Celeste

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Okay, I’m not gonna’ beat around the bush. I know everyone else has been falling in love with this game, and I have to be honest – it just didn’t grab me the way it has everyone else. Take it as personal preference, I suppose, but for me, the game’s frustrations got too much in the way of my ability to enjoy it.

Okay, let me start at the beginning here. Celeste is a platformer from Matt Thorson AKA Matt Makes Games, who was also responsible for the archery platform game Towerfall (which I loved), and features a similar art style, slightly reminiscent of old-school videogames. It’s a charming presentation that works, along with its decent (albeit super-repetitive) music and thoughtful story about self-acceptance.

The gameplay comes in the form of a platformer that’s pure platforming challenge, making precise jumps using the level layout to get from point A to point B. Your character can jump, wall-jump, wall-climb, and air-dash once before touching the ground again, and that’s it, and the game finds increasingly challenging ways to test your skill with these abilities, as well as introducing a few unique environmental features that switch things up.

The challenge level in this game is pretty high, and by the end you will be dying over and over and over again before you succeed… and for me, that just wasn’t fun, especially since the platforming game isn’t physics-based like Super Meat Boy (another challenging platformer that I actually thoroughly enjoyed), which means that it’s not so much about finding just the right angle or timing, but the right series of commands to make it to your goal.

In the end, I still think this is a good platformer for those who are looking for a challenge, but I found the “challenge” part really wore down on how fun this game was for me.

tl;dr – Celeste is a challenging platformer, with the emphasis on “challenge”. If that’s your jam, this game is for you. But it really wore on me toward the end.

Grade: B

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