The Pursuit of Riches

Even without narrative and cutscenes¹⁶, The Great Cave Offensive manages to tell a story of its own. A departure from the previous, level-based progression system, The Great Cave Offensive features a single level that sprawls across four distinct areas.

Another difference is that the story for once does not revolve around saving Dream Land, or fighting back against an evil force; for once you’re able to take a leisurely pace through the caves to find an exit. Through exploration, you can feel the Indiana Jones inspiration for the game as you’re looking for secret rooms, dodging traps and discovering treasures.

This game was known for its many references to other Nintendo games, as seen here: Captain Falcon’s helmet, the Triforce, Koopa Shell, etc

A secondary goal that this sub-game brings is the collection of 60 distinct treasures littered across the world. An extra status screen kept track of the ones you found, and each treasure contributed a different monetary value that was tallied for your final score.

The level difficulty is ramped up significantly to impede your progress as well; as many more rooms are locked behind specific power barriers, hidden way out of sight, or require some extra platforming finesse to reach. This adds another level of replayability to the sub-game, as some rooms are only able to be challenged once until it’s closed off from you unless you start a brand new game. Although frustrating at first, the feeling of satisfaction you get once you master all the layouts is indescribable.

But the biggest awe factor that I experienced when I first played this game was the fact that the map was in a non-linear design. This ultimately flips the core design of Kirby up until this point. You can visit any of the areas in any order you want, with one of them being entirely optional! This completely blew my mind when I was younger; this amount of freedom was not something that was common back in the day. Looking at some of the other platformers that came out in that era: Super Mario World, Sonic 1/2/3; none of these offered the level of non-linear exploration that The Great Cave Offensive did. I would say the Megaman (X) series is the only one that was remotely similar through its level select system, and even then, the levels themselves were straightforward in design.

To offset the immense size of the map, additional features had to be added to the sub-game: shortcuts between areas and save lodges are scattered infrequently offer players the chance to take a much-deserved break between long spelunking sessions.

I miss the good old days where games freely poked fun at other genres and rivals.

The bosses at the end of each zone had something unique to offer. Fatty Whale had you fighting against a boss that moved in three dimensions¹⁷. The Computer Virus was a hilarious take on the turn-based RPG genres where you and the boss took turns attacking each other. Chameleo Arm is a puzzling fight to deal with since he’s invisible until you figure out a way to see him. Finally, Wham Bam Rock is the start of Sakurai’s obsession with dismembered hands (more on this later) but still serves as a different fight. Although they are reused in the harder sub-games that follow The Great Cave Offensive, it is here where you’ll first sit in awe looking at the sheer creativity that the fights bring to the series as a whole.

By the time you get to the end, there was one last realization¹⁸: the exit to the cave you were looking for the entire time was the hole you entered. The fact that you ride up the same shaft as the one you fell adds the slightest comedic touch after you’ve finished exploring the grueling caves.

Personally, this is my favorite sub-game of the bunch (and I hope others share this opinion); it brings something truly unique that we unfortunately never get to see again in the rest of the series.