Inspiration comes from strange places.

For many, it's bred from obligation; the need to do something, anything, bringing with it the knowledge that there's work to be done and only one person who can do it. For many, it's spite; hatred and anger, boiling within us, screaming out that it won't be quelled unless action is taken now. For fewer, it's from a desire to grow; a willingness to open yourself and expose your weakness, to be hurt, to be vulnerable, in the name of coming out stronger. Sometimes you just see someone fucking up and being so purposefully ignorant about it that it inspires you to do things properly in their stead.

Celeste is one of the greatest games ever made.

If you asked me what drives me, I'd tell you that it's spite. This is probably not healthy for me, and I don't particularly care. If you asked Madeline what drives her, she’d tell you that she doesn’t know. This is definitely not healthy for her, and the game makes sure that both her and the player understand this. Madeline has a vague, oblique desire to be better. What this entails is climbing a mountain, and it’s left unclear how this is actually meant to help. Sure, the obvious metaphor of literally climbing a mountain is as central to the text of the game as it possibly can be, but lacking any further cause, it’s little more than an act of self-flagellation. It’s hard and punishing and maybe Madeline feels like she deserves that. Celeste is hard and punishing, and maybe you as the player feel like you deserve that. After all, if neither you nor Madeline can get good purely for its own sake, what’s the point? Why bother?

It becomes clearer to both the player and to Madeline as the game progresses that this is far more than just banging your head into a wall until you get it right. It’s the purpose of the literal moment-to-moment gameplay — walk in from the left, do some tough jumps, splat, repeat until you get it right — but the narrative undercurrent gradually erodes through the surface to reveal that this is all in service of an act of self-actualization. Madeline is desperate to prove herself, desperate to understand herself, desperate to not give in to darker desires, desperate to be able to look into a mirror and see her own face instead of a stranger’s. Her desperation carries with it the price of the ascent, and the ascent carries with it the price of her. Madeline suffers in her journey. She’s leveled, brought to all fours beneath the immovable weight of her depression, her panic attacks, her inability to understand who she is. The mountain exposes her, showcasing every part of her that she keeps hidden in every reflective surface, threatening the safety of the people she cares about, reminding her of long-dead relationships with the implication that everything happening is all her fault. It isn’t, of course, but Madeline’s struggles to reach self-actualization reflect how she believes herself to be a failure.

The gameplay and story integration here is masterful, far beyond the raw difficulty of the platforming mirroring the narrative struggles faced by our protagonist. One scene where Madeline suffers a panic attack sees Theo supporting her through it, giving her a little pop piece of meditation while she waits for it to pass; all she needs to do is imagine a feather floating up and down in time with her breathing, and you as the player are tasked with keeping the feather in focus. It isn’t too much further into the game when Madeline decides that she’s gotten over all of her fears and doubts and attempts to use the feather trick as a weapon; it fails, miserably, because she hasn’t come anywhere near achieving the self-actualization that she wants to have. She tries to rush things, to force her fears down instead of process them, to conquer herself rather than accept herself as she is. It’s only after she fails and falls that she realizes that she must accept all of the bad that comes when she understands who she is, merging every part of her into the cohesive whole that is Madeline. As a reward for the player, you get a triple jump. As silly as that might sound, given how heavy the narrative has been up to this point, it’s the evolution of gameplay and the swelling of the music that makes Madeline actually feel like she’s living up to her full potential. The climb has been a struggle for you and her, but now you both have all of the tools you need to reach the top of the mountain. Once you have that, you’re unstoppable.

The narrative of the game, for better and for worse, took on something of a new life with the later explanation that both Maddy Thorson (the lead developer and former name-provider of the studio) and Madeline are trans women. For better, Celeste has remained a tentpole of positive representation since the day it released and has provided many historically-excluded people a strong, important figure to relate to; for worse, it’s incited many of the most annoying posters to hem and haw and handwring over what they perceive to be revisionism for the sake of winning brownie points. Maddy herself has written quite openly about the subject and certainly has far more insight into the topic than any schmuck like myself can throw in, but I’ve seen first-hand the impact that this game has had on the people around me. For a lot of my friends, for a lot of people I care about and respect, Celeste is important because Celeste actually gets it. This shit is hard. It’s exhausting. It isn’t climbing a mountain or beating a hard video game, because those things have a defined end. There’s a clear beginning, and a clear conclusion, and that’s that. The struggle to live as oneself and to be open and honest with who we are is a path filled with unnecessary strife and struggle brought down upon our heads by people who don’t get it. People who refuse to get it. People who benefit from not getting it. I shouldn’t need to point at any of the many, many examples of this in the United States alone, simply because there’s gotten to be too many to keep track of. It’s everywhere, as a sickness.

