A Double Fine Production (not the Kickstarter Tim Schafer game), from the mind of Ron Gilbert, the creator of the Monkey Island series and Maniac Mansion, comes The Cave, an adventure-platformer available on the Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. It centers around a strange cave that can talk, as well as construct different paths and settings within itself, and offer anyone who enters a chance to obtain their "greatest desires", while also taking a look into some of their dark side... As the trailer shows, you pick 3 of 7 characters at the beginning of the game, and lead them through the cave by using their various abilities to solve puzzles and such. Said characters to choose from include:
The Knight: He seeks a legendary weapon of ultimate power! His ability is to cast a protective barrier around him that defends him against harm and lets him fall from great heights.
The Hillbilly: He's looking for his one true love. He can hold his breath for long periods of time underwater.
The Time Traveler: She wants to correct a past wrong. She has the power to phase through certain walls and barriers.
The Scientist: She is on the brink of a great scientific discovery! She uses her l33t haxor skills to operate any computer she sees fit.
The Adventurer: She's on the look-out for valuable treasure and untold glory! She can use her whip (grapple hook?) to swing across pits and latch onto hooks and ledges.
The Twins: Like the trailer said, they just want to go out and play... They can act as two characters.
The Monk: He seeks his master... so that he can become the master! Using his mystic telepathic skills, he can manipulate/take distant objects.
The game also has a number of other characters you run into inside The Cave, though mostly, it's just your three characters and The Cave... Although none of the main characters talk, so it's mostly just hearing The Cave's sultry voice...
Okay, I bought this game a few days ago, and I freaking love it! ...So much so, I played it 6 times and unlocked everything there is to unlock in this game. It's definitely more story-oriented then gameplay oriented, to the point where you're just supposed to take in who and what these seven characters are, and think for yourself how they got to where they are... Not literally, though, since I'm kind of puzzled as to why certain characters are even in The Cave at all. There's definitely a lot to talk about with this game... which is why I wanted to make a topic about it!
First of all, the story, the characters, and the humor are the best things going for it, and is one of the main reasons why I wanted to play through it multiple times. The game is hilarious, which quite a few dark overtones, which I'll get to in a moment. Various little moments, as well as certain lines from NPCs and The Cave itself, make it worth playing just to hear them say it.
Not that the game doesn't have it's short-comings. It feels like the guys who made this game were more interested in the story aspect than the game aspect, because the platforming in this game is kind of wonky and takes a while to get used it. You automatically jump onto ledges and ladders, and you automatically jump up and forward in the direction your facing; you literally cannot just jump straight upward.
I don't have much to say about the visuals, they're fine by me, although sometimes, when you're moving to a new area, the camera gets kind of jerky... Especially when it saves your progress while doing so.
The game is divided into 6 main segments, 8 if you count the very beginning and the very end, when you enter and exit The Cave. There is one segment for each character in your group, and 3 segments about their progression through The Cave. While you DO use your characters abilities to solve puzzles, you're only REQUIRED to use them in the segment that's about their character (which I'll get to in just a moment), which makes sense, you have to find a way to progress with any given character. Using their abilities can make the in-between segments easier and quicker, but usually, the other group members are just there to hold a door open or step on a switch or something...
The main 7 characters are the big draw to this game, so it's kind of disappointing when you find out they don't talk throughout the game. They could have used this angle to develop who they are, see them interact with each other. Hell, bringing up different conversations with each other depending on who's in the group could have added MORE replayability, but instead, we only find out who they are through their own personal segments and cave paintings, which you find throughout the cave...
And here's the part I want to get to the most: the characters stories... Actually, since this is the second big draw of the game, I'm going to place each character's story in a spoiler tag, because really, play the game for yourself, and see what lies within... As The Cave states, both in the trailer and at the beginning of the game, each character has a dark side resting within them, and by trying to obtain what they want within the gave, you see what kind of dark side they have... And decide for yourself, if the thing they're after is really worth it.
