Games like Cave Story+
If Cave Story+ is your kind of game, the closest matches are Castle In The Darkness, La-Mulana and 1001 Spikes — picked from the ranked list below. Reviewers single out its atmospheric, nostalgic and retro. Each pick is ranked by what players of this game also play, shared genres and tags, and review-mined similarity — not a generic popularity list.
Get personalized picks →Cave Story+ is a challenging action-adventure indie platformer released in 2011, available for $14.99 and marked as playable on Steam Deck. The game follows a metroidvania structure with interconnected areas to explore and a weapon upgrade system that reshapes combat. Players describe the experience as atmospheric and nostalgic, noting that the boss fights are held in high regard by the indie game community. Reviewers highlight the story and characters for avoiding typical NPC tropes, while the weapons and upgrades are described as feeling uniquely impactful. Multiple endings and hidden items drive replayability, and mod support has extended the game's longevity. The challenging difficulty accommodates short-burst sessions, and local co-op adds another dimension of play. Achievements, boss-rush sequences, and hard-mode challenges provide post-game content. The title holds a 92% positive rating from 3,688 Steam reviews.
About Cave Story+: Run, jump, shoot, fly and explore your way through a massive action-adventure reminiscent of classic 8- and 16-bit games.
Players who liked Cave Story+ also play
Steam players who put hours into Cave Story+ also tend to own these titles — a signal called collaborative filtering. imho.run cross-references millions of library ownership patterns to surface games whose real audiences overlap, regardless of whether their genre tags match.
Castle In The Darkness
WHY THIS
Shares a retro mood with Cave Story+.
Top pick for Cave Story+ fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Castle In The Darkness is a fun and challenging shout out to the early days of video games! It's an action exploration platformer with some RPG elements, much like games from the Castlevania or Metroid series. It's super fast-paced, challenging, and full of secrets!
La-Mulana
WHY THIS
Shares a nostalgic mood with Cave Story+.
Second-strongest match for Cave Story+ fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
LA-MULANA is an “Archaeological Ruin Exploration Action Game,” bringing the classic appeal of adventure with the punishing difficulty of retro-inspired gaming. Search inside ancient ruins, seeking out the “Secret Treasure of Life” – which sleeps in the sprawling ruins of “LA-MULANA” and is said to be the beginning of all civilization.
1001 Spikes
WHY THIS
Shares a retro mood with Cave Story+.
Third-strongest match for Cave Story+ fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Discover the lost treasures of Ukampa in South America as Aban Hawkins searches for his estranged father, world-famous archeaologist, Jim Hawkins. Aban Hawkins races into the frozen tundra of the antarctic, undiscovered temple ruins and the vast caverns of South America in search of his father and the legendary treasure rumored to lie...
Odallus: The Dark Call
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Ranked #4 for Cave Story+ fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
The old gods have forgotten this land. No one could save our people when darkness started spreading and collecting human souls for its army. Odallus is a classic exploration/action game, inspired by Ghosts’n Goblins, Demon’s Crest and Castlevania.
Aggelos
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Ranked #5 for Cave Story+ fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Critically-acclaimed action-RPG that takes the template laid down by classics like Wonder Boy, nails the 16-Bit aesthetics for nostalgia fans, but updates the mechanics to feel fresh and modern. Explore a beautiful open world and plunder dungeons, caves and forests to help take down epic bosses!
VVVVVV
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Ranked #6 for Cave Story+ fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
VVVVVV is a platform game all about exploring one simple mechanical idea - what if you reversed gravity instead of jumping?
Axiom Verge
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Ranked #7 for Cave Story+ fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Explore and uncover the mystery of a surreal alien world by blasting aliens and glitching your environment in this intense retro side-scrolling action/adventure.
Horace
WHY THIS
Shares a retro mood with Cave Story+.
Ranked #8 for Cave Story+ fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
"The best platformer of 2019."Horace is a huge platforming adventure which pushes the boundaries of the genre with a profound story of a small robot learning of life, the universe and Douglas Adams. Made by videogame lovers for videogame lovers!
Reviewers mention these as similar to Cave Story+
Surfaced from review text: when other players write 'if you liked X, try Y', we catch the name and resolve it back to a Steam game.
Momodora III
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Reviewers of Cave Story+ cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Momodora III is a classic action platform game with a variety of items and secrets. It's the third installment of the Momodora series, although playing the previous titles is not necessary to enjoy the game!
Hollow Knight
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Reviewers of Cave Story+ cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Forge your own path in Hollow Knight! An epic action adventure through a vast ruined kingdom of insects and heroes. Explore twisting caverns, battle tainted creatures and befriend bizarre bugs, all in a classic, hand-drawn 2D style.
Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Reviewers of Cave Story+ cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight is the fourth installment in the beloved Momodora series of 2D platformers. Unleash ravaging combos against a variety of formidable monsters and deftly dodge your way through a cursed land to seek audience with the Queen and dispel the evil that threatens all life.
Metroidvania Maker
WHY THIS
Reviewers of Cave Story+ cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Create, play, and share custom Metroidvania worlds with a built-in world editor, co-op play, and player-made adventures.
Cheaper alternatives
Games in the same vein priced at least 40% below Cave Story+ at current Steam store prices.
Garry's Mod
WHY THIS
Priced ~67% under Cave Story+ on Steam right now. Shares Indie with Cave Story+.
Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play.
Vampire Survivors
WHY THIS
Priced ~67% under Cave Story+ on Steam right now. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Mow down thousands of night creatures and survive until dawn! Vampire Survivors is a gothic horror casual game with rogue-lite elements, where your choices can allow you to quickly snowball against the hundreds of monsters that get thrown at you. Be the bullet hell!
R.E.P.O.
WHY THIS
Priced ~53% under Cave Story+ on Steam right now. Shares Action with Cave Story+.
An online co-op horror game with up to 6 players. Locate valuable, fully physics-based objects and handle them with care as you retrieve and extract to satisfy your creator's desires.
PEAK
WHY THIS
Priced ~47% under Cave Story+ on Steam right now. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
PEAK is a co-op climbing game where the slightest mistake can spell your doom. Either solo or as a group of lost nature scouts, your only hope of rescue from a mysterious island is to scale the mountain at its center. Do you have what it takes to reach the PEAK?
Titanfall® 2
WHY THIS
Priced ~70% under Cave Story+ on Steam right now. Shares Action with Cave Story+.
Respawn Entertainment gives you the most advanced titan technology in its new, single player campaign & multiplayer experience. Combine & conquer with new titans & pilots, deadlier weapons, & customization and progression systems that help you and your titan flow as one unstoppable killing force.
Slay the Spire
WHY THIS
Priced ~58% under Cave Story+ on Steam right now. Shares Indie with Cave Story+.
We fused card games and roguelikes together to make the best single player deckbuilder we could. Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and Slay the Spire!
Inscryption
WHY THIS
Priced ~47% under Cave Story+ on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Adventure with Cave Story+.
Inscryption is an inky black card-based odyssey that blends the deckbuilding roguelike, escape-room style puzzles, and psychological horror into a blood-laced smoothie. Darker still are the secrets inscrybed upon the cards...
Cookie Clicker
WHY THIS
Priced ~67% under Cave Story+ on Steam right now. Shares Indie with Cave Story+.
An idle game about making cookies! Originally released in 2013 on the web, and actively developed since then. This is the official version for Steam.
Free alternatives
Free-to-play games that recommended players of this title also tend to enjoy.
Doki Doki Literature Club!
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with Cave Story+.
The Literature Club is full of cute girls! Will you write the way into their heart? This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.
Life is Strange - Episode 1
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Adventure with Cave Story+.
Episode 1 now FREE! Life is Strange is an award-winning and critically acclaimed episodic adventure game that allows the player to rewind time and affect the past, present and future.
Ultimate Custom Night
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Welcome to the ultimate FNAF mashup, featuring 50 selectable characters and custom difficulties!
Bongo Cat
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with Cave Story+.
Bongo cat needs your help. Bongo cat needz more hatz!!! Every time you press a key, Bongo cat will punch your taskbar. Type, click, play, work to collect more points. Which hats will you find?
ENA: Dream BBQ
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Adventure with Cave Story+.
Experience surreal environments and inexplicable characters as ENA in a new wild world.
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with Cave Story+.
Sonic the Hedgehog...was murdered!? Get to the bottom of the mystery in this brand-new adventure!
Indigo Park: Chapter 1
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Explore the abandoned childhood wonder of Indigo Park! Guided by Rambley the Raccoon, help restore power to the destroyed amusement park while you run from the reason it shut down.
Narrow it down
Head-to-head comparisons
More from Nicalis, Inc.
Other recommendable Steam games by Nicalis, Inc., ranked by review count so the studio's hits land first.
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
WHY THIS
Another title from Nicalis, Inc., the studio behind Cave Story+. Shares Action with Cave Story+.
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a randomly generated action RPG shooter with heavy Rogue-like elements. Following Isaac on his journey players will find bizarre treasures that change Isaac’s form giving him super human abilities and enabling him to fight off droves of mysterious creatures, discover secrets and fight his way to safety.