“This memorial dedicated to those who perished on the climb" is one of the most powerful lines I’ve ever read, and it’s the context from outside of the game’s text that defines it. Unlike any mountain, and unlike any video game, the climb doesn’t stop. The climb started before we were born, and the climb will continue after we’ve gone. For how long we’ve all been fighting, been struggling, been warring against every push and backslide, there’s always more of a climb to take on. This shit won't stop. The obvious question, then, is why we should bother to climb at all.

Celeste’s answer is simple.

To be who you are makes it worth the climb.

Veredito: Difícil, bonito e recompensador.

Celeste é um plataforma simples e direto: 7 fases, chegue no fim da fase pulando pelo caminho. Mas é muito, muito mais que isso.

A história não é grandiosa. É íntima, e uma metáfora linda: uma garota com depressão escalando uma montanha, onde aquela parte de si que ela odeia ganha corpo e voz. Alguém lidando com uma doença mental que mexe com seus sentimentos. E conquistando sua montanha, tanto simbólica quanto literal.

Essa filosofia invade a jogabilidade. Celeste é MUITO difícil, mas deixa claro desde o início que você consegue. Que tem como chegar lá, basta respirar e tentar de novo. O seu tanto de erros é motivo de orgulho, porque quer dizer que tu tá aprendendo. E tudo bem precisar de ajuda.

Sem falar na quantidade obscena de coisa pós-créditos. Quanto mais joga e quanto melhor tu fica, mais fases secretas o jogo tem, cada vez mais difíceis, mas sempre dentro da sua capacidade. Não lembro a última vez que um jogo me deixou tão orgulhoso da minha própria habilidade.

10/10 (Masterpiece)

For the longest time I would consider Mario Kart Wii to be my favorite game of all time. It was the game that got me to play games more from 2017-2020. It was the game I always played… I always loved it and I still do.

But I think I have a new favorite game now.

I know it's a cliché to be trans and love this game. But me being trans has nothing to do with this game being absolutely brilliant.

An amazing gameplay-driven story about anxiety, self-hatred, and the lengths a neurodivergent girlie will go to in order to avoid dealing with her issues.

After beating Hollow Knight and Celeste in quick succession - I couldn't possibly be more excited for Earthblade. EXOK making a metroidvania? Sign me up!

Also Lena Raine is a genius and I've had the soundtrack on repeat for months while drawing comics.

I will say, right off the bat, even as a trans woman, I do appreciate this game way more for its gameplay than its story and characters. Though, the characters are cute and charming, and the story is a more-than-serviceable tale of avoiding inward problems by giving yourself arbitrary outward tasks, I would say it is more a very functional context for what is truly some of the most satisfying, tight, punchy, addicting gameplay I’ve ever experienced in any indie game, let alone an indie platformer. It is pretty special, though, that the story runs parallel with the level design. A lot of the challenges here require dedication, perserverance, and commitment to hit the right beats to get from end to end. The game is insanely frustrating, but never in a way where it feels cheap, or anti-player. Like this is one of very few of these challenge-based games that actually feels like it respects its audience and is looking at you at eye-level. Even without the character arc of the player character basically being the game looking at you straight in the face yelling “don’t give up,” this game’s level design is just on another plane of existence, it feels.

This was the first game I ever streamed online and that was back during the summer of 2020, which might as well be a decade ago considering how much life happened to all of us and me in between now and then. I’d always toyed with replaying this game but never was able to really commit to it, but everyone talking about the sixth anniversary game got me really fantasizing about my return to the mountain. Or maybe it was FOMO. Never the less, after picking it up at the beginning of the month I found it very hard to put down, and found myself prioritizing this game over others that I’ve been playing for months whenever a block of free time presented itself. When I first played way back when, I didn’t exactly skirt all of the extra levels and challenges, but I was far from really putting a lid on this game. This time, at first, I merely wanted to make sure I was beating my old self; collecting more strawberries and dying much less. The latter being a bit of an easy task as some B-sides saw me racking up a little more than a thousand deaths on my first try.

