"Celeste" Game Review
A precision platforming masterpiece.
The end of a very long road that broke keyboard keys, but never my spirit.
Although I haven’t experienced a great many of them yet, I can say with confidence that Celeste is the best platformer I’ve ever played. There is not much I can say that hasn’t been iterated better elsewhere regarding the quality of the music, visuals, and the intuitive simplicity of the controls that manage to do so much with so little. The learning curve is presented masterfully. Every time you think you’ve seen everything the game can throw at you, it presents new barriers, a new arrangement of elements to challenge you and jump for joy when you prove to yourself you had it in you all along.
I think this is where Celeste shines most. Madeline’s story, at least as it is presented in-game, is a simple and personal one. It is written from a perspective of pain and confusion that I will never know, but the themes of struggle and doubt it deals with can be understood by anyone. There are many points where Madeline wants to give up, to succumb, to fail. There will be many points in the game where you will want to do the same. But by setting down these seemingly insurmountable challenges, and by showing you time and time again that you can break through them, Celeste’s narrative design reaches past the screen and shows you what you’re capable of when you refuse to give up. Affirmation-through-challenge is something unique to video games within media, and the display of it here is singular in nature.
If you have the slightest inclination towards platformers and are willing to struggle a bit, you owe it yourself to play Celeste, because we all have our own mountains to climb.
5/5
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