Peak performance
(This
review contains minor spoilers!)
I’m a huge fan of TowerFall, the indie multiplayer sensation released back in 2013.
It’s become my couch PvP game of choice outside of Nintendo releases, with its
fast and strategic gameplay and awesome bow and arrow mechanic. When I learned
that the developer was releasing a single-player platforming game not too
dissimilar to TowerFall, I was really
intrigued, and my excitement grew as I saw the near universal critical praise
come rolling in not too long ago.
Today I’m joining the rest of the
voices in giving this game the love it deserves. Celeste is a triumph for the platforming genre, easily one of the
best modern 2D sidescrollers to date.
You play as Madeline (or whatever you
want to name her), a girl determined to climb the mysterious Mount Celeste so
she can prove something to herself. But things quickly begin to go awry when
her negative qualities are literally manifested before her eyes, creating a
demonic version of Madeline determined to stop you from reaching the peak at
any cost.
The story is the very definition of
simple yet elegant. There’s nothing super deep or thought provoking about it,
but it does have several very heartwarming moments and it has a lot to say
about mental illnesses and the difficulties and rewards in overcoming them.
Unlike RiME which sorta
disappointingly shoved in a message about loss at the very end without having
earned it, Celeste knows that it
wants the story to be a metaphor for overcoming a mental illness, and builds
around that in several creative, heartwarming and very intelligent ways.
Madeline is a character you really want to root for right from the get-go, and
she maintains that quality throughout the story. The other friends and foes you
meet along the way share that charming quality, creating a very feel-good
atmosphere even when some of the game’s hardest platforming challenges are
thrown at you.
I don’t want to talk too much about
the story out of fear of spoiling some of it, so let’s move onto the gameplay. Celeste is a 2D platformer that requires
a lot of precision jumps as you scale your way in and out of the mountain. It’s
not dissimilar to something along the lines of Super Meat Boy with how the controls work. Madeline has the
ubiquitous jump, as well as a wall-crawling ability and a double-jump. The
game’s levels are all designed around these abilities, particularly the
double-jump. Without the assist of an item she can only use the double-jump
once while in the air, and needs to land on solid ground before she can use it
again. Many of the platforming puzzles are built around figuring out at what
point mid-jump to use the ability and climbing to safety away from the various
spikes and enemies that want to end your adventure.
It sounds easy writing it down here,
but believe me, Celeste isn’t exactly
a walk in the park. By the time I finished the main story I believe my total
death count was around 1025, and that’s without even touching the ultra-hard
bonus levels and post-game content. The game is fairly forgiving despite this,
with frequent checkpoints throughout levels and puzzles are usually easy to
figure out with a combination of trial-and-error and just plain stopping and
thinking things through for a second. Even the hardest platforming challenges
can be bested with a lot of patience and persistence. You slowly get better at
the earlier parts of each screen until you’ve perfected them and just zoom through
until you reach something you haven’t quite worked at yet. It’s a ton of fun,
and I found myself only getting a little aggravated at some of the few screens
that really required precise platforming.
My one real gripe with the game does
come in when you need to be precise though. I played the Nintendo Switch
version of the game and I did find that when needing to change directions while
dashing in midair sometimes Madeline would veer off in the wrong direction. For
example, sometimes if I needed her to go up and to the left, the game would
register my split-second command as just left and she would fly into some
spikes and I’d have to start the screen over again. It’s more of a nitpick for
me as this doesn’t happen too often (plus with the generous and fast respawns
death isn’t too much of a setback), but it was enough of a nitpick that I had
to bring it up here.
There are also oodles of collectibles
hidden away in each world for completionists out there. Each level has a secret
B-Side mode you can uncover by finding a secret cassette tape. These are
especially tough platforming challenges where truly pro players can test their
mountain-climbing skills against everything the developers can throw at you.
There are also Crystal Hearts that unlock levels in the post-game, as well as
strawberries that give you some extra points and slightly change the game’s
ending. These collectibles are overall unnecessary to collect to beat the main
story, but they add a fun extra challenge for those looking for it.
Lastly, the graphics and music are
both exceptional. The art design is charmingly simplistic just like TowerFall, yet it manages to convey a
lot of emotion through the use of more detailed character portraits in text
boxes. The music is the true scene-stealer, composed in a chiptune style that
conveys a lot of emotions as the story goes on. When Madeline is in a darker
place midway through the game the music loses its usual chipper and jumpy
atmosphere, taking on a more somber tone to match it. Most of the time however
it feels like the soundtrack is cheering you on with a very optimistic tone
that keeps you determined to keep trying until you’ve won.
Celeste
easily ranks up there alongside the likes of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Shovel Knight as one of the best 2D platformers to be released
this decade. The high-speed platforming poses a tough but fun and fair
challenge, and the way the clever story is woven into the gameplay is
especially brilliant. This game is definitely a must play for any fans of the
genre. The only worry Celeste poses
for me is that with it 2018’s gaming has already hit its peak.
FINAL SCORE
9/10
Amazing
No comments:
Post a Comment