Thanks for reminding me I have Cave Story somewhere in my backlog, I haven't thought of that game in a long time. I need to stop jumping around and actually finish games...
Cave Story holds a weird, special place in my heart. Cave Story came out in 2004, back when Steam, and, subseqently, PC gaming, was still a digital Wild West. I was also very, very young, so my choice of games always came down to a google search that involved what genre I wanted, and the word "free". So I didn't realize what a great game I had stumbled upon until about 2 hours into playing it. Mechanically, Cave Story is, in my opinion, pretty much perfect. Pixel took jumping and shooting and made sure both were air-tight. Then there was more than enough content to make the game worth multiple playthroughs, and that doesn't even include the craziness that is Hell, which has one of the best songs in any dungeon I've ever played. The fact that it holds up today is the icing on the cake. The fact that it came out 10 years ago boggles my mind.