Celeste

I'm trans, of course I love this game.

such an insanely satisfying and gorgeous experience. i tend to dislike the general "platformer" genre but found myself deeply in love with Celeste. i personally really enjoyed the story (fit right into the weird little depression nook of my brain), but i can see how it might be annoying to some. doesn't really matter, anyway, as the focus should definitely be on the gameplay, which is all around really great. each mechanic is nicely developed and never too annoying, and despite the 5 stages of grief i go through in every room, persevering through feels so rewarding. the pixel art and music are also both really lovely!!!

maybe the best 2d-platformer i've ever played, taking an incredibly versatile, minimal concept—and near-perfect storyline—to a brilliantly choreographed conclusion; remarkably potent, despite difficulty hikes

I can agree that the design, music, storyline, characters, and mechanics are insanely well done for the right person. However, for me personally, I didn't like the story as much as the majority. I also don't typically like games that center around you dying a million times because I don't like to feel angry when I play games. I like to feel a sense of wonder and happiness. I'm usually a very calm and patient videogamer but there were just a few points where I genuinely yelled at the screen and I don't like that.

To get the elephant in the room out of the way (as most people here on Glitchwave seem to do), I think the story and dialogue is really overhyped. It actually dissuaded me from playing the game for the longest time because of how much people were saying it's the second coming of Christ almighty. At its core, it's a pretty basic, tropey shadow archetype narrative, and while that can obviously still be effective enough for the right kinds of people, as it's designed to be very broad, I'd say that for 99% of people, it's not gonna be life-changing or drastically alter your views of storytelling as a medium or change your gender or what have you.

However, Celeste is splendidly well-crafted in all the right areas. The artstyle is fantastic, the atmosphere is great (I'm personally impressed how much environmental variety they were able to squeeze out of just the single idea of climbing a mountain).

And most importantly, the level design is top-notch, and I really respect how they were able to make the game accessible to just about anyone without sacrificing any of the challenge for those jumping off a game like Super Meat Boy, due to both the built-in accessibility settings as well as the Strawberries in each level: they're entirely optional and don't do anything so newer players are completely free to skip em, whereas players like me can easily spend dozens upon dozens of attempts just trying to grab a single one; not to mention the B-side (and god forbid C-side) levels that were so challenging that even I stopped by Chapter 4. It's something I notice a lot more with time, where games often do so much right but fail right at the end by refusing to take into mind how they can make their game more accessible to new players or more engaging for the die-hard crowd when they can easily have it both ways, and I was so pleasantly surprised that Celeste of all games did this near flawlessly. More games should learn from Celeste.

Amazing platforming, amazing graphics, good soundtrack, good story, all of these things along with its accessibility make Celeste one of my favorite games that I've played. I love all the collectibles and the clear feeling of improvement- I've played the game three times, and with each time I beat it with less deaths and more collectibles. If you want a challenging but fun and charming time look no further.