Cave Bad is an overhead dungeon crawler with ROGUE elements. Cave Bad is fun but very, very, VERY short. Run through the mazes, defeat the bosses, and the game ends. The game is FUN, but over much too quickly — each dungeon floor appears to consist of just 10 or so standard rooms, with a power-up room, shop room, and boss room. Beat the boss and you can advance to the next floor. Do this five times and the game ends.
While the basic gameplay (reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda or The Binding of Isaac) is quite fun, there just isn’t much to it. Levels are randomly generated, but there isn’t much reason to go back once you finish the game.
It’s possible to extend the gameplay a bit by going “out of bounds” — bomb any wall at the edge of the map to find endless (?) caverns of randomly generated monsters, as well as special items numbered 1 through 5. Collect all five to face a bonus boss — and then the game ends.
Cave Bad isn’t bad — just short. I’d hesitate to suggest it at any price above $2.00.
Cave Bad — $4.99 MSRP on the Nintendo eShop.
By Pandia Indie Studio, published by eastasiasoft. Available on the Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox One.