#cave story ironhead

[lavendertales]

Sweet lies: EPILOGUE

pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader

summary: two years later, the group's lives are drastically changed.

word count: 1.5k

A/N: big thank you to everyone who's commented, reblogged and supported this series!! ❤️ I loved sharing this personal story with you all and I thank you for all the love.

gif: @uuuhshiny

series masterlist | AO3

TWO YEARS LATER

“Told you we’d be late,” you scold him, walking hand in hand through the crowd.

“It’s only ten minutes. It’s called being fashionably late.”

“Well, you’re fashionably impossible.”

Frankie stops, smiling mischievously your way until inevitably you break into a smile yourself. He pecks your lips, grazing your cheek.

“You know this is your fault, really,” he tells you sweetly.

You make a shocked face, breaking free from his touch. “How is it my fault?!”

“Who told you to wear one of my favorite shirts?”

“I couldn’t find my red t-shirt and I was doing dishes!”

“I had no choice but to be all over you. It was impossible not to.”

You shake your head, the smile never leaving your lips, even as you continuously press your lips against his, even in the middle of all the people around you.

“Okay, so we’re a little late,” you cave in. “What’s the harm?”

“Glad you agree. There is no harm. I figured we’ve both done a lot of waiting.”

You notice someone waving at you frantically, and you realize it’s Rose. Excited, you both rush towards her, hugging her, and then Santiago. You then notice everyone else, and offer the appropriate greetings and hugs.

“How are you feeling, Mia?” you ask, careful how you move around her.

She presses a hand on her belly, smiling. “Excited for this to be over.”

“That’s what you get for having unprotected sex with the Ironhead,” you all hear Santiago’s comment, and you all burst into laughter.

All but Will, who decides to glare menacingly at Santiago.

“Don’t get me wrong, as much as I enjoyed the morning sickness and swollen feet, I am ready to meet our baby boy.”

“Have you decided on a name yet?”

“It’s a tie between Noah and Jordan.”

“Both are great.”

“I guess we’ll see when he gets here. Two weeks left.”

“You know, I hear Ben is also a good name. Benjamin, if you will. As a middle name, of course. We don’t want two Benny’s in this household.”

Mia chuckles, looking over at Will for some sort of confirmation, but the latter throws his brother the same glare as he did Santiago.

“What?” Benny asks him. “So I’m excited to be an uncle, sue me!”

“Don’t worry, once I figure out a way how to or why, I will.”

“How are you guys doing?” Emily asks you and Frankie.

The two of you exchange a look, your cheeks still flushed from the adventurous time you shared roughly half an hour ago.

“Good, good!” you answer. “We’re glad to be out of the house.”

“First time in months,” Frankie adds.

“Thank goodness our babysitter, Rebecca, could make it today.”

“Can’t believe Ava is two years old.”

“Tell me about it!”

“Now see, that’s what you get too for having unprotected sex with Fish,” Santiago adds.

Frankie does more than a simple glare: he follows his friend around, pointing a finger at him and making threats that do nothing more but cause the group a big chuckle.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just waiting for the right moment to throw in everyone’s faces that we traveled in ten different countries in Europe and had very safe sex in all of them,” Rose says, causing the girls to giggle.

“I hope that’s all he’s gonna throw in our faces,” you add.

“Okay but seriously now, how are you guys doing?” Emily asks.

“We’re good, honestly. It’s been… crazy. Good kind of crazy. I mean, not only did Frankie and I get together, finally, but we’re parents. We have a daughter! It’s crazy!”

“It’s normal, honey,” Rose reminds you. “You’ve been through so much and now you finally get your happy ending and it feels surreal to you. It kind of makes me cry.”

“Happy cry?”

“Of course happy cry, you’re my best friend, you idiot!”

You chuckle, taking the plate with the sandwich and salad that Emily hands you. You settle to listen to Rose’s stories about her and Santiago’s travels to Europe over the past four months, then you listen to everything Emily has to tell you about her and Benny’s house shopping and how they may have found “the one”.

Then, you see a couple headed towards your group.

Andrea and Mark make their way to all of you. Everyone goes out of their way to salute the couple, inviting them to sit down on one of the blankets splayed on the grass. Andrea unloads the basket she brought, filed with fruit and other snacks. When she sees you, she goes in for a hug that you gladly reciprocate.

