Video Gamers Podcast - Gaming Quick Takes - Celeste

Episode Date: April 1, 2023

From gaming hosts Paul, Michael and Josh, we're bringing you even more gaming content each week. Gaming Quick Takes are a short series of game recommendations, funny moments, off-topic chat and more. A small dose of gaming to brighten your Saturdays! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome to this Quick Take episode. We're so excited to have you here with us. In the past, these Quick Take episodes actually were only available to those who financially supported the show through Apple subscriptions and Patreon. But due to popular demand, we have decided to shake up the perks for our supporters and we'll be releasing these Quick Takes on Saturdays to everyone, giving you all some extra free content that was previously unavailable to the public. And these Quick Takes are a little more laid back, and they're hosted by just one of us. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this Quick Take episode.

Shazam! Boom! Hey, what's going on everybody? It is Paul here with another Quick Take episode for you all. And today I am very excited to talk to you about one of my all-time favorite games, Celeste. Now I have mentioned this a couple of times on the podcast, but I've never really had a chance to dive into it in any kind of detail. And so this is kind of my chance to do that. I have been on the record as saying that I think Celeste is the best platform game ever made. And this is coming from someone who is an immense fan of Super Mario Brothers 3, Mega Man 2, even Super Mario World on Super Nintendo. I mean, I grew up loving platform games. I still love them to this day. Super Meat Boy is one I sank my teeth into for quite some time.

Cuphead, Shovel Knight, these are all games that we've talked about on the pod, but I do think Celeste is the one that does it best. So in Celeste, you play as a young woman named Madeline, and you are basically trying to work your way up Mount Celeste. And so it's kind of divided into different worlds and levels, and as you complete each one, you get closer to the summit of the mountain. Now, the mechanics of Celeste, like any good platformer are incredibly simple but it works incredibly well so the game lets you jump you get to do a single double jump while you are in the air even that's kind of funny because Madeline has red hair and as soon as you do a jump it turns your hair blue and so that's kind of how you know whether or not you still have another jump in the tank. And you can also hold onto ledges for a few seconds before Madeline starts to get tired.

And then eventually she'll fall. So the game has like throwback graphics. It kind of looks like a 16-bit Super Nintendo era platformer. But it handles like a modern game. So this is not a game that plays like an old game. It plays like a new game. It's just the art style. And everything is amazingly responsive, which is what you need from a platformer like this.

Everything does come down to very precise timing and movement. And I know that sometimes hard-as- as nails platformers like that can feel very frustrating or it'll get to a point where it's really no longer fun and you just want to beat the level and you're kind of starting to pull your hair out. And for me, Celeste has hit exactly the middle of the bullseye for difficulty. You will die. You will die a lot, but the game immediately respawns you and it never feels oppressive. I found that this game has just the perfect difficulty scale and you can even play on harder difficulty modes. You can even get into speed running. So there's like a whole lot of ways to play the game, but even the first time through, you're just playing it at your own pace.

The gameplay elements are just absolutely fantastic. They start to hit you with really creative things that keep the platforming elements fun. So for example, you start to run into these diamonds that just kind of hang into the air. And what happens is if your character touches one of the diamonds, it resets your double jump. And so there actually are levels and certain places where you might do 8, 9, 10 jumps while you're still in the air. Basically kind of like just flying around or trying to get to a certain area because it keeps resetting that double jump. They also hit you with things like wind mechanics. Certain levels have bosses that you have to run away from. So it kind of like cranks up that pressure as you have this boss right on your heels as you're running through the level. They even hit you with like secret

walls and passageways. There are moving ledges that give you momentum. So maybe every time you jump and hold on to this certain ledge, it's going to fly forward. And so then you can time jumping off of that to try to land on a certain ledge or something of that nature. I don't want to ruin any of the late game stuff. stuff but the game is constantly hitting you with a new mechanic that adds an additional twist to the gameplay that keeps it fun and it keeps it new and fresh celeste does it never feels old as you go through it now granted it's not like a terribly long game it's probably somewhere in the eight hour range but there are tons of collectibles if you want to 100 everything you're going to play for a few dozen hours but at minimum you're going to play for a few dozen hours. But at minimum, you're going to get like eight hours.

And I would say every like 20 minutes, they're hitting you with something new where you're like, oh, that's so clever. That's so neat. And so it really just drives you to want to keep playing. This is one that you can absolutely just get sucked into where all of a sudden you realize you've been playing for four hours i think when i first went through celeste i beat it in like a two-day window because i just could not put it down i have reinstalled it and gone through it a couple of times my kids have gone through it as well and uh if you like platformers at all this is an absolute must play you You got to give it a chance.

It has a 97% rating on Steam. And kind of the funniest thing about Celeste that I haven't even touched on is that it actually has a really interesting story that goes along with it. So normally platformers, you don't really have a story, right? Like you're just Mega Man trying to kill Dr. Wily. That's really all it comes down to. Or you're just Mario trying to get the princess because she's been kidnapped well celeste actually has like a really charming world in some ways it kind of reminds me of stardew valley in that

regard where you have characters with really distinct personalities and you get to know them you make some friends along the way there are some enemies as well but this game even tackles like topics like depression and anxiety battling your inner demons self-doubt and so the fact that you kind of get hit with these like higher level themes in a platformer is surprising but it's handled really well so it's not only a really fun platformer game wise the story itself is also very engaging and very rewarding in the end and um it's it's a very cheap game i'm not even too sure what celeste costs i i think full price it might be 10 bucks and this is one that i bought on sale i i remember hearing about celeste and i

heard it was great and for whatever reason i watched a trailer and it just it didn't look that fun to me but finally at one point i saw it was on sale and i just picked it up and it sat in my library for like a year and a half and when i finally installed it i couldn't believe that i waited it's one of those games where you can hear about it and you can even watch it, but you just don't know how good it feels until you get your hands on it yourself. I think Celeste is one of those games where honestly it just takes two minutes of playing and you just immediately get it and you know you're in for a treat. So I really highly recommend Celeste. One of these days I'm hoping to get Josh to play it because I know he has not,

although I do know he is not as big of a fan of platformers as I am, but that's a great one to check out. And it is available on Steam and I think all consoles as well. I would imagine this one plays incredibly well on Switch. This one kind of feels like a really good game to have on a mobile console. So anyway, that's it for today. Go check out Celeste and we'll see you guys next time.