Castle In The Darkness
WHY THIS
Shares a retro mood with Cave Story+.
Another title from Nicalis, Inc., the studio behind Cave Story+. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Castle In The Darkness is a fun and challenging shout out to the early days of video games! It's an action exploration platformer with some RPG elements, much like games from the Castlevania or Metroid series. It's super fast-paced, challenging, and full of secrets!
1001 Spikes
WHY THIS
Shares a retro mood with Cave Story+.
Another title from Nicalis, Inc., the studio behind Cave Story+. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Discover the lost treasures of Ukampa in South America as Aban Hawkins searches for his estranged father, world-famous archeaologist, Jim Hawkins. Aban Hawkins races into the frozen tundra of the antarctic, undiscovered temple ruins and the vast caverns of South America in search of his father and the legendary treasure rumored to lie...
NightSky
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Another title from Nicalis, Inc., the studio behind Cave Story+. Shares Indie with Cave Story+.
Nominated as a IGF Seamus McNally Finalist, NightSky is an ambient action-puzzle game that offers a gameplay experience unlike any other—cerebral challenges fill uniquely designed picturesque worlds. The player must maneuver a sphere by using realistic physics to advance; each of these worlds is broken into different areas.
Crystal Crisis
WHY THIS
Shares a retro mood with Cave Story+.
Another title from Nicalis, Inc., the studio behind Cave Story+. Shares Action with Cave Story+.
An all-star cast of heroes has gathered to test their mettle in this cute and chaotic new color-matching ONLINE combat game! Crystal Crisis is presented like a fighting game, but players attack by arranging falling crystals and clearing them from the screen. It’s the ultimate Online puzzle battle throwdown!
Save me Mr Tako: Tasukete Tako-San
WHY THIS
Another title from Nicalis, Inc., the studio behind Cave Story+. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
A Blast From the Portable-Gaming Past! Mr Tako will solve puzzles, explore mysterious dungeons and fight tenacious bosses on his mission to end the war between the octopus kingdom and the human world. Will you help this brave octopus to spread his message of tolerance and unity?
Cave Story's Secret Santa
WHY THIS
Shares achievement hunting and a whimsical mood with Cave Story+.
Another title from Nicalis, Inc., the studio behind Cave Story+. Shares Adventure with Cave Story+.
After Balrog recovers the Christmas presents that were stolen by Chaba, the cowardly Mimiga named Santa must sneak into every house and return the missing packages. Be the Mimiga Who Saves Christmas!
Plays great on Steam Deck
Valve-Verified or Playable picks from the similar pool — ready to go on Deck out of the box.
La-Mulana
WHY THIS
Shares a nostalgic mood with Cave Story+.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
LA-MULANA is an “Archaeological Ruin Exploration Action Game,” bringing the classic appeal of adventure with the punishing difficulty of retro-inspired gaming. Search inside ancient ruins, seeking out the “Secret Treasure of Life” – which sleeps in the sprawling ruins of “LA-MULANA” and is said to be the beginning of all civilization.
VVVVVV
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
VVVVVV is a platform game all about exploring one simple mechanical idea - what if you reversed gravity instead of jumping?
Axiom Verge
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Cave Story+.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
Explore and uncover the mystery of a surreal alien world by blasting aliens and glitching your environment in this intense retro side-scrolling action/adventure.
Horace
WHY THIS
Shares a retro mood with Cave Story+.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Indie with Cave Story+.
"The best platformer of 2019."Horace is a huge platforming adventure which pushes the boundaries of the genre with a profound story of a small robot learning of life, the universe and Douglas Adams. Made by videogame lovers for videogame lovers!
Frequently asked about Cave Story+
- Does Cave Story+ run on Steam Deck?
- Cave Story+ is rated Playable on Steam Deck — it runs, but expect some manual adjustments (control remapping, text size, or graphics settings) for the best experience.
- How much does Cave Story+ cost?
- Cave Story+ is listed on Steam at 14.99 USD (current store price; Steam sales may reduce this temporarily).
- What games are most similar to Cave Story+?
- Based on Steam play patterns and shared genres/tags, the games most often recommended alongside Cave Story+ are Castle In The Darkness, La-Mulana, 1001 Spikes.
- Who developed Cave Story+?
- Cave Story+ was developed by Nicalis, Inc., Studio Pixel and published by Nicalis, Inc..
imho.run ranks Steam game alternatives using a mix of collaborative filtering (ALS / iALS / EASE / LightGCN), content scoring over genres, categories, Steam tags, developers, and publishers, plus AI-extracted vibes mined from review text. The page above is generated in seed mode anchored on Cave Story+.
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