As I toiled through this game, I not only found myself performing better at levels, but also learning better how to spot secrets. The game does a great job hiding secret passages in nooks and crannies that wink to a player who may just notice a little something is off about that corner over there. It does this, too, with subtley guiding the player to figuring out how to complete a certain challenge. It is an invisible guidance that exists only in the level design, but it’s the kind of stuff you realize is there when you nail a section on the first try because the game wired your instincts correctly. Near the beginning, the game tells the player to be proud of every death, that you may learn from each one. It seems like a cutesy little message that might remind one of how their mom cheers them up after a lost U-12 soccer match, but it is true. These platformers are all secretly puzzle games and with each death you kinda start to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Something I did differently in this second playthrough than my first, was that if something I was doing wasn’t working, I wouldn’t just die the same way 15 more times before realizing I might need to try something new.

So, yeah, I absolutely adored it on round two. Still feel far from a real desire to beat every level and even farther from wanting to 100% it, but it’s definitely up there with my favorite stuff of all time. Maybe I should try Super Meat Boy again…

First review of 2024 baby! What a first game to start the year. I first played this back in 2019 and absolutely loved it. I beat all of the chapters, both A and B sides but never did any of the C sides nor did I get all the strawberries. This playthrough I did tho and man it felt good. Before I get into that let me talk about why this game is so great.

Why don't I just get right into the story first. When I first played, I remember being blown away by the story and absolutely loving it. While I do still think it's good, there was something bothering me throughout and it may just be a me thing. Theo, he's not a bad character but why all the mentions of selfies and his social media 😭. I hate to say it but it was really taking me out of the story at points. It was definitely the biggest issue I had when replaying this. Otherwise though, the Madeline side of the story is really good. I like how anyone that plays this game can at least relate to her need to overcome her personal demons and I think the fact they made it so she accepts them for what they are instead of just trying to bury them completely, I like that execution way more. They portrayed anxiety and depression super well and I think that's the game's strongest aspect when it come's to story.

The soundtrack is pretty solid, tho I remember loving it back then which I wouldn't say I love it now. Don't get me wrong, it's good and there are some standout tracks in certain chapters but I didn't like it as much as I did in 2019 I think. Maybe it was because I was more focused on playing the game and didn't pay attention to the music too much this time around? I also maybe wasn't a fan of the voices they gave the characters. Idk some of the time I found it kinda annoying which is a shame.

As for some of the biggest positives, the game is amazing visually. The pixel art is pretty much perfect the whole way through and the backgrounds in some of these chapters are breathtaking. Golden Ridge I think was the standout especially, it was gorgeous.

Now we come to my favorite part of the game, the gameplay. This is easily one of the most fun 2D platformers I've ever played. It's just so polished and the level design is so good. One of my favorite things was just finding all the secrets, there's a ton of them whether it's hidden strawberries or crystal hearts or B side tapes or even that one hidden indie game screen I somehow found by doing the wavedash (that was insane) they're all really fun to find. I also really love just how many different techniques you can perform. A lot of them aren't explained until late late game or not even at all and they can really break the game sometimes, it's awesome. Celeste is also extremely difficult I'm sure you know. Indeed, some of the later levels in the base game can get super duper hard. The B sides and C sides especially, some of those were nuts. As I said, I did everything in the base game...everything except for the golden strawberries. I got the one in chapter 1 A side but that was it. They just don't feel too worth it since it's not new content...just surviving an entire chapter without dying which isn't too fun imo. As for the hardest part of the base game, that hands down has to go to Chapter 7 Side C. Jesus Christ that last fucking screen took me 3 hours in-game time and exactly 1152 deaths. None of the other chapters came close to that many deaths and you know what, I'm so glad I did it. I'll never do it again mind you, but I told myself that if I did it...I'd bump this game to a 9. So for now that's what I'll do tho I may bump it down to an 8.5 who knows.

I do have some issues that are more a me thing but this game is super fun and definitely a top tier indie in my book.

