Jenka's Nightmare: Not Cave Story 2

cave story is one of those games with an incredibly large cult following and with the following like that comes fans that are extremely talented all sorts of fan work has been made inspired by cave story and mods of the original game are no exception there's all sorts of mods out there but i don't think there's one that's more famous or infamous than jenka's nightmare its development history is almost as old as cave stories it was started all the way back in 2006 by one mark schmitz major but it met the same fate as many other fan projects of its ilk and remained abandoned for a long time in the early 2010s though zachary zaro sue bailey picked up the pieces of this mod and completed it himself this is the version i played last year or so and it appears to be the definitive edition what do i think of this mod and is it worth playing if you're a fan of cave story i'll just come out and say it jenkins nightmare is a game with a lot of great ideas and executions marred by an overall experience that's for lack of a better word a nightmare it expands on cave story's faults just as much as it tries to recapture its greatness as soon as the player gains control of quote and jenkins nightmare it's clear that the difficulty of this mod is going to be higher than the original game that in and of itself is fine since jenga's nightmare really shouldn't be played unless you've completed the game it's based off of oh yeah spoilers for both games by the way the first cave of cave story eases players into the game by keeping the amount of enemies to a minimum and having a small amount of two lethal hazards they'll be seeing for the remainder of the game water that can drown them and red spikes initially quote is defenseless but quickly he gains a weapon to defend himself as well as a health upgrade not five minutes into the game and the player will already feel like they've made significant progress the same can be said for jenki's nightmare the skeleton of this idea remains but there's differences that make the experience feel lesser the player finds their first weapon just as fast but instead of the polar star it's a fairly obscure weapon from the original game the snake when i first played this i actually thought this was a good idea the snake is a weapon that usually gets ignored by players due to its obscurity and cost in cave story the player needed to trade both the polar star and fireball at a certain point in the game to obtain this weapon it's one of the three guns that can be traded for the polar star and due to when it's obtained and what it's competing with it's probably the weakest of the three options the machine gun has significant power and earlier availability and the spur is the best gun in the game jenkins nightmare had a chance to give the snake more of a spotlight after all it's a pretty neat gun being the only one to shoot projectiles that go through walls unfortunately it's time the shine is cut short due to the reappearance of the polar star several minutes later the reason the polar star appears so early is likely because the player needs to be able to shoot through destructible blocks that impede your path but i don't see why the level design couldn't have been adjusted to give the player a more significant amount of time where the snake is their singular weapon in addition to this there's also been a change to the snake itself it has an ammo count now its ammo count is a paltry 20 shots that recharges at a slow rate both the ammo count and recharge rate can be increased as the game progresses but it makes the already somewhat weak snake that much more flaccid the silver lining here is that this allows the level design to reward exploration with more chests that can contain ammo expansions outside of that though i find the decision to make the snake an ammo-dependent weapon to be a pointless nerf the machine gun had rechargeable ammo because it was a genuinely powerful weapon that could function as a hover when fully leveled up the bubbler had rechargeable ammo because the projectiles came out at an extremely fast rate and they could swarm the field in only a few seconds each projectile was weak but it recharged ammo significantly quicker than the machine gun to compensate the snake can't swarm any better than the polar star and isn't powerful enough to justify the hilariously low recharge rate this isn't the only nerf to an old weapon both the bubbler and machine gun have had their ammo count slashed only to be given back to the player as a reward for backtracking in the form of treasure chests the idea behind this isn't terrible and in fact on paper i think it's a pretty good idea but there's a voice in the back of my head that constantly reminded me that these weapons were lesser compared to their cave story counterparts this feeling was never stronger than when i obtained the spur almost everyone who has used it in the original case story could tell you it was the best weapon in the game a charged shot with incredible power and an inability to be de-leveled i'll be honest it was definitely overpowered but because of how much trouble you had to go through to obtain it in the original game its absurd strength felt incredibly rewarding and dare i say justified in a vacuum the amount of trouble jenka's nightmare has the player go through to obtain the spur isn't nearly as high which may have justified the nerf getting the spur just requires a visit to the hermit gunsmith at a certain point in the game and re-retrieving the polar star from the pignon when you look at the journey to the spur holistically though the amount of hardships the player must overcome easily eclipses the original game and these hardships are mandatory jenkins nightmare likes to play around with weapon loadouts for the first couple of areas the player will obtain a similar amount of guns to the original cave story with some slight adjustments like with the snake as mentioned earlier but near the second area quote can have access to the polar star snake and the bubbler once the boss of the second area is beaten though quote is sent on a one-way trip to the bottom of the island and as a result of the fall loses all of his weapons once again i have to say that on paper i like this idea in fact this underside section was one of the most memorable moments for me because of the setting and the focus on precision platforming without any means of protection the player isn't left powerless for too long though eventually they'll discover the fireball and even the missile launcher a short while later after these two though it's an absolute drought jenkins nightmare expects players to progress through a significant chunk of the game with only these two weapons my issue is this neither the missile launcher nor the fireball are great general use weaponry the missile launcher relies on ammo dropped by enemies so it's best reserved for tough encounters like boss fights the fireball shines best when it's used against grounded enemies but a lot of the enemies in the sand zone and labyrinth are airborne both of these weapons are meant to supplement your reliable main gun like your polar stars machine guns or spurs maybe this is supposed to be the point and the player is meant to feel out of their comfort zone for the section of the game if that's true though then it lasts for far too long the entirety of the sand zone level and half of the labyrinth must be completed with only the fireball and missile launcher and even still the weapon the player reclaims in the