The Knight...
is really just a peasant who steals the armor he wears from a dead knight. He's actually a coward, and he hopes that by obtaining the sword Excalibur, he can prove he's as great a knight as he fantasizes. In his segment, he has to earn the right to pull the sword by winning the heart of the princess, and prove it by showing the king her amulet. The Princess tells the knight to go retrieve the dragon's treasure. The Knight does so, with the help of his fellow Cave companions, by opening the back gate to the dragon's den, and distracting the dragon long enough to steal it's treasure... Unfortunately, the dragon escapes and eats the princess, but also spits out her amulet, letting the Knight take the amulet, show it to her father, cheat pulling the sword out by blowing up the ground beneath it, and run off with the sword... which he loses in the next segment.
The Hillbilly...
works at the carnival, and falls in love with one of the attractions, the "Amazing Two-Legged Lady". He steals, cheats, and rigs many attractions in order to win a pink bear which he thinks will win her affection, only to lose out by fellow carnival worker, the "Man of Ordinary Strength". Enraged and bitter with this rejection, the Hillbilly sets fire to a stack of hay bales, which in turn sets the entire carnival on fire.
The Adventurer...
is a self-absorbed *bleep* who's more interested in fame and glory than about the actual treasures she finds, and ESPECIALLY her own adventuring companions. In her segment, her fellow Cave companions help her while entrapped in a small room with spikes slowly descending, while the Adventurer pushes her partner, the one who still believed in her and trusted her whole-heartedly, into a pit of spikes so that she can get the treasure across. She ends up trapped, too, however, and has to rely on her fellow Cave companions to get out.
The Twins...
are really nasty brats, who constantly try to kill their parents so that they can run free from the constraints of parenting. Their segments has them running about the house, doing all sorts of nasty things, leading up to them pouring rat poison into the soup their mother was cooking and killing them when they eat it.
The Time Traveler...
is an employee at a museum, and is incredibly envious of her co-worker, recently names the "Greatest Employee of All Time". She uses her time traveling skills to manipulate the past and eventually kill off his ancestor millions of years ago, essentially killing off an entire family line of people...
The Scientist...
discovers a formula that creates a new type of nuclear weapon, one which everyone is willing to pay LOADS of money for! She eventually caves in to her greed, and in her segment, launches the nuclear missile she helped create, killing hundreds of millions of people.
The Monk...
while seemingly calm, is actually angry about his short-comings, and wants to take out his frustration on his master. His segment involves passing the "4 Trials of Zenness" (ha, The Cave was right, that wasn't a real word! Thank you spell check!), which eventually leads him to loosening the bolt that's keeping his master from falling to his death...
...It's interesting, because like I said, quite a few characters have little reason to be in The Cave, and the cave paintings, while valuable insight into who these characters are, often contradict the actions in each character's segment. But they're important, as at the end of the game, you gain 2 new cave paintings... Well actually, you can get 4, depending on whether you get a good ending or a bad ending. But unlike other games with this good/bad ending stuff, the only action in the game that changes this outcome is at the very end, where you finally get what you were searching for... But you have to deny it three times and leave The Cave empty-handed in order to get the good ending. Keep in mind, you STILL have to do the horrific and otherwise cruel actions to get to the end, but it's only in doing this one action that changes the final outcome... Maybe the whole purpose of The Cave is to have the characters relive their past mistakes, and see if they learned anything... Either way, I'd like to go over the endings, and weird things I noticed from the segments and the cave paintings...
With the Knight...
the cave paintings depict him ignoring people in need and battle, until finally, he's called upon by the king to slay the dragon. He doesn't have to slay the dragon in the game, though, he just has to get it's treasure. In the bad ending, the Knight fails to kill the dragon and the kingdom is doomed... In the good ending, he comes out and admits he isn't really a knight, and surprisingly, he isn't punished, but is rewarded for his honesty, while the king and his men prepare the fight the dragon themselves.
