Cave Story

Check out this Destructoid blog post chock-full of delicious Cave Story-related goodness, including details on future Steam updates (leaderboards!) and an upcoming (a month!) eShop release, as well as a good word on Wii U development and system power. Unfortunately, this pretty good news comes off the heels of some pretty bad news: La Mulana, the retro indie Metroidvania-adventure-platformer that Nicalis intended to publish on WiiWare, has been canceled, though a self-published PC release is still in the works by the developer, and you can still download the original freeware release.

Not long ago, the face of the video game industry had a form far different than what we see today. During the years leading up to the current console generation, Japan ran the show, leaving Western gamers at the mercy of sluggish localizations and with no choice but to read and re-read import coverage as they waited impatiently for killer titles to trickle overseas. Even landmark, blockbuster games like Final Fantasy VII took their time in making the transition to English; nine months separated the Japanese and American releases of the franchise's 32-bit debut, an unthinkable delay today.

One of the first (and most influential) Cave Story sites on the net, and an information trove for Pixel's well-known freeware gem. Includes a game download mirror and various translation patches.