Editor's note: Here's part four of Bitmob Game Club: Cave Story Edition. This one's the grand finale, folks! Read on for the final impressions (and, um, poems and song parodies) of Alex, James, and Evan.

If you want to be a part of the next Bitmob Game Club, James DeRosa is currently taking applications. -Brett

Welcome to Bitmob Game Club: Cave Story Edition (part four)!

If you are not familiar with the concept of a Bitmob Game Club you should read about it here, in Bitmob Game Club: Cave Story Edition (part one)!

In this episode of Bitmob Game Club, the contributors tackle Cave Story, an indie game developed by Daisuke Amaya -- or Pixel, as he's more commonly known. Cave Story is quite a unique game, mixing platforming and role-playing game elements together in a way that actually works very well. Cave Story is free to download on the PC and is also currently in development for WiiWare.

Want to follow along? Click here to download the game for PC or Mac.

On with the stories!

Cave Story Edition Contributor: Alex R. Cronk-Young

Alex has taken pleasure in the sadistic nature of Cave Story in order to distract him from his real life and the launch of the PSP Go. Mind you, he has absolutely no intention of buying a PSPgo since Sony refuses to let him keep his 20+ PSP games. But he loves that it has come out and brought with it an onslaught of 100+ new games on PSN. He doesn't know where to start!

A lot was said in the last Game Club entry about Cave Story's difficulty (at least by the other contributors -- I think I just blathered on about nothing), but here's the thing: I really liked how tough it was. In fact, it could have been a little harder still. I like the punishment to make the reward that much sweeter (don't be a pervert).

When Mega Man 9 came out and everyone was whining and crying over the difficulty, I didn't complain one little bit. Now sure, I still haven't beaten that game, but I thoroughly enjoyed the three or four bosses that I did beat before life got in the way. I sat down and in the course of an hour or two worked my way through one stage. If the game hadn't let me save my progress at that point, then I would have been pissed, but it did. That made the reward of slowly beating it much more satisfying (don't be a pervert).

Conversely, I'll bring up Zelda: Twilight Princess. I bought a Wii at launch and was looking forward to working my way through the game. It was fun I suppose, but the story wasn't amazing and I never died the entire time. OK, maybe I died a few times, but there was never a challenge. I would arrive at a boss, run around dodging his attacks until I had figured out how I needed to hurt him, then proceed to kill him. That's not fun to me. There's no danger, no fear.

Cave Story hits in the middle of these two extremes. You're guaranteed to get destroyed by every boss you come upon (don't be a pervert) until you figure out a good strategy for dodging their attacks and getting some of your own hits in. It might be sort of frustrating at first, but it never took me more then four or five attempts before I finally succeeded. It sounds like it took Evan much longer on a particular boss, but for me the difficulty was almost perfect. When you finally won the battle after your fourth or fifth try, it was much more gratifying then if you had completed it on your first.

I'll attempt to prove my opinion now. Here is a sampling of my Twitter feed while playing through the final battle of the game:

Alright, final cave. Let's get this over with Cave Story. 10:00 AM Sep 30th

If there is another boss after the doctor then I might just have to break the computer screen. 10:25 AM Sep 30th

Jesus, I'm going to have to fight the heart of the island again. I really wish I had saved that heart pot right about now. 10:27 AM Sep 30th

Goddammit. 10:34 AM Sep 30th

Now you're just being vindictive Cave Story. These bosses aren't ridiculously hard but lined up in a row without a save is just stupid. 10:41 AM Sep 30th

And that's about all I can handle for today. 10:48 AM Sep 30th

Dammit. One more try to beat Cave Story before I leave for work. It's pulling me back in. 11:35 AM Sep 30th

Somehow I've gotten worse. 11:42 AM Sep 30th

OK, defeated Misery without getting hit or using my missiles. Now I will probably still fail horribly at the doctor. 11:48 AM Sep 30th

Beat the doctor. Still no missiles used and only lost 8 more health. 11:51 AM Sep 30th

EAT THAT YOU PIECE OF SHIT! 11:58 AM Sep 30th

Now, I don't know if you can tell, but during that final tweet I have the biggest shit-eating grin on my face that you could ever imagine. I fought that bastard for close to two hours (okay, there was also a good 45 minute break in there, but still). It seems long, but that was definitely the longest I took to beat a boss, and it was the final boss. And more specifically it was three bosses in a row. When you finally get through that, you feel great.

Maybe I'm just a fan of the old-school sensibilities, but I had a lot more fun with Cave Story then I do with games that hold my hand the entire time. It felt like a game that would have easily fit into the Genesis or SNES library. It still had some of the difficulty of NES games but it threw you a couple bones to help along. And really that's how I want all of my games, just like my women, a tough nut to crack, but the inside tastes soooo much sweeter once you finally do (that one was meant to be perverted).

Now, allow me to briefly rant. What were the RPG elements in Cave Story? You got new weapons, and they grew stronger as you collected items. Oh yeah, and there was that one health refill I got and one time I had to access the menu in order to read a note and progress the story. Right. Sorry, forgot about that.

Cave Story is an action game. It features nothing that NES action games like Contra or Mega Man didn't have. Mega Man had Energy Tanks -- did we say that it had RPG elements? No, because that would have been stupid.

Yeah, there's the story and the collecting items to unlock new areas and such. You might have more of a point there, but we're in the modern age here. Every single game ever has a story.

That's an exaggeration, but you get my point. Let's simplify things, people. There's no need categorize our games into 18 different sub-genres. It's a 2D action shooter. There you go. Done.

