TCOT Good&Bad And Beyond

Welcome to a new installment of the project.

We decided to change to a new section our newest retrospective style and keep it as the classic one to shift it to this new section that will help cover more games.

In resume we will have three separate subsections, the pros or "goods", the cons or "bads" as the title and beyond means a different way every time.

The Good:

The Story:

Celeste has an strange way of telling the story, you will meet characters and have a good quantity of interesting chats as a normal story but the gimmicks are there.

The most easy way of getting to the point is to say that almost all the story is reduced to personal struggling and the chats do a great job reflecting it without making it obvious.

You will grow a little and probably the game will reflect on yourself to certain degree, so the story is a great reason for playing this game, maybe you will leave it being a better person.

A nice Pixel Art style that always hold on

The Difficult Curve & Gameplay :

Don't be fooled by the style, this game is hard.

The game is divided by chapters in the outside world but this is more like a Mario 2D style, the chapter is a world and is divided by "screens" or sublevels that function as one world because they're more long than an average platforming level of any game with a chapter section.

You probably will be dying a couple of time in the early stages and more as you're advancing through the stages, for example I started dying like 20 to 30 times, maybe more every screen in a chill afternoon while playing some of the last levels of the game.

You can apply a little extra difficult getting all the strawberries over the levels, these are very easy in the early stages but they slowly ramp up to be a complete nightmare for the less skilled players.

Pretty straight forward right?
Wait a couple of chapters...

The Bad Side Of The Mountain (The Wrongs of the game):

The Ramp Of Difficulty isn't for all:

In my opinion the game isn't that bad on this side but I would be lying if I don't mention that can lead to some frustrating sessions after a while.

While the game starts very simple in a classic platforming experience, the difficult ramp up slowly but getting almost impossible for a sector of players not very skilled after some hours in.

Being honest, the game isn't that harsh, the retry or "lifes" are unlimited and automatic so you don't wait more than a couple of seconds to try again, also the checkpoints are every screen so you don't lose a lot of progress.

You can choose to play a whole another level of difficult getting all the strawberries but without them you are versus some levels tremendously harder than your average platforming game so take that in account.

The scenery is beautiful, nothing can take that away

The game mechanics can overstay it's welcome after a while:

Repetitiveness can be bad or not that important for anyone that loves the central gameplay but is a great opportunity to explore a little more.

I'm not saying that is bad or anything like that but being completely transparent, the last couple of chapters bored a serious amount of time.

The mechanics are clean and fun, the game changes little bits of gameplay and the scenery but from the middle of the story to the end, you have seen almost everything about the levels ideas and the game throws you a mix of these obstacles in a bit more long to a lot more longer than expected levels.

This isn't bad for those loving the experience but for me the tricks where more a trial and error of mastering the core mechanics than adapting and improving organically, maybe that's the point but I would have loved more gimmicks, enemies or traps than just throwing a mix of them and call it a day.

This works the other way too as the mechanics are that simple that you can leave the game a while or some weeks and after some minutes you're good to go again.

Scary boy

Beyond The Game:

The narrative strikes as something very simple and on the side but it can reflect you in a more hard way than expected, this isn't something that happens a lot so you can play it and recommend it to a friend.

This can lead to some interesting discussions about the same game with a very different perspective so don't sleep on it.

Art and music hit just right with the character that is Madeline and the development that it has, a mix that probably won't be as noticed as well as the gameplay but is something much appreciated on a second run or if you're a very perceptive person.

To end this section, the emotional side and impact this game can deliver is something that must be experienced if you're conflicted about yourself or something that strikes as very personal, maybe this game can help, reflecting yourself with this game and opening your mind to your loved ones can be a good fit for growing as a person.