Oh and as for farewell...yes I'll be doing that next and yes I am very scared. I got up to the point where you're required to wavedash back in 2019 and then quit. I've heard it's extremely brutal in the 2nd half so I'm nervous but I will persevere boys. Wish me luck!

"im gonna turn my death machine game into a moving self-improvement story, best idea ever"
just hope that the story of a childish Carmelite who has to separate herself into "bad Maddie" and "Good Maddie" wins me over somehow.
Unlike 1001 spikes or Itakagi's Ninja Gaiden, this game builds its deadmachine without grace or personality by fitting it into that premise. It seems to make sense, but confusing perseverance with masochism and self-acceptance with the separation of "my good half and my bad half" is very childish, although later both halfs come together in the form of ... POWER UP? DAFAC DUDE.
One note: Since I was a kid, I have always been interested in how each person took the rhetoric of the hardcore player, perhaps the difficulty in the 80s was profitable as a time value, but in the 90s and 2000s it was already an aesthetic

One of the many tragedies of the human condition is that before something can be thought, it must be felt. Threads of logic are usually created backwards, towards the emotionally preordained conclusion, rather than forwards to some objective truth. With that in mind, I can’t actually give any thoughts on Celeste, because I didn’t feel anything when I played it. It’s a well presented platformer and all, but I’ve played so many spike-filled indie platformers before that all I experienced was emotional detachment. I’ve played so, so many pixely indie platformers. I’ve fallen into spikes thousands of times. I’ve seen overearnest protagonists learn to believe in themselves more than could ever be counted. I’ve seen characters fight personified versions of their inner demons even more times than that. Unless this game ended up being the absolute best implementation of all these tropes, I was never going to feel anything but resignation at seeing the same old thing all over again. While this feeling could launch an argument of how Celeste treads over well-worn ground instead of doing its own thing, it’s important to recognize that this “flaw” simply won’t exist for the people without the same sort of fatigue. To anyone who hasn’t played a ton of agonizingly hard platformers, this one will feel pretty amazing, with fluid animations and a satisfying take on the standard mechanics. The main campaign introduces them all at an even clip, and the more advanced techniques can be explored in the load of optional challenges. For anyone who wants to get into the vast world of hard platformers and fangames, this would be a good place to start, but it’s impossible to impress someone who’s seen it all before.

If you were to ask a random person in the street which is the best 2D platformer they played in the past years, they will ask you what the fuck are you even talking about, but if you asked the same question to someone that knows a bit about videogames, most people now-a-days will probably point to Celeste, and how not to.

Celeste is so well designed it's scary, every single part of the levels, whether main or secret, is tuned to absolute perfection; everything new is introduced and taught at a perfect pace, you first encounter a cool new mechanic and you think ''Oh, this is cool'' and then BOOM you find yourself flying across the levels, thinking ''Oh wait I may be able to do this'' and you do it and you can, it's a game that makes you be creative and think about the ways you can defeat the level, and that's thanks to the fact that Madeline's base move-set is everything you need: jump, climbing, and a dash, with this three things, the game goes ballistic without never forgetting that core gameplay, which is something that cannot be said about a lot of other games.

And yes, Celeste is hard, VERY hard, in my first playthrough I died about 4,000 times, far more than with other games, so why then while playing, for example, Super Meat Boy I was as rabid as hell, but with Celeste I barely had any stressful moments?

The answer is in how the games presents itself, which is, for a lack of a better word, ''chill'' (no pun intended). Celeste is beautiful, both in looks and sound; it's pixel art it's marvelous, everything looks stylized to the extreme, and that simplistic look helps the game both in how it looks AND in gameplay. And the sound it's almost otherworldly, every sound effect is feels right, recognizable and submerges you even more in this little world, and the soundtrack is honest to god one of the best I've ever heard, period, every song is both memorable and it fits well with each moment, it can be calm, upbeat, oppressive, sad and victorious to a range that's fantastic.

In contrast to all of this, the game's story themes are very heavy, and it doesn't shy away of that. Depression and a sensation of lack of self-worth is what envelopes the game as a whole, but in the end I didn't found myself tearing up sadness, but of joy. Madeline's adventure is one of acceptance of a part that we don't want, of accepting the fact that yes, we may not always succeed, we may sometimes fuck up, but that is a truth that we must accept, and once we do that, we will be able to come up top; this is not the first game to tackle this type of themes, but it was one of the first to tackle it this well both in its story and in gameplay.

