Saturday, February 24, 2018

Celeste Is a Two-Faced Bitch of a Platformer (That I Still Love)

Celeste tries to be different from the usual ultra-hard platformer. Games like I Wanna Be the Guy or Kaizo Mario World are pure sadism. The developers went out of their way to be as unfair and cruel as possible. They're not games you're supposed to beat, they're games that are supposed to troll you. The devs aren't making an experience you see to the end, they're bullies making a practical joke. Every time the apples in I Wanna Be the Guy fly upward to kill me without warning, I can hear in my mind Nelson Muntz guffawing at my humiliation. Celeste, however, is the rare "splatformer" or Kaizu game that isn't laughing at you. Or so it seems.

For that reason, I think Celeste is the only one of these games I actually like. Things like the legendarily hard Mario Maker levels are all difficulty and nothing else. Celeste is only 70% gaming torture. The other 30% is a surprisingly contemplative and personal journey through a young woman's anxieties. No surprise it's friendly, this game is proudly Canadian. The main story mode is tough, but never merciless, and the atmosphere is inviting instead of mocking. The world is bright and the characters are all decent people. Also annoying buttrock music doesn't blare every time you die. Nobody paints the walls in your blood like Super Meat Boy does.

Celeste seems like it doesn't want to be cruel, it wants to be therapeutic. The main character, Madeline, is only climbing the titular Mt. Celeste to overcome her depression. There are many spikes and pits, but no enemies - that is other than the demons she brings with her. For that reason the game doesn't say "haha, fooled you" it says "come on, don't give up". Celeste even has an Assist Mode where you can slow down time, give yourself infinite boosts, and if you need, turn on invincibility. The devs wrote no shame into that mode - you even earn full Trophies like you would on Normal. All this makes for a hyper-challenging platformer that for once feels like it is on your side.

That is, until you reach the ultimate bonus stages, where the therapy aspect falls apart and the true evil reveals itself.

I really like Celeste, I want to make that clear. This is the first truly great game of 2018, and probably one of the top 10 best platformers ever. The game creates plenty of variety in its stages and tone, all with a relatively simple control system. Madeline can jump, she can climb up walls, and she can boost one time in the air. That's it. And from that Celeste creates huge jungle gym levels full of challenge and even light exploration. Some of the later stages become like Sonic the Hedgehog-style feasts of acrobatics and speed. You can dogfight your way across rooms, boosting and wall-jumping and springing around without once touching the ground until the end.

Also it's really pretty.

This looks impossible, but it's not half as bad as Celeste can get. You can do it.

Celeste is very clever with the difficulty. The player can manage their challenge based on how hardcore they want to be. Many rooms hold Strawberries, entirely optional collectables that require a bit more concentration and patience to grab. You can go for the Strawberries (which give you nothing but a slightly tastier ending), or skip them if they're too much trouble. There are a ton of extra puzzle rooms off the main path which exist for no reason other than to have Strawberries. Also the game has a bonus stage, Chapter 8, the Core, and eight bonus remixes of the chapters called B-sides which are way harder, in case you like your Celeste extra spicy.

The one negative I have to give is that the controls are a bit too sensitive if you're using a joystick. I played this with a PS4 controller, I hear its worse on the Switch. A lot of times you're going to boost upwards or to the side when you meant to go diagonally. But you can overcome that by being better, it's a reasonable hurdle.

However, let's talk about unreasonable hurdles. The complaints that will follow are largely my own fault. Celeste never made me play its hardest levels. I did it to myself. Everybody who breaks their keyboards trying to get through I Wanna Be the Guy does it to themselves. Perhaps I am a badly broken creature that desires pain. Or it could be that I was so charmed by Celeste's easy going but challenging introduction that I wanted to see all the magic the game had to offer. Unfortunately that magic runs dry the deeper you get and Celeste reveals she isn't all perky characters and whimsy.

Celeste has not just extra hard bonus B-sides, but also bonus C-sides. To put that in perspective, I'd say the A-sides are as hard as most Donkey Kong Country levels at worst. The B-sides are where things start getting truly wicked, they're about twice as hard as the A-sides. But at that point you'll be much more familiar with Celeste's controls and Madeline's rhythms, so it isn't that insane. You can do it, and the game will even still root you on with some dialogue. Then there's the C-sides, which are fucking madness. All the cutesy 8bit-style graphics and catchy electronic music in the world can't cover up the sheer savagery in this game's design.

In regular old Celeste you meet a friendly Instagram addict, you make friends with your own dark side, and you achieve what seems to be the impossible. Madeline climbs the mountain and is a better person for it. The dialogue is even "spoken" in this adorable baby-talk of bleeps and bloops. In C-side Celeste, the story disappears entirely. Madeline shuts up and becomes a vehicle for pain. That's the first sign things are gonna be bad.

...But this shit, right here, this is going too far.

The C-side stages are short, only three or four screens wide, but the last rooms are marathons of terror. They require frame-perfect timing, including rare maneuvers that Celeste only tells you about in the post-game. Chapter 5C, the worst level in the game (seen above), requires five of what I call "catapult jumps". These are boosts into corners of ledges that can catapult you higher if you hit the jump button at precisely the right microsecond. The game is so picky between success and failure that it feels like I'm doing advanced speedrunning strats. So there's no story, no there's no charm, there's no momentum, there's just a wall of hateful difficulty. You have to smash your head into it over and over until you "git gud" and break it. Repetition is the only way forward.

Hell, in the latest updates, the developers made some of the C-side levels even harder. When they noticed that players had gotten creative and learned how to skip over some obstacles, they threw up giant walls so that you had to beat the stages their way. No, you're not allowed even the slightest reprieve, you have to suffer all of it. If I had played Celeste a week later I never would 100%ed the game. As it stands it still took me over 12,000 deaths. My left thumb was raw, my wrist ached, and my whole arm felt heavy by the end. This wasn't fun anymore, this was a chemical addiction to torture.

I wasn't depressed when I started Celeste, but by the time I finished, I was close to an emotional wreck. In one of the middle chapters Celeste teaches its audience a breathing exercise involving a feather and keeping it floating. This really is a game that wants to break out of the confines of its genre and be something more. It does everything to explain anxiety and work you through it. I don't know how effective this game can be as therapy, but I can tell you that the C-sides cured nothing and in fact gave me anxiety. After the 1400th death in Chapter 5C I felt like locking myself in my room, alienating all friends and family, quitting my job, picking up a drug problem, joining Alt-Right forums, and torpedoing my entire life.

Celeste, how could you do this to me? You opened with a warm hug. Then you turned out to be a vindictive two-faced bitch that ate my balls for breakfast and even made me take a bite. Are you laughing at me too, Celeste?? Just like all the others???? ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME?????? 

...I think this whole relationship has turned toxic and I think I need to start dating other video games. I want you to know I still love you. But this isn't good for either of us.

Anyway, back on point: Celeste wants to break out of the box of the Splatformer. And while it does everything it can to do that, there's a viscous side to this game that I advice you not to explore. Beat the main game, if you need more content beat the B-sides. But the C-sides? No, they're not worth it. They're so rough they undercut everything Celeste is trying to achieve. Take it from me, a husk of the man I was before I played this game, you're better off with the friendly Celeste, not the evil one.

God help us all of if Celeste ever comes out with D-sides.

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