On Cave Story's Worst Ending
4/22/2026
Cave Story was, in retrospect, a pretty foundational game to me. It informed a lot of my love of games and a lot of my tastes growing older. I think Curly Brace probably played a signficant role in the cracking of my egg, as I'm sure she did for many, many robot girls.
And it makes sense if you've played cave story. Curly Brace is, in some ways, the Zero to Quote's Megaman X. She represents someone we can become; a hero to a people, brave protector, someone worth saving becasue she spends her life saving others. The revelation in the game's third act that you can she were both once the killing machines which have left the surface all but barren makes things all the more poigniant. Both the robots have the capacity to choose their own life. Curly already has, and the good ending has the player choose that too. That's a queer narrative, rejecting society's label for you to instead choose to live your truth and do what's right. Like, of course many young people who haven't keyed in yet would Get It with that.
But that dialogue is missable. She only gives the full spiel if you do the slightly convoluted series of additional steps to get Ma Pignion. If you don't, you get an ending where Quote and company leave, safe from the doctor's schemes but the malice which drove his actions still a very credibly threat to existence. Its disquieting, not the least bit because Quote leaves the island with his memories still gone. He doesn't even know his name. Still, he chose to fight and that is enough. Because he had a choice.
Cave Story's bad ending has lived rent free in my mind since I first played the game and encountered it. Near the end of the 2nd act, when it looks like all of Quote's allies have been killed or defeated and the Doctor's plans a sure to come to fruition, a character offers you a choice. Its hopeless here, he says. I've got a big dragon which can get us on its back and fly us away. I won't go without you, so please, come with me. Yes, or no. There's this idea I've kinda developed in interactive narrative which i will here call the False choice. That is, a decision is presented to an audience with a knowing expectation that the audience will pick one over the other, but still allowing the choice of both. This is such a choice. What the character is offering is an anticlimax. End the game with no final boss, no big climax, no daring rescues, no changes of hearts. Learn nothing and never repent.
It is a selfish choice, and more than that, a boring choice. Nobody would choose it unless they wanted to see what would happen. And I think that's why I think it having a whole ending cutscene and credits is impactful. It's not a fake credits like something you can get as a gag in some old point and click. It's a real, final credit sequence which comes as a consequence of your choice. It's like if in pokemon Red, when the Team Rocket recruiter on Nugget Bridge asks if you want to join, you could say yes, and the game has you loose all acquired pokemon, be assigned a rattata and a zubat, and positions you in some hallway in silph co. before a credits sequence shows Giovanni successfully taking over the Kanto region. It would make the decision not to join more impactful by demonstrating the consequences of the alternative.
You don't have to stay and fight, says Cave Story. You can leave. We will not stop you. But doing so will damn an innocent people, keeps your past clouded, spells doom for all life. Your story ends as it began, in an empty cave. The easy way is there, but it isn't what you want. Its the kind of impact you can only really get in an interactive medium where an audience can make any choice at all, let alone one that the writer doesn't want them to pick. And I think that's neat.