Fun fact about CS3D

If you extract the game, delete the stage3d folder and rebuild the rom the game fallbacks to 2D sprites (err... sorta)


I don't know whether the black sprites are caused by an emulation bug or the lack of lighting.

 

What am I getting at you ask? Well what if I told you that Cave Story 3D is quite literally just freeware under the hood. Don't believe me? here's a little experiment:

• Open Boosters lab (or CaveEditor it doesn't matter)
• Edit any map you want

• Replace the *.pxe and *.pxm with the ones you've edited

• Watch what unfolds.

 

Congrats. You've learned that pretty quickly

 

Congrats. You've learned that pretty quickly

I'm not gonna lie, while trying this I was hoping they'd at the very least added 3D collision just so I could be proven wrong and have a reason to not call it a "lazy remake". Largely disappointed.

 

Yeah, I sorta already knew it ran off the original game, and it's all thanks to the extension in the Labyrinth. If you place the taller half of a slope tile near a full slope, or even just on a flat surface, you can clip to the top of it. Sorta like this (for example):

It would be nice to see if someone can recreate something like that, like, the original game, but slap a 3d environment over it, but that'd be too much work, even in CSE2.

Edit: It's also the reason why the Beast Fang glitch works, because the bed in the prefab house shares the same event # as the beast fang in Yamashita farm.

 

Yeah, it was already known that CS3D was just freeware CS with an extra layer on top of it. But that's an interesting experiment you performed by deleting the stage3d folder and seeing how it falls back to all of the 2D assets, didn't know that game would do that.

 

How do we know it's running the freeware and not CS+ under the hood?
edit nvm I'm a dumbass, I see from the second image in the OP

 

I mean, you got a point.

It's plausible since both were being developed at the same time. Honestly, with how it functions, it's probably more like the Wii version or even the DSiWare version.

 

like others have said, i knew about it being freeware under the hood, but not about it defaulting to 2D if the 3D wrappers are removed - though it does make sense and explains a few things...

i swear to fucking god i'm going to be on my deathbed and the last thing i learn is another weird fact about CS3D, what even is this game

 

How does that even work? Does it still have code that relies on the freeware when the 3D stage is deleted? Also wow, everyday you learn something new about this game makes it seem lazier and lazier.

 

How does that even work? Does it still have code that relies on the freeware when the 3D stage is deleted? Also wow, everyday you learn something new about this game makes it seem lazier and lazier.

All the 3D stuff you see are basically just a layer on top of freeware/DSiWare, it still heavily relies on 2D elements under the hood.

 

Wow, and already I thought the game seemed lazy,All they did was put 3D models and called it day.

 

You call it lazy, but it must take quite the programming to overlay a whole 3d environment over the original. Especially when you gotta make the environment move, and interact with the player. I do feel a lot more could've been done with it, cuz damn that has a lot of potential. It'd be nice if someone can do something similar, but even with CSE2, that'd just be way too much programming to work with. Let alone having to rig each individual model. Hopefully Nicalis can do something similar to CS3D on something like the Switch, cuz damn, that'd at least be worth the $30 the Switch version already costs.

 

You call it lazy, but it must take quite the programming to overlay a whole 3d environment over the original.

Honestly, I highly doubt that, the way that overlay works is quite literally just "check if file with the same name as *.pxm file exists, and slap it on", it still relies on 2D stuff for player-env interactions.
Oh by the way the camera movements are just done by one single *.cam file, nuke it and no more movement

The one thing I'd give them credit though are the 3D models which do take a hefty amount of time, they did a good job with the environment since it looks quite gorgeous and detailed (TOO detailed even for the 3DS' small screen) though the character models errr... yeah

 

TOO detailed even for the 3DS' small screen

Honestly, it looks better through a 3DS XL, I'm surprised it was made to work 1:1 with the XL's screen.

 

3D Quote is my sleep paralysis Demon, Why did they make him look like that

 

Honestly, it looks better through a 3DS XL, I'm surprised it was made to work 1:1 with the XL's screen.

Don't quote me on it, but I remember reading in an interview somewhere that the development of CS3D started before they had their hand on a 3DS devkit, so that's possibly why it looks better on bigger screen

 

That's really interesting!!! I already knew CS3d was basically just freeware with a 3d coat of paint but I hadn't heard of this fallback until now. May I ask if the 2d tilesprites are still in a 3D space? is there camera movement, it looks slightly zoomed in on the right screenshot in the OP..? Does it have a 2D background if you load into a map with one? this feels like something worth experimenting with and documenting on TCRF

 

Aight so to answer most of your questions

May I ask if the 2d tilesprites are still in a 3D space?

I tried to force the game to specifically not load a stage map by de-referencing scene_opaque and leveldescriptor in the n3dhdr file and all it did was just turn black and remove the lighting.

Though I can't come to a conclusion just yet unless someone fully reverses engineer the file format CS3D uses for models and stuff

is there camera movement, it looks slightly zoomed in on the right screenshot in the OP..?

Yes, there is.

https://imgur.com/a/xCWngOK

The reason why it looks zoomed is because that's how it's supposed to look in the 3D environment too since it's a static map, the reason why you don't notice it is because the camera slightly pan out as you move to the edges.

https://imgur.com/a/L7tqYii

This is done by a *.cam file, in this case pens1.cam, if you delete the file you'll see that it's also zoomed in.

https://imgur.com/a/hPO1wt8

Does it have a 2D background if you load into a map with one?

You can probably tell by the first vid that no, they don't load.

 

Interesting...

Honestly I wish people would be able to modify and basically revamp the entirity of CS3D from the ground up, namely in the character models and the animations for them. Basing their movement and aminations off of the original sprites always ended up making them look very jank and off.
And yeah, 3DS Quote and Curly are just... so bad in terms of model quality. Would love to see people completely redo their models or even bring in new ones for them instead.

The lighting also has a LOT of problems in 3D, Egg Corridor is the worst of it imo. Makes it really hard to see where I'm going.