Panic! at the Platforms
Celeste is a surprise. Not because it’s a good game, and it is, but because it’s sympathetic with difficult subject matter, and the nature of the game stresses its themes all the more. It’s only scratching Celeste’s surface to say it’s indie precision platforming following in the steps of Super Meat Boy, made by the folks that brought us Towerfall. It is meaty though.
Madeline is tired of the status quo, of feeling like she can’t, so she is ready to do something about it. Climb a mountain. Celeste Mountain. Upon reaching the mountain, Madeline meets a mysterious wise old bag who alludes to the mountains magical properties. The journey to the top will reveal as much and more, in a bit of an unexpected and thoughtful tale about anxiety and depression that strikes a good balance levity, tension and mystery.
There is a jarring juxtaposition between smoothly drawn character portraits displayed in the storytelling and the game’s pixel art aesthetic, but between getting to know the characters through charming and interesting dialogue, the initial repulsion dissipates. The pixel art isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but there is plenty of variety on Celeste Mountain, and each new level brings enough of something different, a new jam and host of its own challenges to keep it fresh.
Getting down to the gameplay, the platforming is precise when it’s behaving the way you think it should, but far more often than what felt like was okay, it seemed like the game was misreading inputs. Fortunately, death and rebirth is swift, so it’s not a completely game-breaking issue. It can still be quite frustrating repeatedly performing jumps you thought you nailed, but the d-pad keeps reigistering the opposite. It’s not always the case that the frustration can be blamed on the controls. Fitting to Celeste’s anxiety backdrop, sometimes the brain just won’t cooperate and keeps falling into instinctual traps or panic.
As you get higher and higher up the mountain the platforming grows more and more hectic, introducing new obstacles and challenges culminating in a rousingly climactic boss fight and inspiring finish. Many moments incited a panic that could only be described as intentional. Suddenly, the brain isn’t performing what it needs to do perform a series of jumps, but only survive in the immediate. This often leads to death, but also adds a sort of profundity to the gameplay in the context of Celeste’s narrative. A panic at the platforms.