I should probably close this whole thing out with some sort of talk of how I wrapped up the story. Some of the other contributors and commenters were discussing the different ways you could take the story. So maybe I took it in a different way then someone else contributing and it might be fun to discuss that? The thing is, I took the story in the only feasible way I saw for it to go.

Besides one tiny decision towards the end that I did in order to see an ending that was clearly not the real ending, I'm not sure how I could have changed anything else. James mentioned saving one of the characters that died. What?! When both of the characters that I think he must have been talking about died, I tried every possible way to prevent it.

Then Evan mentioned something about not having the Booster V.08 thingy. I have absolutely no idea how he didn't get that. I walked into a room, a scientist looking guy with what appeared to be a mohawk appeared in front of me, he gave me the Booster, then he disappeared or died or something. I cannot fathom a way that Evan missed that.

There was a teleporter at some point in the game that said it was broken and required an engineer to fix. However, once I met a character that proclaimed himself to be an engineer, there seemed to be no way for me to convince him to go back there and fix it. Maybe that was something special I missed?

If Cave Story is one of those games that requires a FAQ opened while you play so that you can find all of the tiny little secrets that no human being would discover without really being a robot, then I guess I missed some stuff.

I hate those kind of games though. I mean, I don't really hate them, but I hate what they do to me. I'm pretty OCD with my gaming, and I would sit there and meticulously follow that FAQ until I did everything possible.

Most games with those tiny details blatantly tell you that you are missing them. You'll show up to some town and find out that there were a bunch of secret items you could have been collecting to get some wicked, badass sword. It is then that I want to physically murder some nerdy game designer with his keyboard.

Cave Story managed to completely disguise all of these wicked, badass secrets, which makes me alright with the fact that I missed them. If anything, upon completing the game and discovering from Game Club that I missed something, it just gives me more incentive to revisit the game later down the road. Which is something I think I'm going to do.

If it wasn't for Game Club, I probably wouldn't have ever played Cave Story. I'm not big on the indie/Flash game scene. After this experience though, I might have to keep up on it. I love that a game like this can be created by one guy with vision and determination. (He did do it alone, right?) Hopefully the next Game Club will be for another great indie game that I've completely overlooked. I will definitely play along if so.

Cave Story Edition Contributor: James DeRosa

Due to school and work, James has spent his last couple of weeks with dark circles beneath his eyes. He thought a review in haiku would be funny. And then not. And then he did again. And then not. And then, he just sent the damn thing to J. Cosmo Cohen anyway.

He is currently playing Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Iji. He is currently losing at Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

A Nonsensical End to an Awesome Nonsensical Game

So this is the end.

Mimigas, they need saving.

Quote will have to do it.

But first, new levels.

Like, how 'bout a plantation?!

That kind of sounds nice.

Bucolic rabbits,

They really don't want to talk

To scary robots.

Perhaps a vizard!

Confuse, confound, and divide.

Makes Mimiga friends.

Sue's mother too,

And the Doctor came with them?

Demon hats are a bitch.

Now Quote saves the day,

Balrog used to be a frog,

Now he's a good friend.

So let's end this now,

We will vanquish Misery,

Then, final battle.

The Doctor, his hat,

Prove too little, and also,

The island's eye-core.

Quote saves the island,

Then everyone flies away,

Music and credits.

All in all, it's good.

Slick visuals, tight controls.

Rock solid audio.

Thus ends the Cave Story;

And its whole epic saga,

Reviewed in cliché.

Cave Story Edition Contributor: Evan Killham

Evan has had his ups and downs with Cave Story, but in the end is glad he played it. Now that he's done, he can return to playing games he's actually good at. He is currently playing No More Heroes and The Beatles: Rock Band.

This last section kicked my ass repeatedly. I thought I'd be really proactive and get it done, say, Wednesday or Thursday, but several hours smashing my head against the difficulty wall surrounding the final bosses caused me to put the game down and walk away (by which I mean I stayed right where I was and checked my Facebook and Twitter).

I wasn't using walkthroughs this time, since the only ones I could find before kept describing the things I was attempting to do and failing as "easy," and that only pissed me off more. So what I ended up doing was just letting a few days pass, at the end of which I started up the game and beat the final bosses on my second try. It was like magic! Someday I will play Cave Story again, but I really think we need some time apart for now. I said some things to it -- harsh things, hurtful things -- that I didn't really mean, and I think I need to give it its space.

Anyway...I beat it. And now, my song-parody tribute to Cave Story, to the tune of "Island in the Sun" by Weezer.

You're a robot in a cave
Where Mimigas must be saved
From The Doctor and his flowers
That give them superpowers

On an island in the sky
You'll be asking yourself "Why?"
'Cause it makes so little sense
That I can't feel my brain.

hip hip
hip hip

There's a witch and there are dogs
And a lunchbox named Balrog
There are Totoros galore
And the first boss is a door

On an island in the sky
Can't explain it if you try
And my keyboard skill's so poor
That I just died again.

What Kazuma's recommending
Gets you the shitty ending
And that's not what you're playing for

hip hip
hip hip
hip hip

On an island in the sky
I hope you're prepared to cry
'Cause the ending's so damn hard
That it will cause you pain.

And that's a wrap for Bitmob Game Club: Cave Story Edition!

And that means it's time to pick a new game! Check out James DeRosa's post for more details.

Want to join the game club? Shoot an email to: jcosmocohen[at]gmail[dot]com. Subject: Bitmob Game Club.

When it's time for a new edition, four people will be randomly chosen to participate. Be sure you can commit the time and effort it takes before sending the email; otherwise you get the Darnell Boot-O-Doom!

Remember: Each contributor worked hard playing and writing about the game -- give them feedback!