of like "I think I can find the parts I need to complete it in the labyrinth"
OR
Maybe even
Have some mechanical parts somewhere that you need the booster to get to that theoretically could be used to upgrade the booster maybe something the player would only know with the book knowledge, and then bla.
You could also literally just give an actual dialogue option for Quote to say "no, you keep it" for the booster or something like that that only happens on a repeat playthrough since It accomplishes the same goal that Pixel wanted anyway "no one gets this on the first playthrough" but maybe the mad lad really wanted to see if anyone did get it 1st run.
Regardless I have brainstormed enough here.
The game is rough around the edges, but I love it to bits.
Ih that was 2 years ago lol
I mean I was writing that for myself anyway
11:40 - I always assumed the red flowers were a metaphor for drugs. Performance enhancers, Stimulants, or Sedatives.
Real life flowers are used in the production of some narcotics (such as Heroin which is made from Poppy, a Red Flower), and their use causes a cycle of vicious addiction which accelerate you towards destruction.
Arthur used them, there was probably less stigma then, and he does so understanding the danger so he was careful and used moderation. He only has a little plant in his house.
So contrast that with the bad guys. They're literally medical staff with a Mad Doctor, a Nurse Witch, and a Giant First Aid Box. These are professionals would know how to utilize the flowers, even if understanding is limited by rank in the hierarchy. As it's doubtful Balrog understands the plan, After all he is just a thug whose use is practical and mercenary much like how First-Aid is the most practical and easiest to use form of medicine. Misery knows more as a nurse, she has a lot more knowledge, but the doctor? The doctor is in a league of his own, he's a master of practical and the theoretical applications of medicine. He's not just able to scheme and plan, he can find new uses for resources most people (like misery) would take at face value (to clarify, Misery uses Balrog's potential to turn him into a frog, but she can't create a new Balrog, she doesn't have that kind of power).
The Doctor even takes the flowers himself and gets ripped doing it, he becomes "The Muscle Doctor" and even after losing his mind and his death his soul entangles everyone involved with him and brings them down with him.
It destroys communities, kills people, it's grown with slavery on a plantation, it's used by outsiders who came to exploit the land and its people to destabilize said land and the rest of the world for their profit.
I also like the idea it's a nuclear weapon even if the deterrent power of nuclear weapons makes them a good thing.
such an amazing video essay on one of my favorite video games ever. You my sir, are very talented.
I've always felt that Cave Story's best ending is a bit "too good to be true". It requires you to take a series of convoluted and seemingly nonsensical steps, then dumps an entire chapter of the game's lore on you through exposition boxes, with a never before seen super secret mega bad-guy that was actually the source of the evil all along. I especially don't understand why Misery was the one to create the Demon Crown, if she was later imprisoned and made to serve it, as well as why killing Ballos would somehow keep the island floating in the air after Quote destroyed the core. What I mean to say is, even thought there is no "canon" or "canonical" ending to Cave Story, I think the "normal" ending is the one that makes the most sense and best ties everything together. The best ending might be the most "happy" and optimistic one - Curly survives, the power behind the crown is banished, the island doesn't crash - but it feels artificial and forced by the very fact that you probably had to look up a walkthrough to even know how to do it. My bet is that most people got the "normal" ending on their first playthrough, and that it was THAT ending that had the most profound emotional impact on them. The best ending likely felt satisfying due to it's sheer challenge, more than the way it was written.
Yes exactly! The best ending just doesn't mesh with the rest of the writing. Maybe Pixel just felt kinda bad for making such a bleak game tbh. That's why when you take the best ending in stride it complicates the meaning of the game as a whole so much
I like the 'Best Ending' because it's in my opinion, what Quote wants to accomplish. The Normal ending is focused on the human group that went to the island, and their struggle in righting their own mistakes and escaping. The Best Ending is the one where Curly and Quote pick up their original mission where it left off, and destroy the source of the Demon Crown's evil.
