I'll admit it: my excitement about a new version of Cave Story to play on the 3DS was tempered a bit by fears that it wouldn't turn out right. To put it more directly, my excitement was tempered by the first screenshots of Cave Story 3D.

But upon playing the remake, it was immediately evident that developer Nicalis had been paying attention to the reaction to those first images, and is working to make something that reinterprets the environments of the retro-style original in a more palatable -- and more parsable -- way. It is not ruined by the 3D graphics.