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Celeste is a platform video game developed by the Canadian developers Matt Thorson and Noel Berry. It started as a prototype for a Game Jam and, in January 25 2018, it was released for Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Plot
Madeline is trying to scale a mountain. On the way she meets Grandma, discouraging otherwise cautious about climbing it. Madeline decides to proceed anyway, only for the bridge in front of her to crumble and to run for her life.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Great narrative about a character climbing a mountain after a bad breakup, as a means to regain her spirit and confidence. The mountain is meant to be a metaphor for dealing with things such as depression, insecurities, and anxiety.
 * 2) *The game's story leading up to this final chapter is also easy to read as a trans metaphor, which is especially amusing considering that Maddy Thorson themselves was unaware at the time that they wrote it. Madeline's mountain climbing hobby is referred to in such a way that it can very easily be replaced with "being a girl" and the game's theme remains unchanged.
 * 3) Decent character growth as Madeline must deal with Badeline, this other part of her which is meant to be a manifestation of Madeline's own insecure side. She tries to stop Madeline from climbing the mountain because she's the part of her that is afraid of the possibility of failure.
 * 4) The graphics and visuals are very appealing.
 * 5) The controls are easy to pick up, with only three core abilities: jumping, climbing and dashing.
 * 6) Challenging, yet accessible gameplay as player must learn to time their jumps, figure out how to approach a section, know when to dash, and etc.
 * 7) Great level design with every chapter introducing new gimmicks meaning the player must find a different way to beat level each time (e.g. chapter 2 with space blocks which you can continually dash through, and clones of you that chase you, chapter 6 when dashing into blocks propels them in the direction you dashed into them).
 * 8) There is a lot of post-end game content.
 * 9) * After completing the 7 main chapters, you unlock Chapter 8. It takes place a year after Madeline's climb to the summit, and she's introduced by Granny to the "Core" of the mountain. However, a barrier blocks your way until you have at least four crystal hearts.
 * 10) * The C-Sides are effectively this, since you need to beat all eight B-Side levels (including Chapter 8's, which requires fifteen other crystal hearts to unlock) in order to access them.
 * 11) * Chapter 9's second half is gated by requiring fifteen crystal hearts (the significance of 15 being that this guarantees the player has encountered the wall-bounce tutorial in 7-B). And even the first half is post-endgame by virtue of sheer difficulty.
 * 12) Farewell (chapter 9): Somehow they made this a finale that far surpasses chapter 7, also adding in a plethora of new mechanics that we haven't seen in the rest of the game to keep players engaged.
 * 13) As you progress you meet a handful of characters that are great and charming that in some way have ties to the Mountain. Granny is meant to be the mentor to Madeline as she's lived on Celeste for years, Theo climbs Celeste to find some purpose, and Mr. Oshiro desperately tries to put on the best experience for his hotel guest but is anxious about the fact that he's not good enough.
 * 14) Plenty of speedrun options and perks (e.g. hold the down button and Madeline will fall faster).
 * 15) Amazing soundtrack which reflects Madeline's feelings of anxiety and stress that evolves as you progress. Chapter 7 incorporates each previous level's music into its evolving music.
 * 16) Chapter 3 allows you to play the original Pico-8 game which is the inspiration for this game. To name a few differences, it is far shorter, you can't climb walls, the green crystals are replaced with balloons and Madeline's final form doesn't come from merging with Badeline, but from a power up she gets from a chest (her hair also turns green as opposed to pink).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The controls can feel somewhat stiff the first time you play it, and unresponsive at times. (despite WIR #3, e.g. sometimes it's difficult to distinguish which direction you're dashing in, leading to some cheap deaths)
 * 2) Sometimes the level design will demand that every movement be precise, especially in the B-Side chapters.
 * 3) Some of the collectibles are really cryptic.
 * 4) * All the blue Crystal Hearts within each chapter's A-Sides are very well hidden, even more so than the B-Side tapes (which also qualify for this), to the point where a player may not know they even exist until they find themselves gated from entering the Chapter 8 or its bonus stages. The methods needed to get some of these hearts, even if you know their locations, can also be cryptic. Special mention goes to Chapter 4's Crystal Heart, which is a reference to the white block trick in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Chapter 2's Crystal Heart which requires you to exploit the fact that the dash recharges whenever Madeline goes through a screen transition.
 * 5) * The 200th strawberry can only be gained if you successfully clear the first chapter without using your dash ability even once. The game never tells you that this is the method to get it, and even pulling this off requires serious player skill and knowledge of things that the game never teaches you, such as spike jumping.
 * 6) * New with the Farewell update, obtaining the "Wow" achievement requires collecting the Moon Berry, which can only be found by backtracking at the very end of Chapter 9 and following a newly unlocked path, traversing several more difficult levels than you would normally by following the intended path. You even have to intentionally die at one point.
 * 7) While boss fight with Badeline in Chapter 6 is great, it goes on for ages, with no indication of how far you still have yet to go, and the (often lengthy) levels you run through would be hard enough without getting blasted by lasers. Eventually, it just wears out its welcome and becomes a chore.
 * 8) Certain golden strawberries get into this territory due to requiring a no death run of levels where one mistake can undo up entire minutes of work - but the cake goes to the one for Chapter 9 where if you die once, you get sent all the way back to the beginning of the chapter.. There's also the fact that at the end of the level is an additional, tough-as-nails room that only appears when carrying the Golden Strawberry.
 * 9) *Due to collecting Golden Strawberries being the most brutally difficult challenge in the game by a long shot, there's no achievement tied to collecting them meaning collecting them all is entirely up to you.

Trivia

 * Getting and holding behind you at least six strawberries at once grants you a 1up. (rare achievement will pop up on the XBOX ONE version)
 * Chapter 3 has a secret path that allows you to play the original PICO-8 Celeste.
 * In a certain section of Chapter 5, when you play the soundtrack in reverse, you can hear a creepy secret message. First line: "Sometimes I don't really know what's going on anymore."
 * Wavedashing is a common speedrun tactic in the game. It isn't required until Chapter 9 when you come across an Internet Café.
 * It was confirmed that Madeline (the protagonist) is transgender.

Reception
Celeste received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic, on all versions of the game except for the PC version, which instead received "generally favorable reviews". Video game journalists named Celeste among the year's best games. Polygon named the game among the decade's best. Destructoid 's Kevin Mersereau called Celeste "An essential gaming experience," saying "For the first time in ages, I have absolutely nothing to complain about." Tom Marks from IGN praised the game's story, and the way it was blended with the gameplay, saying "I cared deeply about Madeline's struggle and empathized with her in a way I wasn't expecting."

The soundtrack of Celeste composed by Lena Raine and released by Materia Collective was highly praised by critics. An official piano sheet music book and accompanying piano album was announced and released on January 25, 2019, and a licensed album of lullaby music based on the soundtrack, Prescription for Sleep: Celeste, was released in November 2018.

Sales
By December 21, 2018, Celeste had sold over 500,000 copies, with Thorson stating "We never expected it to reach so many people." Although sale figures for each platform have not been released, Dual Shock reported that the Switch version was the most successful.

In a September 2019 interview with IGN, Thorson stated that the game was "coming up on a million copies sold soon." In March 2020, IGN confirmed that the million copies threshold had been reached before the end of the previous year

Videos
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