It's not easy, but these two robots are absolute badasses and a cut above the rest. The game rewards your skilled play with an ending that it's deserving of. You destroy the ultimate evil, and then you, your robot girlfriend, and your cool giant soap shaped bro go hang out and build a party house for robot chads. You're too good for those lame human scientists.
The 'Best Ending' is representative of the game developer wanting to give a skilled and shrewd player the option to make everything right. I don't exactly buy all of it, but I'm glad it's there. The story's no longer about the Sakamoto family and their robot helper, it's about you getting down to business.
The island's natural state is floating ballos energy causes it to crash while the core counters it
@@Skyehoppers the fact that "last battle" is used for both the undead core and ballos makes me think that's the case
I am officially mindblown.
And now I feel sadder on this game
This was a really cool analysis! It definitely makes sense to see the game as an analogy for war. Though to be honest, I really dislike the interpretation that the best ending is the "non-human" ending. It feels too pessimistic, which I especially dislike in the face of today's political climate. Instead, I think it's better to interpret the best ending as a result of human ability, though not of any single person. Referencing your own analysis, this ending basically requires the collaboration of multiple human efforts, whether that be learning its secrets from your friends or from looking up hints from others on the internet, but it's that collaboration that allows the player to reach the true final boss. A single person may not even know about Ballos, but the knowledge and effort of multiple people is what allows Ballos to be discovered and defeated -- much like how in the real world, a single person can't do much to enact change, but multiple people spreading their message and working together can identify systemic oppression and defeat it from its true core.
I never thought so in-depth about my favorite game!
I'm impressed
Thats the goal, thank you :)
Refusing to help, or leaving the doctor, could also mean it is sometimes better to let people solve their own problems. Growing in strength and independence on the way. The old saying ''Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Give a man a rod and you will feed him for a lifetime''. And indeed, the doctor does help himself and even improves his jetpack.
Just finished watching, great job on this one! I can tell you put in a lot of work.
Bro, you have great editing skills for having so few subscribers. I hope you grow because this was the video I’ve been looking for in cave story
Wow I never picked up on the eyes in the stones meaning Ballots was watching, I love that detail
Loved this video Skye! I think it’s really interesting how you pointed out that you have to be pretty much inhumanly perfect at the game and have inhumanly deep and specific knowledge in order to pull off the good ending (though as players we can replace that skill with save states and the knowledge with online guides). That’s also supported by the enormous difficulty spike the end of the good ending presents - you have to go through the hardest area of the game AND the hardest boss (who doesn’t even stop after two phases) with no saving - you have to complete the level and each phase of the boss essentially perfectly or have to do it all again, including the level.
I thought the good ending was strangely obscure but your explanation makes a lot of sense.
The only issue left for me with it though is that when I found out it was possible to save Curly with some extraordinarily obscure sequence of actions, I couldn’t help searching for something similar for Toroko and King. It was frustrating that there was a way to “break” the game to save Curly but not them.
Loved your video, I just finished the best ending. You did an amazing interpretation of the game story.
Thank you :) Good shit on beating Ballos! I still need to go back and do that for real
I played this game since so much
Had the best ending a couple of times
And overall liking the games but i was a little concerned about some stuff
Suddenly finding someone just like me and saying what was in my mind
Thank you
This video was fantastic. I am so impressed. Good work!
Holy hell why dont you have more subscribers?? This is god tier work!
Thank you :) Just gotta keep making more stuff I guess
i think this video covers it super super well, i like that you included all the endings, it really shows what kind of difference you can make and how everything reflects
15:15 the frogs as far i am aware are just a reused asset from a beta version of the game which had an area that was home to a bunch of frogs
Ah! 3.5 years and someone finally has an explanation, thank you haha
Really good job with the video, I enjoyed it a lot! I have some fond memories of Cave Story, I remember watching lets plays of it over a decade ago and being completely entranced by the idea that it was entirely made by one person. I wasn't as media literate at the time, so I didn't really ponder on its thematic significance, but watching this video made me want to go through it myself and really think about what it is the game is about.
