Celeste

Celeste is an exemplary amalgamation of style, mechanics and character. A devilishly brilliant action platformer with enough skill required to excite genre purists and the speed running community, while at the same time featuring a breakdown of gameplay elements to customize and cater for all audiences. While the game mechanically is great, if familiar, the art style and narrative are truly special, showing both a visual and emotional range and depth that will resonate and inspire. Celeste is the absolute peak of personal exploration and discovery on Nintendo Switch.

In raw platforming prowess, Celeste is on par with the hallmarks of the genre, flowing with excellent challenges and content. What separates it from the pack and makes it more of a platformer pinnacle are the other parts of the whole: the layers of accessibility, the engaging story, and the charming presentation. All of those pieces gelled together in a spectacular way, in a way that led to me adoring this game much more than I thought. Celeste is magical and beautiful, mostly thanks to its brilliantly designed levels, but it becomes transcendent thanks to everything else.

Platformers, especially those with a retro flair, come along often. But so rarely do they work as well as Celeste does. Celeste is an exercise of excellence in the well-trodden platforming genre. Whether it's the score that kicks up just as busily just as heroine Madeleine does, the mechanics that build and build with each new room you uncover, or its lushly pixelated landscapes: there's a lot to love in Celeste.

On top of that, there is a great story that addresses themes of depression, self-discovery, and ultimately perseverance, which can be applied to both one’s personal life and the experience one has in general when playing a difficult game. You may get mad at a few points, but that peak is always there waiting for you, within reach, and is something we should all strive for, whether it is in-game or not.

Celeste is 2D puzzle-platforming at its most hardcore but its also sweet and charming at the same time. Sure, it’ll kick your ass repeatedly without much remorse but the impeccably smooth three-button controls and ingenious level design is what differentiates Celeste from the rest of the pack. It tells a surprisingly deep and emotional story featuring a relatable main character and it all blends uniquely together to make one of the finest gaming experience of the year.

Celeste is a surprise masterpiece. Its 2D platforming is some of the best and toughest since Super Meat Boy, with levels that are as challenging to figure out as they are satisfying to complete. Hidden throughout those levels are a wealth of secrets and collectibles, some of which push the skills it teaches you to the absolute limit, along with enough end-game content to keep you playing for dozens of hours.

It's a testament to convincing writing and ingenious design that after playing Celeste I felt like I'd been on the same journey as Madeline. Her struggle is one made easy to empathize with, her low points painful to watch, and her high notes exhilarating to experience. Her tale is delicately told and beautifully illustrated, confidently coalescing with the satisfying, empowering game it lies within. Not bad for a game about climbing a mountain.

It’s ironic that a platforming game’s greatest, most innovative elements lie not in the platforming itself, but around it. Yet perhaps that’s the point. Matt Thorson, the game’s designer, is clearly a master of platforming mechanics, as evidenced by his work on TowerFall and some truly insane Super Mario Maker levels. Celeste reaches beyond, showing that tricky, well-designed platforming challenges are really just the tip of the iceberg. There’s far more underneath the surface. And maybe that’s worth dying for.

It's the consistent variety and inventiveness, the simple but honest and emotional story, the notable amount of content, and the difficulty that gets so nuts it must be seen to be believed that all make this a game a must-play. Celeste is a game I heartily recommend to any fan of platformers, gamers looking for a real challenge, and anybody who wants a good story -- so basically everybody. I absolutely loved my time with it, and I'm sure many others will as well. This is a mountain I'd gladly climb back down just to scale the whole thing again.

Celeste does just that. Celeste made me feel. Not just through gameplay or storytelling, but through every aspect and feature of the games humble design. Though our paths are different, I felt an innate connection to Madeline and from that instant I was engrossed in this small adventure until my thumbs felt like falling off.

I have played many difficult platformers in my life, many of which felt overly difficult and in the end I lost interest. There was something about Celeste that kept bringing me back for more. Whether it was the feeling of “look what I can do” or “I know I can do this” or the reward of feeling accomplished when making a difficult jump. Through it all, I never lost interest. I just kept trying until I was able to complete a stage

You can do anything you want and Celeste, with its challenging difficulty and motivational story, is an exercise of willpower and perseverance. You are going to get stuck in some sections and fly through others. You will oscillate between dark despair and renewed resolve. The sky is the limit, they say. More accurately, it's the summit. It's expectedly cold up there, but that's only part of it; it's also a place of light, learning, and invaluable self-discovery. And that's worth fighting for - not just in Celeste, but in all of life.

