Exclusive: Old meets new in Cave Story 3D

Here’s an exclusive look at the Cave Story sprites as they’ll appear in Cave Story 3D. This optional display of the game was revealed a few days ago, but this is the first time it’s been shown to the outside world. Check out a full sized version of the image above, and a comparison between the Wii and 3DS versions of the game, in the gallery below.

We also have some clarification on how much of the game will be available in sprite form, and why the sprites from the WiiWare version of the game won’t be making the jump to the 3DS. Check out the quote from Nicalis’s Tyrone Rodriguez after the jump.

So, as much as I like the game’s new 3D look, I think I’ll be playing with the 2D sprite-mode switched on for at least half of my time with Cave Story 3D. I’ve grown quite attached to the little, low-res characters of the original Cave Story, and I’m pretty excited to take them on a tour of all new 3D environments.

How about you? Will you be playing this one in full polygon mode, or half and half?

When we started on the project back in December, I really wanted to find a way to make 2D characters also work in 3D space. Being a Cave Story fan myself, I thought other fans would probably appreciate it too. Anyway, we’ve spent a lot of time testing and making sure it works right, but now we have 2D characters in the 3D game. This includes the main character, Curly, all the Mimiga– literally every character and boss in the game as 2D sprites in a 3D world. What you won’t see, due to the fact that it’s a new engine and differences between the hardware, are the environments in 2D or the WiiWare sprites and art.