Oh it's so worth it to play for yourself! Condensed experience by today's standards, too, comfortably finishable in a single weekend
Man, I've still never finished the good end. A number of years ago, back when Cave Story+ was still new, I gave it a crack, and had an absolute blast, because it's a fantastic game. But then I got to the waterway with a drowning Curly, got her on the bed, and couldn't figure out what to do next. So I just left her there, figuring she'd sort herself out and catch up. Didn't think I'd have to grab a book on CPR. After a day or two of trying to tackle the hall of angels, I saw a video of someone going through where I was with Curly on their back, and that's when I realized I'd missed something. Quit and never went back after realizing I literally left the best girl to die.
24:03 this is wrong. You don’t have to redo the save if you miss the jump. You can climb your way back up and the professor only dies if you talk to him
It should be noted Cave Story is inspired by retro games, where very obscure procedures for unlocks where more common
So perhaps the steps for the best ending don't have any real meaning, Pixel just wanted to follow the steps of other games and make it REALLY hard to find, so it would be more exciting to discover it
Remember the classic school yard chat about unlocking X in Y game? with lots of obscure steps that made no sense? this is that, but real
What a wonderful video essay, I'm so glad I stumbled across it
I like your analysis. You even pointed out some lore secrets I missed, despite having been playing the game for 12 years. (Did get one minor thing wrong, but it's understandable since it was only answered by Pixel himself in an interview and not in the actual game).
The only thing that gives me pause is that I fear this might be a case of the literature professor overanalyzing the color of the drapes. Considering Pixel's development process of the game, I doubt the profound implications of the story were intentional. More than half of the five-year development process of the game was in making the beta version that does not resemble the final version at all. Then it was more or less scrapped entirely when he got feedback that it wasn't fun to play, meaning that the masterpiece we got was put together in about two years, save for many of the assets he designed. What's more, the good ending was thrown in at the last minute after being asked to make it more challenging.
And I think that's key to understanding the few bad design choices. Professor Booster was always supposed to die. Curly was always supposed to die. Balrog was always evil. There was never a tow rope. Ther was never a Ma Pignon. The binary choice Kazuma gives you was always, Run Away or Destroy the Island. Saving the island was never a possibility.
The Normal ending was supposed to be the real ending. But because of some last-minute changes, things were added to increase the fun of playing the game with less regard for how it fits into the story or contradicts the theme. The justifications you give are a great thought experiment, and I like the conclusions you draw, but I can't help but think it's wishful thinking. Pixel would probably be stunned if he sees this video.
It brings me no joy to say this because I still regard Cave Story as my favorite video game of all time.
Yeah that's all fair! My style of analysis leans more into death of the author territory which isn't for everyone. I'm more interested in what meaning emerges when you take something at face value than what the creator consciously decided would be the message. Although I do still think that he going for *something* meaningful with Balrog. It would've been easy to make him straight-up evil like the Doctor but instead we got a pretty nuanced backstory for a secret boss.
Also what did I get wrong? Was it that King did eat the red flowers?
Excellent video essay. I liked the conversation you had with yourself at the god gamer jump moment lol.
Just today I beat my first ever playthrough of the game. Only got the "neutral" ending since just like you said I didn't know how to save Curly until I looked it up, but at that point I had already saved and it was too late. Won't watch the whole video now because I want to get the good ending for myself first, but it's great so far, bringing attention to quite a bit of stuff about the story I didn't really pick up on on my own
This is amazing omg, you have so much quality and professionalism, you need so much more subscribers and views!! I hope you will get them, meanwhile I subscribed and liked the video.
Given your interpretation of the best ending, I wonder if Pixel and Hayao Miyazaki would get along
such an incredible video. I'm really sad to see so few people are seeing it....
This video is incredibly underrated
Thank you :)
Your analysis is pretty amazing. This has always been one of my absolute favorite games, but I think this video really helps me understand it a lot better, and for that I thank you.
I have a few thoughts about the true ending, primarily in regards to Booster's death and his role in building the Booster V 2.0., but to make a long story short I don't think it was entirely flubbed, I think it does fit in with the game in terms of plot, story and mechanics, even if it's a pretty convoluted detail.