“Feels like I haven’t seen you in ages,” she tells you.

“Since the wedding, actually. Whose fault is it for spending a month away?”

Andrea shrugs. “It was a great honeymoon package!”

You chuckle, seeing Frankie shaking hands with Mark. For whatever reason, you hold your breath, as if that will improve things. But the guys get along great, engaging into an immediate discussion.

“How are things with your parents?” you ask Andrea instead.

Andrea takes a deep breath, then clears her throat. The subject is still a bit sensitive, you notice, and you instantly regret the question.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” you say.

“No, no, it’s fine! It wasn’t easy at first, as you recall—“

“Yeaaaah.”

“But after I basically shouted at them that I wanna live my life my own way, not according to their plan… ironically, that’s when they calmed down. I think it helped them realize that I’m not a helpless kid, either. I mean, I’m doing pretty well, aren’t I?”

You smile at her. “You’re a hot-shot dermatologist with a great husband, great friends and a great apartment. Hell yeah!”

Andrea chuckles, glaring at Frankie and Mark, still talking.

“Looks like things worked out pretty well for all of us, huh?” she asks.

“Looks so.”

“You know, in all the years Frankie and I have been together, he’s never looked at me the way he looks at you.”

You frown at her. “Come on…”

“I’m serious! I mean, sure, it was half ‘I like you a lot’ and half ‘I also gotta stick with you to get my parents off my back’, but still.”

“And the way Mark looks at you… I see you really love each other.”

She smiles rather flustered. “We do.”

“And the wedding was beautiful!”

“Oh, by the way, how would you and Frankie feel about joining us for dinner next week?”

“As long as you don’t think it’s awkward.”

“Pshhh, what’s awkward? My ex fiancé and his current wife having dinner with me and my current husband? Please!”

You laugh wholeheartedly. “You’re right, nothing awkward. You know, if it were anyone else, I doubt I would’ve been able to be friends with you or Mark. But you’re just… too cool.”

“Stop it, come on! I don’t think I truly thanked you.”

“Why?”

She inhales sharply, smiling sincerely at you.

“You’re what gave Frankie and I courage to end things. Well, more him than me. But I do want to thank you for coming back here and basically unwrapping the blindfolds we had on this whole time.”

“Ever the drama lover,” a male voice coos.

You notice Mark coming over, leaning and pressing a kiss onto Andrea’s forehead.

“Oh, how’s the baby doing?!” Andrea asks enthusiastically. “Can’t believe I forgot to ask about her!”

“She’s fine. She’s with the babysitter this afternoon. We wanted to bring her, but she was exhausted so we figured we come here alone.”

“What did I miss?”

Frankie sits next to you, pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek, nothing more. You look around, smiling at the sight of your friends’ banter and their happy faces. You finally feel content, like you’ve won the race you’ve unknowingly been participating in for over a decade.

“Nothing. I’m glad you’re here,” you whisper to him.

“Don’t start something else,” he warns.

You raise your brows. “Or?”

“Or… gonna have to show you when we get home.”

You feel your cheeks burn, but you keep it to yourself. You’ve gotten so used to everyone knowing about you and Frankie and having things out in the open that keeping some things to yourself feels taboo to a certain extent.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Francisco,” you warn back.

“Or what?”

“You’ll see.”

“Keep it in your pants, will ya?” Santiago murmurs as he’s walking by.

Frankie makes a face and threatens his friend some more, to which you chuckle. You finally feel at peace, happy.

Like you got everything you’ve ever wanted.

previous

[urfavisagamer]

Ironhead from Cave Story is a Gamer.

