I had heard great things about Celeste from fans of the side-scrolling genre. After playing through the game this is no surprise. The platforming is fast and frantic, the story to surprising moving, and the pixel-art is bursting with color. All that said it is important to note that this game is unforgiving in its level of challenge. Frequent checkpoints is a godsend as you may parish literally hundreds of times per level. If you have the drive to progress up Celeste mountain you're in for a very fulfilling journey. Don't let your doubtful side hold you back; I mean it, she will literally try everything she can to stop you.
Celeste follows Madeline, a 19 year old girl, in her mission to climb to the top of Celeste mountain. Madeline has a lot going on in her life and she hopes that pushing herself to climb Mt. Celeste is the kind of challenge she needs. Along her journey Madeline will encounter a boy her age also attempting the climb and a strange old lady that lives on the mountain. It seems like the climb is going well until we meet Badeline. Badeline is a part of Madeline that is filled with doubt, anger, and all sorts of emotions Madeline would rather not have to deal with. If putting up with Badeline isn't enough of a problem Madeline is also trying to cope with depression and has a history of panic attacks.
It is up to you to help Madeline overcome her shortfalls and learn to accept who she is. Climbing the mountain is no easy task and your platforming skills are going to be put to the test. Each stage is broken up into relative small screens. If you die at any point you are just warped back to the start of the screen. There are many holes, spikes, and other dangerous obstacles along the way. Madeline has the nifty ability to jump off of walls and dash through the air. If you are feeling very adventurous you can collect strawberries along the way. Strawberries often require you to go out of your way and usually put you in dangerous situations. There are a few other collectables and secrets to find if you really explore every nook and cranny of each stage.
Celeste is another beautiful retro inspired game filled with detailed pixel art. The characters all look quite simple during the gameplay but you can better enjoy seeing them while they are conversing with each other. The mostly atmospheric music isn't quite as retro inspired as the art but still features some nods to the arcade. More often then not the music is quite chill and serves to help you relax as you fail over and over again. Thankfully very forgiving checkpoints mean you never lose more than a minute of progress which makes each reset much less painful. The game keeps track of how many deaths you had and strawberries you found on each stage almost daring you to do better.
I knew Celeste was going to be a great platformer but I was pleasantly surprise how much I enjoyed the story line. Madeline feels like a very relatable character as she struggles with many things we have all have had to deal with a some point. That said the game isn't just serious all the time and there is plenty of humorous moments sprinkled in throughout your journey. The game took me just over six hours to beat. Now that said I only found about a third of the strawberries. There are bonus stages and minigames you can unlock such as classic 8-bit Celeste which was a treat to play through. This though as nails platformer may scare off some but hopefully forgiving checkpoints and a charming story means many of you will attempt the climb.