I wouldn't mind taking the time to share if anyone's interested! I'd rather make this a thread than a giant mini essay, so I'm all ears if anyone's interested in replying.
Thanks!
And sure, what are you thinking? I think Booster's death/non-death produces an interesting message, but it's definitely dissonant with other aspects of the game so I'm curious what your perspective is
@@Skyehoppers To start off, overall I totally agree with the viewpoint you presented in your video. The themes of conflict make sense as does the role of the characters in the story, as you described them. I see how Booster's death can be quite dissonant since it breaks the flow of the normal story line. However, I don't believe it's impossible to figure out how to get the best ending without an outside guide.
Pixel doesn't explicitly include any clues on how to directly save Booster anywhere in Cave Story. He DOES offer some insight on how to acquire the Booster 2.0, an item which players likely won't find on their first go around. The clue comes in the form of a journal entry left in the prefab house just outside of the throne room. In it Professor Booster explicitly states that he can complete an upgraded version of the Booster 0.8...
...Provided he lives long enough to do so.
Not only has the player been trained to help the innocent, but also to seek out upgrades and life capsules, meaning this clue isn't just a throwaway piece of dialogue. I think this is the first important puzzle piece needed to figure out the best ending since the blood stained sanctuary absolutely requires the upgraded booster in order to navigate it successfully. And if Pixel implies that an item can be acquired by ensuring the survival of one character, then maybe other characters can potentially be saved too.
Your thoughts?
I have knowed and played this game for so many years and yet this video made me contemplate tons of aspects I've never had! Amazing video!!
Since I was younger ( I’m still young) I loved cave story. I would come back from school and try to tell everybody how good it is. My family love it but I was devoted. I played it on every console (and it burned a hole through my allowance) but it was so gratifying to beat ballos. This was an amazing video and even taught me things that I didn’t know like Arthur using red flowers. I loved this video and I really hope you do good
And unrelated but I wonder if the wind fortress is cannon
Wow, this was a great analysis and video. I’ve been a cave story fan for what feels like forever, and you summed the game up perfectly. However, more that I’ve thought about it, the part where you jump over the gap where booster falls make sense, but only after the fact. When you take the booster 0.8, I like to think that it is getting rid of boosters only way of getting out of the labyrinth. Jumping over the gap let’s him keep and upgrade the booster, not only to escape, but to give you a better version. Just a thought :)
I feel like you could interpret the good ending as a "what if" sort of ordeal, as all of the choices are ones which can realistically only be made with experience gained after making them.
By ignoring Booster, by not taking the Booster v0.8, maybe Booster would've found a way to survive. After all, there was a teleporter down there. Plus, in the bookshelf in the Prefab Building, you can find Booster's memo detailing that he did have plans to use the Booster v0.8 to make the Booster v2.0, meaning that he could have had been able to continue had he kept the Booster v0.8
After Curly sacrificed herself, when you regained consciousness, maybe she wasn't dead yet. Maybe there was something lying around in the Core that you could've used to get her out, and you just didn't notice.
From there, an entirely new storyline is enacted where stuff turns out perfectly BECAUSE you were able to save them. A storyline where, that weird mushroom that asked if you had any business with it could be used to restore Curly's memory. And where Curly's memory happened to hold the secret to stopping the mountain from crashing whilst releasing Balrog and Misery from their curse and saving the world from trouble, permanently. The key to that success, of course, being tied to that weird passageway with the statues of the previous Demon Crown holders.
Ballos's existence is (afaik) only revealed to the player AFTER they've ignored Booster. Plus, the door to enter the bloodstained sanctuary is only open when you've completed the requirements prior. Also, on a neutral pt, the dialogue when interacting with Curly in the core says "No reply..." and ends it there, but in a good pt, the dialogue is extended to indicate that she is still alive.
