Celeste

Released: 25 Jan 2018
Reviewed: 29 Aug 2019
Platform: Nintendo Switch

Celeste is about a girl trying to climb a mountain, making some friends, learning about herself and conquering her fears. Somehow they manage to totally pull it off in the context of a hardcore platformer, and do a much better job than lots of other 'emotional finding yourself' games I've played (looking at you GRIS). When I finished the game at almost exactly 8 hours played I'd collected about 35% of the challenge strawberries and died 1,157 times. I'm really glad I played it.

When I first saw Celeste had Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam and the cover artwork, I got pretty excited. When I saw actual screenshots of the game and realised it was a hardcore platformer, that excitement kind of fell, but I still wanted to see what all the fuss was about. What I found was a charming, absorbing and fiendishly difficult and rewarding experience. On the same note, I also found it kind of weird that the menu screen and level select is in a beautiful, smooth low poly 3D models, then the platforming is back to 2D pixel art.

- When the characters are talking to each other, they make really cute noises like squeaky toys
- You meet a character in the game who's a photographer and loves taking selfies. He gives you his Instagram tag, which is real (https://www.instagram.com/theounderstars/). I thought this was really cleverly done
- Dying isn't too annoying because you respawn instantly and only lose a few seconds of progress
- The music is beautiful, and good enough for me to also listen to on it's own while working

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