I did get mad and stressed ta few times during my time with Celeste, but all of them could be considered my fault. The game really brings home the final idea of doing things at your own pace, the sections where you have to go truly fast and few and far between, respawning is fast as hell and it gives you all the options needed to make this climbing as hard or as easy as you want to. It lets you be you, and never looks down nor up on you for it, it simply has a ton of respect for the player as much as the player has for Madeline.

Celeste is not perfect, some of the side content is really whacky to say the least and what it demands of you to reach the final base levels is sometimes exaggerated, and I'll admit some parts of some base levels are not all winners, but that just pales in comparison with the sheer magnitude of the rest of the game. This may not be my favorite 2D platformer ever, but it has some of my favorite moments, this is truly a piece of art worth to be celebrated, and its message almost everyone will found a lesson to be taught, a reason to keep climb.

Just... don't overdo yourself, ok?

Be seeing ya.

A fantastic little platformer. A bit too hard for me but I can absolutely respect the craft that went into it.

All that said I found Celeste is fairly friendly to players of all levels in that when you do die you reload instantly and each screen is a new checkpoint making the game a series of short and fairly quick puzzle rooms. It really does bring about that, "just one more try feeling". I started the game just to try it and found myself still playing it 3 hours and 500 deaths later.

The story follows Madeline, a young woman attempting to climb the mountain of Celeste to prove to herself she can. It actually has a deeper story and character elements than I expected and I actually quite liked a lot of the writing, some of it resonated with me as someone that does suffer from depression and anxiety and some of it was just actually quite humorous.

The game plays over 7 stages and has two bonus levels to play for those that want the challenge. My first run took me about 12 hours. Celeste also features a ton of collectibles in often secret or challenging places to work out how to get to. It's one of the aspects of the game I love, that some of the platforming is simply a puzzle to work out. The game is very simple yet hard to master. Celeste can wall climb for a short period, wall jump once and air dash once. That's pretty much it but the game just controls so well in dashing around the obstacles. Whenever I died it was because I had made a mistake in some way, I never felt Celeste was ever unfair.

Once the main game is finished if you find the collectible cassette tapes you can try the B or C sides of those levels. They are essentially remixed levels with the story sections removed and much harder. It was these I had to acknowledge I just wasn't good enough. I'm not a huge platformer fan or speedrunner but that's ok because Celeste has you covered. It has an assist mode which allows you to change the settings to either slow the gameplay down, give invincibility, infinite air dashes etc. allowing me to still play through and see all the content without feeling frustrated and I really appreciated this as it allows people of all skill levels to have fun which is what gaming is about to me.

(You can also play the original Celeste Classic game as an optional extra hidden in the main game I found cute. It was originally written for the Pico-8 virtual console in 2016 and is free to play online but including it was a nice touch.)

Despite all the praise I did find one of the levels just not that fun to play through in the middle section of the game and whilst I appreciate they tied in with the story and gave and extra challenge I just don't feel it really fit in well with the rest of the platforming design.

Still, overall Celeste is a fantastic game. I bought it due to it's critical acclaim and despite not being my genre of choice had a really good time with it and would recommend every one give it a try.

+ Tight platforming.
+ "Just one more go"
+ Surprisingly good little story and characters.
+ Fantastic accessibility options.

- One level I didn't really find fun.

This is one of those games that I really want to like. I’ve tried nearly a dozen times to get it to “click” and it never does.

I always bounce off of it and I’ve never entirely understand why.

Sure, the platforming is precision machined but maybe the fact that the game is too forgiving with its checkpoints leads to a lack of stakes or tension for someone like me that isn’t going to go for every strawberry.

I also think the levels might be too long and that the game forces you to spend too much time in individual biomes.

The story’s presentation, at least early on, may also be a bit too sappy and not engaging.

Idk. I know people really love this game and what I’ve played of it is fine. But it’s lacking something crucial.

Good OST, though.

Long live depression, the video game.

The game is all allegories and metaphors of certain mental states related to depression and sadness while climbing a mountain facing its dangers.