labyrinth is the bubbler which by the way has lost any ammo upgrades that has been given prior to its loss k story had plenty of choices where refusing upgrades in the short term paid off in the long term sure but it never took that philosophy into account when it came to treasure chests if this game gave an option to take the loot from the treasure chest after opening it i'd have less of an issue with this change this stretch of gameplay is when jenka's nightmare truly starts to feel incredibly difficult and stifling the player just isn't equipped to deal with the type of enemy encounters the game throws their way this boss for example is a massive spike in difficulty it's a rescan of the ball frog fight from the original cave story with an additional hazard in the form of this guy running back and forth if he catches you while you're moving you lose a decent chunk of health but more importantly you lose weapon experience if the player doesn't have a fully powered up fireball for this fight then they better prepare to be in this arena for a long time because a level 2 fireball is just too slow to deal with the incoming spam as well as deal decent damage the lead up to this fight isn't particularly easy to traverse either so it's quite simple to be stuck in a situation much like the one on display here of course this fight also sports a wordy preamble before the battle begins but i think the cherry on top is what needs to be done after this fight a save is very close by but there's one small obstacle in the way before it can be reached this obstacle is several moving blocks that instantly kill quote if he ends up on the wrong side of one it's not the hardest obstacle to complete in the world but it's hard enough to screw up if you just barely manage to beat the boss and the nerves begin to take over [Music] cave story is a fairly difficult game jenka's nightmare is a cruel game if it's level design isn't brutally difficult it's introducing puzzles that can be described as trial and error at its best and frustratingly obtuse at its worst jenkins nightmare takes the name of the labyrinth to heart despite it and many levels in the original cave story being linear excursions most of the time the labyrinth of jenka's nightmare sports multiple pathways and door puzzles that were confusing even when i knew the solution jenga's nightmare practically begs the player to use a guide to complete a majority of its puzzles in fairness the same could be said for the original cave story at least for one infamous part in particular but the degree in which denka's nightmare leans into this aspect of cave story's game design is not only annoying but also not the same in cave story the guideworthy moments aren't roadblocks for completing the game they're secrets that lead you towards the definitive ending talking the booster while he's on his deathbed isn't the same as a door puzzle impeding your progress because no matter what you do in the booster situation the player will always progress further into the game that progress can't be found when you're stuck on a majority of the puzzles and jenga's nightmare it seems the philosophy for a lot of the difficulty in jenka's nightmare comes from attempting to do something from the original cave story but bigger the last cave wasn't hard enough make it even deadlier and put an eddy game boss at the end of it all no saves the water away from the original too short it's now an entire area with branching paths and a camera that makes it hard to tell where quote's going the times when jenka's nightmare decides to branch out and create wholly new areas are the moments that end up being the highlights the first major level of the game is a new creation and it's a simple but great linear stage the devil's garden has well-conveyed puzzles except for the end and a cool aesthetic the lead-ups to the genesis and oblivion fights are rightfully ominous and are like nothing seen in the original cave story while still feeling faithful to the original game i know i've been negative for a lot of this video but it's worth saying that there are times when this game manages to not just look and play like cave's story but feel like cave story this applies to the narrative as well no one feels flanderized and it's nice to see these characters again i enjoyed the story duchenka's nightmare as a what if follow-up to the original cave story until the end should the player choose to explore after everything in the story appears to be resolved don't be shocked by the stunning revelation that the events of the game were caused not by jenka but the doctor who managed to survive his defeat at the end of the first game he blindsides quote dispatching him leaving curly brace left to finish the job and defeat the doctor once and for all the switch to curly for the final hour so the game is actually pretty well done throughout this entire adventure curly has been lamenting about how she can't be of much help to you and in the end it's because of her that the day is saved the big reveal of the doctor however i'm less enthusiastic about if only because jenka's nightmare attempts to add narrative tissue that ties the doctor the sakamotos curly and quotes backstories together maybe this bothers me more than it should but much like my qualms with the level design when jenka's nightmare attempts to expand on the past it misses its mark the most giving quote and curly origin stories that make them related to the sakamotos doesn't feel like it ties a bow on the events of the first game it feels like an attempt to put together pieces that don't fit jenka's nightmare is one of the most well-known cave story mods for reasons that are clear to anyone who has played it jenkins nightmare is a full-length mod of the original k story that follows up on its narrative it's a cave story too in all but name but it's not k story 2 nor do i think changka's nightmare wants to be considered a cave story too the bill itself as a sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time comes with all sorts of expectations and scrutiny from players and critics alike yep here i am criticizing it as if it is a sequel because while the game might not want to be considered a sequel the contents inside beg to be compared and contrasted to the game it fashions itself after and unfortunately it ends up falling short of these comparisons jenkins nightmare assumes that you've played cave story that's why it's harder than the original on average that's why you can import your save file to receive bonus items that's why the story assumes you know all these characters ironically when the mod innovates or tries new ideas that lack comparisons to the original cave story and finds its own identity i found the most to like about it jenka's nightmare is mechanically well made much of the content and store is great even but it can't ascend above the status of mod and stand toe to toe with the game it takes its assets from there's too many instances of poor or frustrating design to recommend this game to more than just enthusiasts of the [Music] original [Music] you

Channel: TectonicImprov

Views: 11,873

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Id: 2hlac0k80CA

Length: 13min 59sec (839 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Poopoocachoomrsrobin]

Oh hey what's up pcp host man

[u/NancokALT]

Just to confirm cuz i am too lazy to try, does it run on NXengine?

[u/MrMcNinja]

There’s a hidden area in the underside that gives you the blade, it makes all of sandzone and the labyrinth pretty fun.