Requested by anonymous

[inexplicably-spookified]

fun cave story fact: unused scripting in cave story implies that you were once able to return to the waterway - a flag jump to skip the ironhead fight and simply dump you in mimiga village's reservoir - and in fact if you manage to get back there, it's still functional... but only in CS3D, later versions of CS+ & the JP 1.0.0.6 version of freeware (well i haven't tested the latter two myself i'm just relying on TCRF for that one) due to a typo in the script

anyway if you manage to get back there in CS3D through the beast fang glitch (tdlr loading another map's script into a map), while it does work, you're unfortunately stuck:

(quote's where the white dot on the map is, behind the top of the waterfall)

the map change coordinates are intended for the original game, spawning you at the top of the reservoir so you fall down, but CS3D changed the map layout slightly for some reason, adding that row of blocks

(original layout for comparison)

anyway this has been useless cave story facts with eli i don't know how to end this post bye

[postgamecontent]

Studio Pixel Spotlight: Ikachan & Azarashi

In spite of the extreme popularity of Cave Story, most of the rest of Studio Pixel's releases maintain a a very low profile. There are plenty of possible reasons for that. For starters, much of Pixel's catalog is made up of mini-games that don't really hit many of the same notes as his most famous work. They're mostly only available on PC, put up as free downloads from Pixel's own site. For this Spotlight series, we're going to be looking largely at the titles that made it out of that bubble in some form. We'll start off with some of Pixel's earliest games, the squid adventure Ikachan and the Game & Watch-style Azarashi. Both games were originally released on PC, with Ikachan ported to the Nintendo 3DS in 2013 and Azarashi to iOS in 2012. They're still available for free on PC and for sale in their respective platforms' shops, but Azarashi will likely be purged from the App Store when 32-bit compatibility is broken later this year.

Ikachan 

Original Release Date: June 23, 2000

Original Hardware: Windows PC

For better or worse, Ikachan is often spoken of in terms of its relationship to Cave Story. Like that game, it's a non-linear, side-scrolling, action-adventure game. It shares a similar style of presentation, and even appears to be using a version of the engine that game would later be built in. It's a curious title in Pixel's library. Ikachan is considerably more substantial than the bulk of his other games, but it's practically bite-sized next to Cave Story and Kero Blaster. Even in its expanded Nintendo 3DS version, the game barely takes more than an hour to finish. The original PC version is around half the length. As such, Ikachan is often seen more as a technical demo than a game all of its own. Many view it as either an hors d'oeuvre or a small dessert for the main course of Cave Story. I think that assessment is dealing the game a short shrift, however.

Before we go into the story of Ikachan, however, we need to briefly discuss its creator: Daisuke Amaya, or as he's often known as, Pixel. Until very recently, he's operated as something of a one-man-band. That's not as rare as you might think in indie development, of course, but what separates Pixel from most is that he seems to do it all well. He's a skilled game designer, a talented musician, an excellent pixel artist, and a competent programmer. He takes a great deal of enjoyment in all of those things, too. He's done more collaborative work in recent years, but for most of his active years as a developer, he's worked largely on his own.

Pixel grew up in the 1980s and like many kids of that generation, he was captivated by video games. He also enjoyed creative endeavors like drawing and composing his own music. After graduating high school, Pixel went to computer technical school for further studies, hoping to one day make video games. While living in the student dormitory, he learned how to program his own software from his neighbor. As he was developing his programming skills, he also continued to play games. His favorite at this time was Nintendo's Super Metroid, and he dreamed of making a game of his own similar to it. By now, Pixel had no intentions of going full-time into the games industry, mind you. He felt that if he took that road, he would never get to make the kinds of games he really wanted to make. This was simply a hobby for him, an extension of his love for creating art and playing games.

While he loved Super Metroid a lot, there was one thing he wanted to do differently. The exploration and action bits were great, and so was the atmosphere. Pixel wanted a game with all of those qualities, but with much cuter characters. So after a couple of years of studying programming, he finally decided to make his cute take on Metroid. Unfortunately, he was biting off a lot more than he could chew at the time. He opted to put his dream project on hold while he built his skills with another project that had a smaller scope. After a few months of hard work, Pixel came out the other end with a whole lot of practical experience and a short, complete game. The result of his efforts was Ikachan. So yes, even for its creator, Ikachan was something of a bump on the road that led to Cave Story. But I think we ought to separate the game from its origins and common perception in order to judge it on its own qualities. 

In Ikachan, you play as a little squid who wakes up in an unfamiliar place. Were you always a squid? The game hints that it may not be the case, but you are certainly one now. Initially, there's no stated goal, but there's only one way you can swim, so you might as well go for it. The route takes you through a somewhat cramped tunnel lined with spikes. This serves as something of a trial-by-fire for you to learn the mechanics of how to move your squid around. Tapping the button will make the squid swim straight up. Leaning to either side and tapping the button will make the squid bob in the desired direction. It can be a little tricky to get a handle on at first, but you'll soon be swimming like a champ. At the very least, while the spikes pose a threat, they only deal damage as opposed to death. You can take a few hits from them without dying.