Now, there is a 100% chance this reading way too far between the lines and probably not intended by Pixel, but I still think it's a neat theory
now, if only there were a way to save Toroko, that would've made for a great 4th ending
I think you've understated or missed the effect that despair and hopelessness can have on the characters. Take Professor Booster, for example. He's presumably thrown into the Labyrinth at the same time that The Doctor and/or Misery comes to abduct the remaining Mimiga. I don't think he's aware of Itoh's or Momorin's status, so as far as he's aware, the only ones left to stand against the Doctor are himself, Sue, Kazuma, and that silent robot who's been cooperative. Kazuma had hidden away, and was never much of a fighter to begin with. Sue was kidnapped with the rest of the Mimiga. All that's left is Quote, so it's my understanding that seeing his last hope to stop The Doctor at the bottom of the same pit he was tossed into drained what little fight he had left in him. All he could do was hand over his unfinished invention to let at least one of them get out of there. In the case where you pass by him and don't try to help, he remains as pragmatic as you've noted he is. Injured as he may be, he'll crawl to the teleporter at the bottom of the pit, repair it, and escape to safety. He can assume that Quote is still out there somewhere if he doesn't have any reason to believe otherwise, and he knows that Quote is everyone's best hope for survival.
This isn't to say that the game is punishing the player for making the empathetic choice, rather that there's more nuance to it. Empathy alone isn't the solution to the crisis facing the island. There's a reason that there's no option to talk things out with The Doctor or Ballos at the end. There's countless games out there with varying degrees of morality systems that let you make the 'empathetic' choice from start to finish. That's all well and good, but if you want to compare it to real world situations (as you do towards the end of the video), then it's not an all-encompassing solution. That's not to say that empathy is wrong or that active hostility is right, only that the right approach for the situation should be considered. I think it's no accident that the player is guided towards the bad or normal endings on a first playthrough, because either ending leaves hints that there's more to discover. The prefab building before the fight against Misery has a note from Booster himself stating plans to improve his device over time. The waterway cabin is a place to rest and save on any kind of playthrough, so if you manage to make it there with Curly and rest, the player is clued into this place being important when she's left on the bed (it's even more obvious when you get the message that she dies if you skip it). Some of the methods needed to reach the good ending are obtuse for sure, but if it were easy to reach then it would invalidate the need for the bad or normal ending. Players would aim for the good one on their first playthrough and only be disappointed by the other two despite their narrative purposes.
I also have to push back against calling Kazuma a coward. It's a good point to notice how he and his sister differ in their approaches to problems on the island, but again, there's more nuance to it. When Sue tries to fight Igor, she gets defeated almost instantly. Once more, the message isn't "don't try to fight", but knowing how to pick your battles. Sue remains helpful later in the game because she refuses to give in, but if Quote wasn't there to save her in the Egg Corridor, then she probably would have been fed a red flower and turned into a monster. At the same time, Kazuma hiding from The Doctor's attack on the village allowed him to escape to the Egg Corridor and hatch a dragon egg before the whole place was destroyed. If he was captured instead and the rest of the game played out as normal, then Sue and Quote would've jumped off the island to their apparent doom with no one around to catch them. Again, right approach for the situation.
Lastly, it feels like an odd point to compare using saves to some sort of meta-narrative point. That's not a function unique to Cave Story or the protagonists being robots, that can basically be true of any game without autosaving or permanent fail-states. It's too broad and generic of a mechanic to extrapolate any kind of meaning from it in this context. There are games out there which aim to derive a narrative purpose from saving or retrying, but Cave Story isn't one of them.
Oh man, I subscribed sooooo hard, seeing a great theme analysis on one of my favorite games of all time.
Seriously though, super excellent job. You made me dislike the good ending probably like 20% less than I do currently. And it was soooo satisfying to hear another person call out Balrog for still being a terrible person, sheesh!
i love how the clip in 29:03 perfectly depicts how this was his first time playing this game, trying to interact with up, instead of down
Also, this was a great video, this is one of my favorite games and i never thought in analizing it this way, really great video, it made me think and i appreciate it. Thank you
Cave story literally made my childhood. I had played games like Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time, etc. Games with heavy themes and a focus on morality above all else, but Cave Story was different for me, and I think it was because the game is inherently more personal. Link is a destined hero, he does exactly what he was born to do, but Cave Story lacks such a narrative. I remember the profound sadness the game wrought within me the first time I played.