Starting with the difficulty. The screens are representations of depression and the effort involved in overcoming them another representation of how difficult it is to fight it. But this is about the most superficial difficulty I've seen in a long time. For 4 reasons:

1. All the screens are full of obstacles that at the slightest brush with any of them makes you start over.

2. The control of the character, at least with PS4 controller, is not accurate at all and when you have to lean or land in a small hole surrounded by dangers, most of the time you do it on top of the obstacles. And to start again.

3. Many parts require an almost perfect timing to grab or dodge something. In addition to the previous point, you die dozens of times.

4. In many screens, you don't see the end from the beginning, so once you start jumping and advancing through them you'll find new obstacles that you didn't know were there and the most likely thing is, effectively, to die and start over.

It's one thing for the difficulty to be the representation of a certain dangerous elements, and another to resort to all those cheap cheat points to get hundreds or thousands of kills. Dark Souls good, Celeste bad.

Plus I don't see the originality or memorable elements that so many talk about either in the way you move or the obstacles to overcome. It's clear what you have to do from the beginning of the level, the complication comes from the cheapness of its gameplay. Platforms that move when you touch them, blue balls that transport you, other red ones that do the same. Spikes everywhere so you don't forget to die. Feathers that make you fly for a few seconds. It all seems to me a compendium of things already seen to which only adds that difficulty so crappy excusing itself in the topics it deals with to try to give it something of value.

But the difficulty is actually the least of my concern. Let's move on to the story and the issues it deals with, which I find the most bleeding.

How it deals with depression and derivative issues is like if you read the first line of the meaning of depression on Wikipedia. The end. Everything any of their characters say is as simple and basic as you can hear. They all spit it in your face in case you hadn't heard it yet. They're all just as flat: the shy protagonist who pouts when she's upset, the clueless sidekick with a heart of gold, the old lady who's annoying at first but then turns out to have wisdom. All equally predictable. All trivializing the subject at hand.

And the worst of all is that, dealing with such a serious subject, the creator trivializes it to the extreme and even makes fun of it, although not in an intended way, I would like to think.

Let me explain. It's about 2 elements of the game: the dark part of Madeleine in terms of extreme trivialization and the strawberries that can be picked on the screens in terms of mockery.

The dark side of the protagonist appears when she looks into a mirror. This being represents everything bad inside Madeline: negativity, cowardice, prejudice and complexes. Throughout the game she torments us until, due to typical plot clichés, she stops being an enemy and becomes an ally. The problem of all this is that while in the game Madeline says that she will accept her darkness as part of her being, and that seems right to me because all humans are like that and we have to live with it, the reality is that in the rest of the game this dark part is behaving more and more like Madeline until finally they are identical in terms of virtues and personality.

That is not to accept oneself with the virtues and defects as humans that we are. That is practically ceasing to have flaws and becoming more like a robot than a living being, as if we could change everything inside us with a snap.

And as for the mockery. In the game there are a series of collectibles in the form of strawberries that are scattered throughout almost every screen, being much more difficult to get them than beating the level itself. I think it's the only secondary content in the game.

Ok. If I make the effort to enter into the narrative of all the allegories and metaphors that the game throws in my face and ``enjoy'' that plot of overcoming and get excited with the characters etc., can someone explain me why the strawberries?

Isn't it supposed that the difficulty that the levels already have represents how hard depression and self-acceptance is? Isn't it supposed that each time we overcome one we are getting closer to the end of that pain? Isn't it supposed that putting an end to that pain is the main goal of Madeline and the play? Why submit to die another thousand times and endure more time that pain in a game so supposedly serious about these important issues?

And I answer myself. The strawberries are there purely and simply to lengthen that pain. To lengthen the depression and anxiety of the protagonist for free. All because games have to have secondary collectibles as a rule. All for completionist players to show off the thousands of times they've died throughout the game and the strawberries they've found. To get the medal. For pure cheap gaming. At the cost of mutilating the message that the game supposedly intends to convey about anxiety and depression. Because all this work is nothing more than a poor excuse to make the platformer of the moment dressing it with serious themes so that people talk about it. This is not art. This is anti-art.