Upon navigating out of this tunnel, you'll encounter a couple of things. First, you'll run into hostile enemies that you can't seem to do anything about. Second, you'll meet your first NPC. He fills you in on the circumstances of the area you're in. A bunch of earthquakes have cut this area of the sea off from the outside world. A big fish named Ironhead has taken charge, and by the way everyone talks about him, he's not the most welcome of leaders. The most immediate issue is the dwindling food supply. Your squid's main goal is simply to escape by any means possible. To do that, you'll need to get past one of Ironhead's henchmen. Thus begins a game of run-around as you try to satisfy everyone's demands.

Not long after receiving this information, you'll finally get the ability to attack. It's nothing more than a pointy hat that the squid can wear. In a bit of a turn-around from many other games, you need to coax enemies into colliding with the top of your head. The easiest way to do that is to approach from below, but later on you'll get an ability that allows you to charge horizontally. Your pointy hat also allows you to destroy certain bricks. While you often need an item to move forward, sometimes you just have to talk to the right creatures and go to the right places to trigger an event. As you defeat enemies and gather life-restoring fish, you'll also gain experience points. Leveling up extends your life bar and allows you to damage certain enemies that you might not have been able to before.

It all leads up to a face-off against Ironhead, but upon claiming victory, you find out that you had the wrong idea about him. Suddenly, another cluster of earthquakes strike. The structural integrity of the area is coming apart. Now that you finally have access to the food stores, you can recover something of yours that ended up in there. Namely, it's your rocket ship, Sally. Taking control of Sally, who somehow controls just like a squid, you have to run around and talk to every NPC to get them on-board. Once you have everyone, and I do mean everyone, you can finally blast off to safety. The game closes with a view of the very crowded ship overlooking an Earth-like planet as your friend Ben complains about the fishy smell.

It's over and done with quite quickly, but it's long enough to give you a good feel for its mechanics. I think the concept could be expanded out into something bigger, but for what's here, I think the Nintendo 3DS version of Ikachan is just about right. The PC version feels a little too short by comparison, even as it hits most of the same points. The unusual means of movement help the game stand out, and the game finishes before it spends the goodwill of its novelty. Ironhead's story is a short but effective tale about the dangers of accepting only one account of a situation, while his little henchman Hanson will have you doing all kinds of morally-questionable things in order to progress. Well, okay, mostly just taking more than your fair share of food. But given the circumstances, it's pretty bad.

In its brief running time, we can see a lot of elements and themes that would become a regular part of Pixel's style. Cute though it may be, there's a darkness running through it that threatens to swallow everything up. Ikachan's world is naturally a murky one, being so far under the sea. Fish skeletons abound, packed into the walls and even used as the vessels for items. Then there's the basic set-up of being a stranger of mysterious origins trying to escape an inhabited world. Who or what is your squid, really? Unlike Pixel's later games, Ikachan doesn't offer any real answers. Your companion, Ben the star, remarks that you're looking a bit squiddy today, so we can assume that isn't supposed to be your normal form. The NPCs are also imbued with a lot of personality. They're fairly one-note in this game, but they are distinct. The late-game revelation about Ironhead is also a typical flourish of Pixel.

Ikachan might not be as fully-formed as some of this developer's later titles, but I think it stands on its own tentacles quite well, particularly in the expanded Nintendo 3DS version of the game. It's impressive to think that this was Pixel's first game release. Sure, he had more impressive things ahead of him, but it's not that there's anything particularly wrong with Ikachan. It's short and sweet. It's unfortunate that it may never escape the shadow cast by its younger sibling.