I remember growing used to the formula of the game, expecting it to be another level-by-level approach, Egg Corridor, Grasslands, Sandzone, and Mimiga Village acting as a hub of sorts. But then You get sent to the Labyrinth and the entire formula gets turned on it's head, at exactly the same point as the narrative does. I remember feeling like I lost the game, I was in Ocarina of Time's worst timeline. I remember watching Curly die in the core, and the abstract sadness I felt when making my way through the waterway. Although I was mostly too young to put my thoughts and feelings into words, I remember distinctly thinking "Well, I have to carry on, simply because I haven't died yet."
I think that the player doing the "normal" ending first, where Curly dies and you escape the island, is absolutely essential for the games narrative, a requirement, even. I think it bolsters the true ending's narrative in a deeply profound way. Once you find out about the true ending, that you can save Curly and Professor Booster, the second playthrough is emboldened by a sense of determination, you will fight like hell, do whatever is necessary to save them and get your only good ending.
I think a good game should be great when you first play it. But I think a great game should stand up to being replayed.
Very nice video, and a nice revisiting of my first 'favourite' indie game. Have subscribed :)
beautiful and deft analysis. i love your writing style and the perspective you approach the game with. thanks for making this.
The last time I played this was before I had more of an appreciation for game design or even knowing about different endings being possible, so I'm almost certain I would have taken the coward ending and assumed I was done with it. I gotta play it again now
I will never see the game the same ever again
Can't believe that two years later, this is still such a relatively unseen video in the Cave Story community. This is such a rock-solid analysis of the meaning behind the game.
Tbh Im pretty happy with the attention it has received! I had less than 200 subscribers when I uploaded it
Good and interesting stuff! I've watched all of your videos now, and while I initially thought I would mostly be interested in the speedrun content, this video has really won me over for media analysis stuff as well. I hope to see more great things from you soon! :)
Thank you :)
Wow. This is a great video. Amazing 💜 I will always love this game
Also the weapon that curly uses during the sanctuary is nemesis which is gotten from a really simple quest: go under the balcony where kazuma is after you say no to the worst ending then go into the door under there then talk to one of the tiny people. Then go all the way back to the graveyard to pick up the tiny human then go all the way back there to trade the blade for nemesis. Nemesis is probably the strongest weapon in the game it basically has a reverse gimmick where level one is a spammy long range 30 damage thunder gun and a single exp chip levels it up making it worse but getting hit resets its level to 1 its really good and I would recommend getting it if the blade isn’t doing much for you.
@@dewah7775 tbh I prefer nemesis since it fires fast bullets but yeah blade works really well
Also (this is a hot take) I like the machine gun more since at the labyrinth you can get the speedloader that helps although keeping polar star for the charge weapon (I forgot its name) is way better because it just does more damage and Dosent need to bother with ammo or needing EXP
Thank you for this stimulating essay! I wish you the best of luck and much success!!
Good video! I loved Cave Story, but honestly had trouble making too much sense of it myself. Thanks for doing the work!
Great Video, I'm happy to see more videos covering the story of this game and it's deeper meanings.
Ironhead had that helmet before the events of Cave Story, probably as a prosthetic made by one of his disciples before his right-hand-man decided to become a Discord Moderator personified.
I wonder how he got hurt, or if he even got hurt at all? I would say it could be a possible battle implement, but he wasn't expecting to see Ikachan at the end of the events of, well, the game 'Ikachan'. Also, his eye on the mech side is red, which might mean that it was burnt or scraped in some way.
Man, imagine having a job at the burn ward of an underwater village, what a useless sounding job.
