Story is considered to be one of the most influential video games to be released between the mid-2000s and the mid-2010s. The game had an impact on the indie game industry, with its acclaim and success demonstrating that a one-person team could rival major studios. It is also one of the most internationally successful Japanese indie (dōjin soft) games, and contributed to the resurgence of the Metroidvania genre. The game's critical acclaim demonstrated the scope of what one person could do, and highlighted another take on the Metroidvania genre. It also vitalized the 2D platform game genre as a viable indie game format. The success of Cave Story paved the way for a large number of retro-themed 2D platformers that have appeared since the mid-2000s. Jonathan Holmes of Destructoid called Cave Story an "important game", observing its influence on artistic indie games like Braid or Meat Boy, as well as the continued relevance of 2D game design (cf. Capcom's Mega Man 9''). Legal issues While the game had been once released for free, Nicalis since taking over its publishing for major platforms has been issuing cease and desist letters and DMCA actions against fan projects using the game's assets as well as its decompiled codebase. The actions taken against projects using the decompiled code from the free release, including a game engine built atop this code, had been met with criticism from game developers since this action seems to apply retrospective rights that Nicalis did not have on the original release by Amaya. Notes References External links Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya / Studio Pixel's website Nicalis' website 2004 video games Action-adventure games Amiga games AmigaOS 4 games AROS software Cancelled PlayStation Vita games Doujin video games Dreamcast games DSiWare games Freeware games Linux games Metroidvania games MorphOS games Multiplayer and single-player video games Nicalis games Nintendo 3DS eShop games Nintendo 3DS games Nintendo Switch games MacOS games Platform games Retro-style video games Science fantasy video games Science fiction video games Side-scrolling video games Sega Genesis games Video games developed in Japan Video games with alternate endings WiiWare games Windows games