Published: 2 Feb 2025
- Developed by: Maddy Makes Games and Extremely OK Games
- Published by: Maddy Makes Games
- Released on: 2018
- Genres: Precision Platformer, 2D Platformer
- Rating: 4/5
Celeste is a platformer with a sky-high reputation, and after beating the initial 7 Chapters + some B-sides I can definitely see why in terms of the core gameplay being extremely satisfying to play but I certainly don’t see Celeste as a perfect package.
The good:
- Platforming is super tight, and feels great to handle and execute - with level design being darn good introducing new mechanics and ways of platforming. Its been enjoyable enough that once beating the initial 7 chapters I’ve gone back and started running through the B-sides and strawberry collecting - very satisfying in a way all platformers should be. While it can feel a little like a puzzle game at times, with its narrow tolerance for error - but very few screens that I’ve found overly annoying to figure out.
- Lots of the special mechanics are good (although I’m not a fan of a few of them, namely wind from Chapter 4, and the feathers + ’thwomps’ from Chapter 6) and they completed the platforming well.
The bad:
- The story is really just awful and rubs me the wrong way entirely. It felt entirely artificial and insincere, with most of the characters coming off as totally insufferable. I’m sure plenty have resonated with it given the acclaim Celeste is held in, especially the creators, but I would have taken no story over what we got. Theo in particular is just awful, but none of the characters are all that interesting to me. Banal observations and pithy truisms add up to a whole lot of nothing.
- Certain chapters are demonstrably weaker than others in their design, Chapter 6 had some weak mechanics - and often found myself unable to clearly see where I needed to go without feather trial-and-error. Chapter 3 was also a little weak in comparison, mainly due to its length and relative difficulty spike compared to the previous 2 chapters.
- In attempting to grab all the strawberries, I found a lack of in-chapter “map”/reference annoying in non-linear areas combined with the inability to backtrack in many cases - had no guilt in just looking up maps to find the strawberry locations.
- I would really, really, REALLY like some kind of stamina meter, or ANY kind of indication of how much stamina I have and how much left outside of “I’m almost out”.
The meh:
- A lot of the art is individually very good (the visual effects in particular are fantastic), but I’m not sure it cohesively glues together between the pixel art, character portraits, in-game photographs and world map, all taking a slightly different visual style.
- The music is… fine? It fit exactly how you’d want in the context of a video game OST, solid if unspectacular (in stark comparison to the sound effects, which were fantastic and a great aid in playing the game).
Celeste is certainly good, and deserves a lot of its plaudits its obtained over the years - but I see it as standing amongst its equals amongst the pantheon of good platformers, rather than the “one-of-a-kind” status it appears to have.
