16/08/2022
Platinum #455: Celeste
Fun: 1000/10
Difficulty: 8/10 (no assist mode)
Time: 42 hrs (32 hrs if not counting the optional DLC chapter Farewell)
Deaths: 10387 (around 7000 if not counting Farewell)
Where do I even begin?
I love love LOVE everything about this game so much. Celeste is now my favorite indie, and also now part of my top 5 games of all time. I can't believe it took me this long to finally play it, but I'm so happy I did.
Celeste's story starts off simple enough. You play as Madeline, who has imposed upon herself a challenge to climb the titular Mount Celeste. It's not clear right away why, but as you go through the game's seven main chapters, you learn that Madeline has her own internal conflicts, and it's an absolute joy to bear witness and take part in her struggle, determination, and eventual triumph. Chapter 6 and 7 may be some of my favorite moments in any game I've played ever, and that's saying a lot. There's a beautifully-written story here about anxiety, depression, and mental health waiting for you to experience it, and I really hope you do. And all this is accompanied by a masterfully-written OST by composer Lena Raine. The soundtrack really does wonders to elevate the entire experience, and it's amazing how much thought, care, and effort went into composing these tracks.
Gameplay-wise, Celeste is a precision platformer. Coming from games like I Wanna Be The Guy and Super Meat Boy, I'm no stranger to extremely tight rooms and thousands of deaths, so I kinda knew what I was signing up for here. There are three main sets of levels you'll need to complete, which are the A, B, and C-Sides.
The A-Sides are the main game, and none of them proved to be too difficult. Each A-side probably took me about an hour at most.
The B-Sides are remixed versions of each chapter, and ramp up the difficulty pretty significantly. I think the intended route here was to finish all the A-Sides first before tackling the B-Sides, but I got too excited and did almost all of them immediately after unlocking them LOL. Although this resulted in a weirder difficulty curve, doing the B-Sides early actually helped me breeze through the later A-Sides since they were so easy in comparison, so I don't regret my choice hahaha
Lastly, the C-Sides are unlocked only after beating all B-Sides, and are the culmination of each chapter's mechanics and gimmicks. These levels are extremely short (only 3 screens each) but also extremely difficult. 7C screen 3 was the absolute hardest screen in the entire game for me (even harder than anything in chapter 9, at least as far as mandatory screens are concerned), and took me over 2 hours to beat. Funnily enough, 8C was a cakewalk in comparison, and I beat it with only 87 deaths. Coming from almost 700 deaths in 7C, that was a bit anticlimactic LOL. The C-Sides will push your skills to the limit, and test your mastery of the game's mechanics like nothing else. But if you don't give up, you'll eventually conquer them.
Next, let's address the elephant in the room. Is Celeste harder than Super Meat Boy? Well, here's my 2 cents on that:
Base game: Yes. Celeste has some levels that are miles above and beyond anything SMB offers in terms of difficulty, mainly in chapters 7C and 9.
Platinum: No. Even though SMB's levels are easier on average, asking the player to string 20 of them together in a row raises the difficulty exponentially. In Celeste, once you beat any level once, you're good to go.
Lastly, I wanna talk about assist mode for a bit. I knew about Celeste's assist mode for a long time, and about how using it basically gives away the platinum for free. When I started playing, I personally wanted to avoid using assist mode as much as possible. I initially told myself that I definitely will do at least the A-Sides without it. Then maybe some of the B-Sides, and then for the C-Sides, we'll see if I need it. But as I kept playing, the drive in me to complete everything as intended grew, and as soon as I finished the main story, I knew assist mode was not gonna be an option for me. Either I do this properly, or not at all.
Am I sad that the assist mode doesn't lock out the achievements? A bit, maybe, because if it did then Celeste would surely be a UR lol but more than that, I can understand why the devs decided to not do that. Everyone has their own personal struggles, and what might be considered easy to you may be extremely difficult for others. Some might need that little bit of help to get them over the mountain, and it kinda sucks to invalidate their success just because they needed it. So I respect the decision, and I'm happy for anyone who managed to climb the mountain and overcome their own personal struggles, with or without help.
After all, that's what this entire game is about. Struggle, determination, failure, and triumph. Things will never be easy. You won't always make the best decisions, and sometimes, even after you think you've made so much progress, one small misstep can send you hurtling back down to the pits of despair. But as this game so kindly reminds us all, if you ever feel like giving up, remember:
Just breathe.
You can do this.
