Celeste is a great game. That's it; that's the review. You can go home now.
... No, of course we're not done here.
Celeste (official site) is a 2D platformer of the sort you might recognize if you've played Super Meat Boy or other similar sorts of challenging, precise platformers with a heavy emphasis on momentum and an expectation that you will die a lot. The game tells the story of Madeline, a troubled young woman fighting anxiety and depression, and her journey to climb Celeste Mountain. To keep this post from rambling too much, I'm going to organize it into three distinct sections: gameplay, story, and presentation. Let's get started by talking about Celeste's gameplay.
Gameplay
Celeste's gameplay is heavily based on precision and momentum. Madeline's moveset for most of the game consists of a Mario-style jump (where the height varies with the duration of the button press), a fixed-length air dash that can be executed in any of the eight orthogonal directions, wall jumps that do not consume stamina, and the ability to climb and cling onto walls until stamina runs out. Each level works with these mechanics to produce a small puzzle to figure out what combination of moves will create the right momentum to clear the obstacles, then a skill-based challenge to see if you can actually pull it off.
The mechanics really shine when paired with levels that focus on maintaining momentum and chaining jumps, dashes, wall jumps, and chapter-specific gimmicks (anything from pinball bumpers to bouncy clouds to celestial jello blocks that you can dash through) to get Madeline from one end of the room to the other in one fluid dance. It's a ton of fun to fling her all over the level, getting a little bit farther with each try, until that final attempt when everything goes perfectly and you feel like a god as she just barely manages to grab the last ledge and clamber up to safety.
The major collectibles in Celeste are strawberries. There are usually one to four dozen of these scattered throughout each chapter, some requiring complex acrobatics to grab and some hiding in secret locations. Trying to collect all 175 (ish) strawberries in the game is another fun challenge for the advanced player, but it's not required to beat the game or even to get the "best ending." Most of the secrets can be found just by poking around suspicious-looking places and replaying the level a lot, but there were a few I had to look up as they were hidden out of view off the wrong side of the screen or in similar places.
The other major collectibles are crystal hearts. These take a lot more effort to find than any given strawberry, usually requiring several minutes of setup before even finding the heart, let alone collecting it. There is one heart in every level, and these are needed to unlock additional levels after the epilogue. Hearts in B-sides and C-sides (explained below) are always located at the end of the level, meaning you don't have to go out of your way to find them, unlike in regular levels.
Hidden in each normal level is a secret B-side cassette tape that unlocks that level's B-side, an extremely challenging remix of the main level. Completing any B-side isn't required to beat the game, but each one will award a crystal heart, useful for unlocking post-epilogue content. These levels are shorter than the main ones but much more difficult. I usually died 2-4 times more on a level's B-side than its corresponding main level, though it took around the same time to finish it the first time through. C-sides are even harder levels, only three screens in length, unlocked after completing every B-side. These don't take as long as B-sides, just because they're so short, but I still died nearly as much as each corresponding B-side. These bonus levels can be frustrating at times, but the rush of completing them is so worth it.
To wrap up the gameplay section, I'd like to mention Celeste's Assist Mode. This is an optional gameplay modifier that allows players to slow down the game speed, enable additional air dashes, or even make Madeline completely invincible. I didn't use this mode because Celeste's difficulty is an important component of the game, but I appreciate the developers making the game accessible to those who can't react as fast as they used to, or those who just want to enjoy the story but can't handle the gameplay. There's no penalty for using assist mode; no levels or collectibles are locked, and even achievements are still obtainable. If you want to enjoy Celeste but need a little extra help to do so, Assist Mode has you covered.
Story
Celeste has a small cast of characters, including Madeline the troubled protagonist and aspiring mountain climber, Theo the InstaPix star with his own share of issues, Mr Oshiro the ghostly proprietor of the Celestial Resort Hotel, Granny the kooky old woman who lives on the Mountain, and Badeline, who is referred to as Part of You in game and is a part of Madeline's insecurities given physical form by the Mountain's power. Most of the characterization is afforded to Madeline and Badeline, as the game's story is their story, though every character does get enough screen time to have a believable and consistent personality. To save space, I'll mostly be talking about Madeline and Badeline, leaving the others aside for the most part.
Throughout the game, Madeline's struggles with her own insecurities (both internally and literally, with Badeline flying around), are presented in a realistic, respectful, and accurate manner. As someone who has struggled with anxiety and depression (and let's be honest, who hasn't struggled with anxiety and depression at some point in their life?), I found Madeline to be a character I could relate to. Her struggle to climb Celeste Mountain is her struggle to combat her own personal problems, and in the end she doesn't necessarily win. She doesn't defeat her insecurities and conquer the Mountain - she starts to understand them better and works with herself to make progress. At the end of the game, climbing Celeste Mountain isn't a magic cure for Madeline's issues, but it symbolizes a way forward.
To slip a little bit into pretentious games scholar language, Celeste has excellent ludonarrative syncronicity - its gameplay and story themes match and compliment each other. The struggle of working through one's own mental health problems is matched well by the challenge of making your way through the levels. Each bit of progress feels incredible - clearing a tricky section after struggling on it for fifteen minutes directly converts all of that frustration into satisfaction. Similarly, the knowledge that you're not just clearing this level for yourself, but also to help Madeline make her way up the Mountain, lends a feeling of impact to the levels that might be missing if the story wasn't as strong.
Presentation
Celeste's pixel art style works well for the gameplay, even though I've become somewhat sick of pixel art in indies over the years. The coloring and effects help a lot, as do the animations. I never lost track of where Madeline was because the screen centers on her if the level is more than one screen wide, and her pink, red, or blue hair stands in bright contrast to the rest of the level's palette. You can see everything you need to see and it looks nice as a bonus, so the pixel art gets a pass. The cutscene / chapter complete art also looks great and is a nice reward for completing each chapter. I don't really have anything bad to say about the art except that pixel-style is overdone.
The animations during gameplay are quite superb. Madeline bounces, stretches, and compresses with her momentum, lending her a squishy sort of quality that feels responsive to your inputs. Her hair trails behind her and also follows her momentum. When she levels up and her hair turns pink, it has a tendency to fly out behind her, as if in a heroic breeze, rather than hang down like it does when red or blue. This doesn't affect gameplay really; it's just a nice touch to make her powered up form feel even more distinct.
I'm going to quickly go over sound design before I write too much, (though I think that's already happened). The team behind the sound effects did an amazing job, ensuring each action has a uniquely identifiable and powerful sound. To pick just two, my favorites were the fact that Madeline's dash with pink hair has a slightly different sound than her dash with red hair, and then walking on stone. It's just so clinky and satisfying.
To wrap this up, the soundtrack. The music of Celeste is incredible, filled with piano, guitar, synths, and vocals that make each track a memorably perfect fit. You can find the entire soundtrack at the composer's Bandcamp page - go on, take a listen! My favorite tracks from each of the three albums are probably Reach For the Summit from the Celeste OST, The Core (Say Goodbye Mix) from the B-Sides, and Chapter Complete - Summit from Madeline's Grab Bag. I'm serious; even the chapter clear jingle is good enough to be one of my favorite tracks in recent memory.
Final Comments
So, to keep up the charade that this is some kind of review and not just me yelling into the void of the internet about my favorite game of 2018, I guess I should give it a score. How about 177/175, to match my current strawberry count. That seems about right - I 101% recommend this game to anyone who likes powerful stories, engaging gameplay, and great soundtracks.
(PS - Mount Celeste is a real place, and the Google Maps reviews are pretty much entirely people who've played the game making references to it. I just thought that was neat.)
