Space cave story
It's fun because i just finished playing cave story on the laptop, came to the desktop, entered newgrounds and bam!, space cave story.
I love cave story, and the this I love the most is the weapons upgrade system, which you didn't included.
I'now many retros have quite bugged mechanics.....
.... But flying up high shooting a machine gun downwards is a bit too much, isn't it?
The game is a bit too short... One of the most advantages of retros (IMO) is the lenght allowed for its simple programming - Like retro RPGs, that you take 1 entire week to get over, and have the size of an Bitmap. I though the giant slime was the 1st boss (Actually, I think the game starts after the show-up of the bad AI.).
But overall it is a good game, a bit of secrets and simple to play, just a bit too short and the flying machine gunner bugger. Better than most games that appear on Front page for sure.
Ok but short
The one thing i don't like is that by the time the game is almost finished you get a cool machine gun.
You were really creative with the machine gun as the recoil lets you fly.
You can get the machine gun before the boss if you look hard enough :)
Pretty good for a Cave Story clone
Nothing really to complain about, unoriginal in terms of story and gameplay, but the game itself is solid. Unfortunately I had to take a few points off for that.
I would suggest doing something more original with your next title, everything about this felt way too heavy with cave story. The combination of art style, weapons, and game style kind of over did it and moved it from a homage to a clone. And also perhaps trying for more weapons and ideas.
A good example of what kind of shifted it from inspired by to a mere clone was the way the machine gun worked. Taking the whole recoil to fly mechanic using the same type of gun and all just felt a bit too.. stolen.
What makes a game a homage is adding your own ideas and such to the mix, and unfortunately, this game is more Cave Story than it is anything else.
Even still, its really good.
Mostly Fun
First of all, c'mon! At least mention this was influenced by Cave Story in the description. Almost everything (especially the machine gun) feels, looks, and plays just like it. Would save a lot of needless bitching and whining.
I had a lot of fun for the extremely short amount of time available to play the game, and as derivative as it is, it was still something I wouldn't mind more of. You made a platforming shooter that didn't control like chapped balls, which is impressive in itself.
Done! I thought it was an obvious tribute :)