Azarashi

Original Release Date: 2001

Original Hardware: Windows PC

Azarashi is typical of most of Pixel's lesser-known games. It has great art and music, but the gameplay mechanics are about as deep as an early Game & Watch. The set-up is that there are three seal keychains hanging from strings. They'll drop at random times, and you need to fire a dart to peg them to the wall by the rings of their chains. The quicker you do it, the more points you'll get. If you wait too long, they'll fall off the screen and you won't get any points. Jump the gun, however, and you'll fire your dart right through the head of the adorable little animal, splattering blood and killing it. That, uh, also gives you zero points. After three increasingly speedy rounds, your final score is tallied. You'll be awarded a prize based on how well you did, and eventually, you might even unlock some new keychains. They don't behave any differently, but variety is the spice of life, no?

That's really all there is to Azarashi. It's a test of reflexes wrapped up in a nice presentation, with a few interesting secrets tossed in for good measure. There are actually a few versions of this game, which means it's been remade more often than any of Pixel's other games save Cave Story. Its very first release on PC was in beta form in 1998. The graphics are much simpler here than in the other versions, but it plays basically the same. While not an official release, this is probably one of Pixel's earliest games, which might explain why it seems to be near to his heart. The official release happened a few years later in 2001. The art was redone with a cleaner Flash-like look to it. For both PC versions, the controls simply have you pressing the number keys from one to three to pin the keychains.

The iOS remake was released in 2012. It was Pixel's first work on the platform, and it brings the game's style more in line with what people have come to expect from the developer. The art has a softer, more pixelated look to it, and the new background music has similar vibes to Pixel's work from Cave Story. I'm pretty sure this is the first version of the game with most of the secrets and unlockables added in, but it could just be that I couldn't find them in my short time with the PC version. Naturally, instead of pushing number keys to fire darts, you simply tap the portion of the screen that corresponds with each keychain. While it's not like pushing buttons isn't intuitive, Azarashi feels like a game that was made for a touchscreen.

I'd hesitate to call the game fun in the traditional sense of the word, but it's an amusing distraction, I suppose. The problem being that it's an amusing distraction on platforms that are full of such things, with only Pixel's fine attention to art and sound giving it an edge. As such, the majority of Azarashi's value is as a historical object for fans of Pixel's other works. I do think it's interesting in as far as it shows the developer's commitment to mixtures of cute things and darker elements, but there's only so far a simple reflex test can go.

Previous: Introduction

Next: Cave Story

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[skelixrikkard-remade]

tfw i almost got the alien medal in cave story but then right as i was about to beat ironhead i took damage

[miloscat]

[Review] Ikachan (3DS)

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!

[quicksavingarchive]

Ikachan

por Vini Aleixo

Eu já recomendei aqui Abyss, que é um jogo onde se controla uma criatura com gingado de lula por fases subaquáticas em uma experiência relaxante e pouco ambiciosa. Se você gosta desse tipo de mecânica e quer dar o próximo passo, então experimente um dos primeiros projetos do criador de Cave Story (e que também se passa mesmo universo que o jogo), Ikachan.

Ikachan é uma simpática lula que faz a vez de protagonista silencioso. Ela acorda sem memórias em um complexo de carvenas sub-aquática que está  sem ligação com o resto do oceano, e por isso sua população de  está sofrendo com uma escassez de comida, e toda a região está sendo comandada por um peixe gigante chamado Ironhead. Cabe a Ikachan salvar resolver todos os problemas.

O jogo é uma versão compacta da experiência de um Metroidvania. Você irá de l�� pra cá conversando com NPCs, resolvendo problemas, conseguindo novas habilidades e etc., que aos poucos vão abrindo mais e mais lugares. Por ser um dos primeiros jogos do criador, a mecânica não é a mais desenvolvida de todas, mas fora isso, o jogo é embalado em todos os outros elementos que marcam o legado Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya: personagens simpáticos e bonitinhos, um pixelart extremamente charmoso e uma trilha sonora ótima e grudenta ao mesmo tempo.

O jogo foi lançado originalmente para PC de forma gratuita, e recebeu uma remasterização paga para 3DS, que adiciona novas localidades,  nova tradução, múltiplos slots para salvar, menus refeitos e 3D. Mesmo assim, a experiência de ambos os jogos é basicamente a mesma e, por isso, aqueles que não forem donos de um 3DS podem jogar o freeware sem grandes problemas.

Disponível para: PC e 3DS Desenvolvedora: Studio Pixel  e Nicalis Inc. Tempo de Jogo: 1  Hora e 30 Minutos Gratuito (PC) e Pago (3DS)