I’ve been hearing about Cave Noire for several years, and as a fan of roguelikes I’d been meaning to check it out. A couple of weeks ago, I finally fired up the ol’ EverDrive GB, booted it up…

…and, two weeks and 20 hours of gameplay later, I’ve cleared the game 100%. And that’s coming from someone who’s struggled to finish RPGs lately, and certainly isn’t in the habit of getting 100% in every single one.

So that gives you an idea of how addictive this “travel-size roguelike” can be. It’s not perfect – the dungeon layouts and enemy/item placements get a little repetitive after a while, and the game’s simplicity permits only a few options for clever solutions in difficult situations. But Cave Noire has that “just one more time!” quality that few games manage to pull off, does a terrific job of adapting roguelikes to the handheld format – and it has that famous Konami polish in the graphics, music, and user interface.

And speaking of polished, it’s a crime that this patch has been out for over seven years and hasn’t been reviewed yet, because this is one slick fan translation from Aeon Genesis. It may have been a “pain in the butt” to hack (to quote the README file), but in 20 hours of play, there wasn’t a single moment where I felt as though I was playing anything less than an officially localized game. The fonts and menus look great, the text is idiomatic and clear, and the whole thing just hums along beautifully without being in any way intrusive, just as a good localization should. And it’s 100% compatible with real hardware, as all translation hacks should be.

If you have any fondness for roguelikes, check this one out. If you’re afraid of being lost without a manual, there’s a great scanlation of the instructions floating around, but most of the game is pretty intuitive. And many thanks to Aeon Genesis – not just for making it possible to play this one in English, but for going the extra mile to make it a seamless and immersive experience.