Remake of Cave Story in development for 3DS, sequel likely

The entire indie game is being revamped for the 3DS

Publisher NIS America has announced Cave Story 3D, a complete remake of 2004’s Cave Story, will be available as a retail game for the 3DS. The makeover will see new character designs, new weapon models and updated environments to take full advantage of the 3DS’s stereoscopic visuals, while staying true to the side-scrolling style of the original game. The most difficult part of the development seems to be the trial-and-error process involved in composing new music for the game while building on the original’s 8-bit tunes.

"What’s really tough is, unlike drawing pictures – which is easier to adjust and fix – music is a lot tougher, because when you adjust a certain part of the song, you have to arrange the rest of the music and make it balance," says original composer and sole developer Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya. "But asking the [new] composer to change that is a really tough process, because it’s not like a picture, you can’t visually see it. You have to go back and forth…"

To give you an idea of the visual enhancements the game is getting, take a look at the animation below which shows the starting area of the original Cave Story compared with the concept art of the new game.

When Amaya was asked whether there was interest in making a sequel, he stated that there was a "very good chance" of that happening. Aside from that, we’re still waiting for a portable Cave Story; developer Nicalis ported the original game to DSiWare and it was released only to North America last year. We’d love to wait for the 3DS remake instead, but with region locking on the 3DS a reality, we’re really hoping this gets a local release.

Source: GamesRadar