Celeste es un juego que merece todos los buenos comentarios que encontrarán aquí y en otros medios. No sólo cumple con un gameplay que nos exige maestría sino que también adereza la aventura con elementos emocionales que, al final del día, sí terminan por crear cierto lazo con los personajes. Tengan la plataforma que tengan si ustedes disfrutaron aventuras como Super Meat Boy o el más reciente The End is Nigh lo más seguro es que encuentren en Celeste un juego enriquecedor. Se merece una oportunidad.

Hay juegos de los que sales impresionado, porque parece que hacen de todo y que todo lo hacen bien, y esperanzado, porque dejan claro que todavía se puede hacer muchísimo más. Es cuestión de tiempo. Celeste, un juego de plataformas perfecto, es de esos.

Para terminar, Celeste está compuesto por ocho niveles principales, a los que hay que sumar uno extra que se desbloquea tras terminar la aventura. Sólo esto ya os puede llevar más de diez horas, especialmente si tratáis de obtener las fresas que suele haber en cada fase. Si esto ya es de por sí una duración bastante considerable, hay que sumarle infinidad de secretos, como los corazones de cristal que se ocultan en cada nivel (suerte tratando de conseguirlos sin acudir a una guía) o las cintas de casete que desbloquean la Cara B de cada nivel (una versión más complicada y con nueva banda sonora).

Escalar la montaña de Celeste nos ha brindado algunos de los mejores momentos que hemos vivido nunca en un juego de plataformas. Uno de esos indies que demuestra que con muy poco se puede hacer muchísimo, a golpe de talento: una jugabilidad perfecta, un derroche de buenas ideas, un gran diseño de niveles, una historia bien escrita y un apartado audiovisual muy cuidado que le pone la guinda al pastel. Si te gustan los plataformas es un juego imprescindible, una de las primeras grandes sorpresas de un 2018 que ha comenzado de manera inmejorable.

Celeste ha supuesto una agradable sorpresa. Bajo la apariencia de un juego independiente de plataformas nos hemos topado con un videojuego excelente. La obra de la buena gente de Matt Makes Games Inc. tiene la suficiente personalidad y calidad para codearse, con orgullo, con los grandes exponentes del género. Haciéndolo, además, por méritos propios. Celeste aúna un gran carisma con una enorme narrativa, sumado a un excelente gameplay y un soberbio diseño de escenarios.

Celeste es uno de los plataformas 2D más destacados de los últimos años. Desafiante, sencillo de controlar y de exigencia quirúrgica para ser superado, es la demostración que el diseño de niveles muchas veces lo es todo. Solo dos botones, pero mucha habilidad, son necesarios para poder avanzar en los desafíos temáticos que se nos van mostrando con todo tipo de mecánicas cambiantes, momentos de estrés y saltos calculados al milímetro.

Celeste est tout simplement un jeu incroyable sur tous les plans. En réussissant à proposer un platformer exigeant et nerveux abordant une thématique psychologique profonde, le tout porté par une mise en scène d'une époustouflante beauté et servie par une bande-son dont on se délectera de chaque note, les développeurs de Tower Fall Ascension se hissent à nouveau au niveau des plus grands. Généreux comme pas deux, Celeste nous embarque dans un tourbillon de sensations d'une incroyable justesse, et propose même aux plus timides de tenter l'escalade, au risque de passer à côté de l'expérience initiale.

Hormis le fait que vos pouces risquent de souffrir, difficile de trouver des défauts significatifs à Celeste, tant il emmène le genre du platformer à un sommet qui culmine à très haute altitude. Le titre de Matt Thorson et son équipe excelle dans tout ce qu'il propose : une prise en main grisante, des niveaux tellement bien agencés que l'ascension de cette montagne devient addictive, des musiques qui servent à la fois le gameplay et une histoire qui devrait en toucher plus d'un...

Celeste è un gioco di piattaforme veloce, elegante, intelligente e realizzato con grande gusto. Non propone chissà quali idee differenti, nuove, rivoluzionarie e nonostante un ritmo eccellente, sul finale perde un po' di coesione. Ma rimane un acquisto praticamente obbligatorio per gli amanti del genere, oltretutto capace di mettere in mostra una sensibilità fuori dal comune. Complimenti!

В наше время сюжет — обычно или самая сильная, или одна из сильнейших частей любой популярной инди-игры, от той же Night in the Woods или Oxenfree до Golf Story. И на этом фоне Celeste, при всех своих дизайнерских и геймплейных особенностях, смотрится очень по-любительски. Можно попробовать счесть это еще одной отсылкой к Super Mario Bros. 2, отличавшейся самым идиотским сюжетом (и самой глупой концовкой) во всей серии.