Cave story is a game that leaved a mark on my life and honestly i never think about the depth that the game has, yes i was sad for king, toroko and even more sad with the death of curly, but never thought of the meanings that the game could possibilly have, thanks for your interpretation :D
Glad it could do thar for you :) Honestly its very encouraging to see people still engaging with my videos even 3 years after theyre released. Feels like all the effort will last
@@Skyehoppers :D
I saw this video recommended to me last night at like 3am and nearly had a mental breakdown as my brain only processed the word “human” and the red arrow in the thumbnail pointing to something that looked decidedly inhuman to me. I’m glad I actually found this video today after getting some sleep, it’s really interesting and definitely eased the crisis I had when it first popped up lol
I absolutely agree about "Booster jump" and tow cable placement being weird, but actually brilliant. I think idea behind those is that you SHOULD get bad/not-good ending on your first try. Narratively, to show that bad things happen even to good people, inactive (like most Mimigas) or active (Toroko and King, and all that you failed to save, including people/critters that died in island falling down). Game design-wise, because otherwise people would almost 100% get best ending (there is no reason why cable just disappears from core room after it is flooded, in fact it would make perfect sense for Quote to search floor for something helpful in saving Curly. Hell, part where cable is is already underwater. And leaving Booster to "die" in labyrinth just rubs me the wrong way).
I think there is a subtle message in the choice regarding the professor's death. There's an important understanding in Revolution, that those with their heart truly set on change can't get bogged down trying to save everyone. It's tragic and often there's nothing you can do. But in spite of that things sometimes work out. The good ending revolves around hard choices, not about making good or kind decisions but the necessary ones. It asks us to accept and to move on when our elders die often either by the forces of time or a simple accident like and unfortunate fall. It asks us to steal our nerve and kill one of the only "enemys" that demonstrates an overt desire to live. Combine that with the mechanical Challenge and it can be seen as the game asking us if we really have what it takes. Where the neutral ending is built on a theme of Hope and altruism the good ending is one of drive and purpose. Organically only ever found after countless play throughs repeating again and again the same cycle of War tragedy and strife; only after accepting the futility and making the leap of faith that A New Path unfolds. Rekindled by the survival of a man the game had previously taught you was unsavable. Even in the long string of questions the answer is persistence. You either give up hope find a better world the same hope that drives one to reject the opportunity to leave. Leaving you only to eventually tire and give up on that faith or double down and refuse to quit until you are face-to-face with the heart of nye all human conflict, jealousy, power, isolation, and abuse. It's important in that ending not only that they are machines but that they are soldiers and how that relates to what's asked of the player.
11:39 "Had the red flower not been there, the Mimiga wouldn't be here at all." It was only the Doctor who thought of using the Mimiga against the surface.
I think the path to the Good Ending being convoluted and unintuitive kinda of mimics what you said about Curly. Just like how she had to understand the systems that create the conflict of the story, you as the player must understand all the inner workings of the game and it's world to obtain the best resolution. Most players won't ever get this ending on their first try because they will be playing blindly, but once you share that experience online and see what other people have to say about Cave Story, be it in the form of reviews, guides, analysis or anything else, the player will have a better understanding of the game's story and mechanics, and will them be able to obtain the best ending.
Whether it was intended by Pixel or not, to truly reach the best outcome, players must have had to work together and share their experiences/knowledge to figure out the route to the Good Ending, just like how the only way to successfully dismantle the systems that cause oppression is by working together and having an understanding of each other.
idk what any of that has to do with the mushroom boss tho. i think pixel just wanted to write a mushroom character who's kinda of a dick and them you killed him.
Thanks for this interesting analysis. It got me thinking and I have a slightly different and more optimistic take.
In the normal ending you, the player, defeat the enemy by following the path you see in front of you and working persistently. But if you want to do more than defeat your enemy, if you want to dispel the evil and injustice that creates enemies, that's not something you can possibly know how to do on your own. You need to know to step back and research to find out what others have learned. You have to make choices that will feel nonsensical or just wrong, you have to do things the hard way, and ultimately when you know you are on the right track you will face the hardest fight you have ever faced. But if you do all this and follow through you can bring about a more fundamental change than had even seemed possible.
Hilariously, Balrog is a bar of soap.
Re: Misery and Balrog's thematic roles: they are followers, soldiers. They follow orders. But there are 2 types of obedience.
