LogFAQs > #898321859

1. Celeste
Unlike Owlboy, I'm not sure if this is a MUST play for everyone. There are a certain sect of people that don't like games this difficult, but I love this kind of stuff, and Celeste was simply a tremendous experience. It is my favorite platformer of all time, outside of the last 2 Rayman games. It is that good.

Celeste's power is its simplicity. You don't have tons of fancy moves here. You can jump, do a mid-air dash (you can eventually do TWO mid-air dashes), and wall climb. So you are pretty much just PLATFORMING in a pretty raw way. Now, this has been done by a few games in recent years, but Celeste still manages to stand out.

First off, the look of it is obviously captivating. The game's animations are also beautiful, and make the game almost as fun to watch as it is to play. Your character changes appearance with each dash, which not only is a nice visual indicator of how many dashes you have used, but also ties in to the story of the different people within Celeste (the game tackles mental illness). The game is constantly clever in this way.

And the story of overcoming mental illness (while climbing a mountain, maybe a little too in your face, but sure, it works) is powerful throughout, as Celeste essentially learns to deal with this by climbing a mountain. My favorite part of the story though is the interaction with other characters on this mountain. They are all weird, and there are several spots where you get to small talk with them (one character in particular gets a lot of screen time). I hate small talk in real life, so video game small talk for the sake of character development is usually especially painful. But man, there are some really great moments in those conversations. They feel authentically awkward early on, and as you learn more about the characters, they get better and better.

And of course, the platforming is as precise as you would hope. Sometimes mid air dashes felt a little awkward to land perfectly, the Switch's controls aren't always perfect, so that could be part of my issue, but thats the biggest complaint I can muster. By the end, you are performing some very complicated sequences without even thinking about it much, everything just gets ingrained into you so well. And yes, the game is pretty difficult, but respawns are instant and usually not harsh. Also, the actual game isn't THAT bad most of the time in my opinion. The true challenge in the game is acquiring strawberries, which are totally optional. Some of these took me 50+ tries to get. Some I tried a few times and didn't even bother to continue on, but you don't have to do any. Unless you are totally dreadful at these games, I think most people will be able to get through it.

The main game is decently meaty for an indie title like this, plus there is collecting all the side content and "b-side" levels , which are even harder. I decided against deep diving into that stuff, but there is a lot there, and this game is pretty damn replayable due to how fun it is on its own, and I say that as someone who doesn't really like replaying games.

Celeste hits every note that it could here, the look, the story, the characters, and the gameplay. There are tons of platformers on the market that land 1 or 2 of those. Some of them have a cool gimmick that helps carry them through, but these kind of games just never land all of the elements like this, and that makes Celeste truly special, and my favorite game on the switch. It will have at least a few games try and take it down this year, but it's still an all time classic for me.

ps if you haven't played rayman yet, you have to play it. I'm seriously considering buying it again just to have it mobile.
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I call girls "girlies".