I’ve played this before and loved it, but I might as well try the 3DS port while I have the chance!

After Cave Story was a success for Nicalis on Wii and 3DS, they then licensed Pixel’s earlier game Ikachan for enhancement and release… in limited regions. Their 3DS port came out in North America only, although after a few years Japanese publisher Pikii put it out on the JP eShop. This still left it unavailable to me in Australia, until I got to borrow a Japanese 3DS. At only 300 yen, this is a steal for one of my favourite indie games and I was delighted to find that Nicalis’s English script is intact as an option in the JP release.

But to back up a bit… in 1999, Daisuke Amaya aka Pixel released this cute little game as freeware. You’re a little squid (or perhaps an alien…??) who wakes up in a small isolated region of ocean ruled over by the big fish in a small pond Ironhead, and food supplies are dwindling. Essentially, it’s a mini-Metroidvania with simple controls (your only actions are to turn 45 degrees to either side and push with the swim button). The trick is managing your momentum to get through the tight cave corridors and fight off enemy fish and crabs, etc. There’s some NPC interaction and fetch quests, levelling up, and a few new abilities to find.

It’s the unique setting that really wins me over; this tiny seascape of talking anemones and ornery fish is utterly charming, especially with Pixel’s lovely dot art and ditties. It’s very short and super sweet; the excellent fansite cavestory.org has hosted English fan translations for years along with other files, utilities, and info. But now (or rather, since 2013) it has an official commercial release; so how does it stack up?

Nicalis’s handling of Cave Story over the years has been divisive with fans; there’s choices here that I also disagree with. Their localisation takes liberties, including the odd pop culture reference or two and seemingly radically changing certain characters’ motivations compared to the old fan translation, not to mention its occasional grammatical errors (the Japanese text in the Pikii release is a direct port of the original script). On the other hand they also made three small additions to the game world, new little caves or passages each with a new enemy type; this is fine by me and adds value to the rerelease over the free original as far as I’m concerned.

Aesthetically too I see their enhancements as improvements: the new sprites are faithful, still pixellated but higher resolution; there’s a clearer UI, wider field of view, slight lighting effect, and a map of sorts on the bottom screen. As far as how the game plays, looks, and sounds, this is a great port. I’m just not a fan of the new script, oh well.

It’s worth mentioning the fan recreation by Scrambles, “Ikachan HD”. From what I’ve seen the script seems to be a hybrid of the two I’ve discussed which makes it difficult to judge. The graphics are now in hand-drawn vector style but faithful to the original sprites; they just look a little uncanny because they’re so smooth. The UI is inspired by the 3DS port and you have the wider screen size and shadowing effect—all good changes—I think it’s let down by its music though which seems overproduced and overbearing to me. It doesn’t include the new content either.

It’s a matter of taste but I prefer Pixel’s original to the HD fan remake; for the 3DS port it’s a toss-up. Why not play through both simultaneously, as I just did while checking for differences?? Or all three??? You can’t go wrong as they all retain that strong central design, bobbing around this little undersea world exploring the caves and meeting the adorable denizens. Swim, Ikachan!