Balrog obeys without question, but for a reason. He is named after a monster, obeys a monster, and does monstrous things. But he cares about Misery. He may once have been a person, or maybe a creature, but became a machine in order to lessen the burden on Misery, a mirror to quote's journey (as covered in your video). Balrog obeys because his family/friend obeys and he is a team player, full stop. He will do his best to achieve whatever the team needs of him. This is also why Balrog has absolutely no trouble leaving the island at the end of the game: there is nothing left for him there. With Misery dead, Balrog loses his last connection to humanity, but luckily for us then does the totally robot thing where he NEEDS a master, and so imprints on the next most familiar person he knows: Sue. Who then immediately orders him to save you.
Misery on the other hand, is still partially human when we meet her and this shows in her motivations. She doesn't follow orders because she wants to, or because she believes in the cause or whatever. She actually seems more than willing to disobey once given a chance. Misery obeys only in order to avoid suffering. Yet despite this desire, we see her get punished for failing and taking out her anger on her oldest/only friend. We see her taking pleasure where she can find it in order to feel any kind of happiness, all the while having this aura of sadness about her. Her facial expressions are exaggeratedly evil, even when laughing, but at the last moment she finally says something real - just before she tries to kill you (again). She is evil in order to avoid pain, but end up doing nothing except cause and suffer pain. Her name is apt, for it describes her existence perfectly.
Where Balrog's blind obedience resulted in his robotic appearance, then Misery's avoidance of pain and fear caused her to shed all the good parts of herself and truly become evil - as shown by her having similarly coloured skin to curly and quote - becoming nothing more than a killing machine. Especially by the end when she looses her last bit of humanity as punishment for turning her magic against her master.
I didn’t know much about this game other than the name. Thanks for the insightful discussion!
Peak video
24:02 Ahhh, I was wondering why you were using the machine gun (All jokes aside, great video! I like your reinterpretation of the steps needed to get the best ending, I never really thought about it that way)
What a nice video on a chill game I played when I was younger
Should note that two Mimiga DO survive. We know that Santa and Chaco survive and don't become Rabid, and the father Mimiga in the Plantation does too (thanks to hiding)
The Colins, and the Mimiga Villagers are more ambiguous though
its interesting seeing the mimiga/bunny faction as the "characters who had no choice" and how the design supports this
even sue here, because she was apparently dragged to the island by her familys insistence acc. to prof booster. small, but a cool detail for me
Some thoughts:
- Jake's fate isn't disclosed after the jail scene. It's likely they survive if mimigas like Santa is showed rescued in the Normal Ending.
- My take on the red flower in Arthur's house is just he's aware of the existence and danger of it. But I did read something interesting in wiki that states Pixel once mention King's red eyes indicates that he had ate red flower, but he did not lose his mind because he cooked it first. Although it contradict to what doctor said when King is knocked out.
- I never thought of the origin of those metal bosses, it make senses if the technologies comes from the ground along the robots. The weirdest one would be Balrog, if he's also cursed by the crown that means he's prior to the robot invasion era.
- A man who can eat cockroach isn't a coward
- Itoh is pronounced like eetoe, it's Japanese.
Holy shit, you deserve more subscribers.
Thank you that means a lot :) Ill get there someday
23:48 if you look closely at the ground, you'll notice a red mark on the floor. This red mark, I believe, is supposed to mark where exactly you should jump to make it.
Bit late but the main issue of doctor boosters death is in the original game just talking to him kills him and the pits inescapable… they did kinda fix that in cave story plus but it seems to be more in context clues like the broken teleporter but you wouldn’t know that in your first playthrough there are some other things that explain it like in the house at the end has a book by the doctor saying he’s got plans for upgrading it but yeah never would have known on your first playthrough
killing rabid tokoro was the only time a video game made me feel guilty, that feeling of "what the fuck did i just do" made me realize that i had stumbled apon a game like no other.
Incredible video and wonderful reading! Subbed!
im on my 3rd or 4th watch and i have urgent news i must share
“Part 6: Conculsion” not spelled correctly
Otherwise this video is so great i keep coming back to watch it every now and then, the points you bring up about the contradictory message is not something i have even considered but it makes so much sense. 10/10