With the Hillbilly...
the cave paintings show that he's lived a lonely life, ever since he was a little boy, which helps show why he's so desperate for a companion (ironically, his only companion as a child was a stuffed pink bear!). In the bad ending, he sets fire to the carnival, just like in his segment, and sets off to burn down every carnival across the nation, probably out of resentment for the very thing that led him into this bitter rage. In the good ending, another girl takes notice of him, and he instead hooks up with her, and they form a cozy (and large) hillbilly family together.
With the Time Traveler...
Not much to say here... Although I like the fact that she's black. There's quite a bit of variety in this game, now that I think about it. In the bad ending, she successfully kills the guy's ancestor, only to find that in doing so, she makes the future far worse in the process. In the good ending, after seeing that the guy's ancestor is friends with a monkey, she has second thoughts about killing him, instead returns to her time and congratulates her co-worker on his success.
With the Scientist...
really, why is she going to The Cave at all? It's not like she herself wants to launch the missile, she just wants the money to sell the technology to the highest bidder? Anyway, in the bad ending, she laughs at the destruction she causes and basks in her riches. In the good ending, she comes to her senses, refuses to help these clearly evil rich guys out, and decides to go for a walk, confident she's protected the world for a better tomorrow... Unless the Time Traveler's bad ending come to fruition. Also, in the cave paintings, she has blue/green hair, while in the game itself, she has brown hair. Weird.
With the Adventurer...
Probably one of the crueler characters, for coming off as such a gold-digging *bleep*. Her cave paintings also differ greatly from her segment, in that in the segment, there's only one partner, whereas in the cave paintings, she has two, an old man and a young man around her age. The cave paintings show that her partners are fed up woth her glory hogging and kick her out of the group, so she decides to set up traps for them on their next expedition. The bad ending has her succeeding in killing off her former partners and getting all the credit for their discovery. The bad ending has a sudden, completely out of nowhere change of heart, and she then decides to share the glory from now on... Perhaps it was her adventure in The Cave that changed her mind... somehow. Also, her eyes... in the cave paintings their smaller to probably make her look prettier, but in the game, they're HUGE! They seriously caught me off guard the first time I played as her...
With the Twins...
you might have noticed how creepy and ghastly they look... Well that's because, according to the cave paintings, when they poisoned the soup, they had to take the soup WITH THEIR PARENTS as they drank it. In the bad ending, the expected happens; the family drinks the soup and they all die. In the good ending, the twins stop their parents from drinking the soup, apologize, and vow to be good children from then on.
With the Monk...
Again, he looks MUCH different in his cave painting than in the game, he has markings on his head, making him look like a cross between Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Krillin from Dragon Ball. The cave paintings show him failing at various tasks, getting increasingly frustrated, to the point where he becomes incredibly angry seeing someone else pass instead of him. In the bad ending, he kills the master and takes over as the new "Dark Master". In the good ending, he calms himself, continues his training, until finally he passes.
...PHEW! I literally did NOT expect this post to be that long, but really, there's a lot to talk about with this game. I really like it, despite it's shortcomings! In fact, I want to see some sequels out of this! Yeah, I can totally see a series of The Cave games, each with a different group of people with different dark secrets to explore. Hell, The Cave itself has said that many people enter the game before this group. In fact,
in the middle of the game, you come across a dead Pirate, a dead Robot, and a dead Clown, implied to have been the previous group before this one. Taking the Robot's dead battery is actually required to complete a puzzle, while you can also honk the dead Clown's big red nose.
So to close off, for those who haven't tried this game, give it a go! Hopefully, you won't be disappointed! For those who haven't, who's your favorite character from the game and which segment was your favorite? For me, the Hillbilly was my favorite character, while my favorite segment is a toss-up between The Twins' and The Monk's... and maybe The Adventurer's.