Maybe I would give less importance to the strawberries if they were hidden, but the game puts them in most of the levels. It wants you to know of their existence, it wants you to try to catch them for the dozens of tries it will take. Not only that, but in the few moments when the levels are a bit more open and there are several areas where you can go, while I was looking for the right path to follow the plot, I was continually getting into rooms whose only purpose was to get the blissful strawberry at the end of them, guarded by many dangers.``Forget about the stupid problems of the girl, try to get this reward for hours´´ i heard in my head.

In the end, what I was doing was turning around as soon as I entered these rooms. I was literally turning my back on the creator's true intentions, and I think it's perfect.

-------

Viva la depresión, el videojuego.

El juego es todo alegorías y metáforas de determinados estados mentales relacionados con la depresión y tristeza mientras se escala una montaña afrontando sus peligros.

Empezando por la dificultad. Las pantallas son representaciones de la depresión y el esfuerzo que supone superarlas otra representación de lo difícil que es luchar contra ella. Pero se trata de la dificultad más superficial que he visto en mucho tiempo. Por 4 motivos:

1. Todas las pantallas están repletas de obstáculos que al mínimo roce con alguno te hace volver a empezar.

2. El control del personaje, por lo menos con mando de PS4, no es nada exacto y cuando toca apoyarte o aterrizar en un pequeño hueco rodeado de peligros, la mayoría de veces lo hace encima de los obstáculos. Y a volver a empezar.

3. Muchas partes requieren un timing casi perfecto para agarrarte a algo o esquivarlo. Unido al anterior punto hace que, sorpresa, mueras decenas de veces.

4. En muchas pantallas, no se ve el final desde el inicio, así que una vez que se empieza a saltar y a avanzar por ellas te vas encontrando con nuevos obstáculos que no sabías que estaban ahí y lo más probables es, efectivamente, morir y volver a empezar.

Una cosa es que la dificultad sea la representación de cierto elemento complicado, y otra es que se recurra a todos esos puntos baratos y tramposos para conseguir cientos o miles de muertes. Dark Souls bien, Celeste mal.

Además de que no veo la originalidad ni elementos memorables de los que tantos hablan ni en la forma de moverse o en los obstáculos a superar. Está claro lo que se tiene que hacer desde el inicio del nivel, la complicación viene de lo barato de su jugabilidad. Plataformas que se mueven cuando las tocas, bolas azules que te transportan, otras rojas que lo mismo. Pinchos por todos lados para que no se te olvide morir. Plumas que te hacen volar unos segundos. Todo me parece un compendio de cosas ya vistas a las que solo se aporta esa dificultad tan cutre excusándose en los temas que trata para intentar darle algo de valor.

Ah, pero las bolas azules representan las lágrimas, las rojas la sangre, los pinchos el peligro de la tristeza y las plumas las ansias de ser libre. Es verdad. Obra maestra.

Pero, a pesar del tocho, en realidad la dificultad es lo que menos me importa. Pasemos a la historia y los temas que trata, que me parece lo más sangrante.

El como trata la depresión y temas derivados es como si lees la primera línea del significado de depresión en Wikipedia. Fin. Todo lo que dice cualquiera de sus personajes es lo más simple y básico que se puede escuchar. Todos te lo escupen a la cara por si todavía no te habías enterado. Todos son iguales de planos: la protagonista tímida que pone morritos cuando está molesta, el compañero despistado pero con corazón de oro, la anciana al principio pesada pero luego resulta que tiene sabiduría. Todos igual de predecibles. Todos banalizando el tema en cuestión.

Y lo peor de todo es que, tratando el tema tan serio que trata, el creador lo banaliza hasta el extremo e incluso se burla de él, aunque no de forma pretendida, quiero pensar.

Me explico. Se trata de 2 elementos del juego: la parte oscura de Madeleine en cuanto a la banalización extrema y las fresas que se pueden recoger en las pantallas en cuanto a la burla.

La parte oscura de la protagonista aparece, en otro alarde de originalidad, cuando se mira a un espejo. Este ser representa todo lo malo que hay dentro de Madeline: la negatividad, la cobardía, los prejuicios y los complejos. Durante todo el juego nos va atormentando hasta que por clichés típicos de la trama deja de ser enemiga y se convierte en aliada. El problema de todo esto es que mientras en el juego Madeline dice que aceptará a su oscuridad como parte de su ser, y que me parece correcto pues todos los humanos somos así y hay que vivir con ello, la realidad es que en el resto del juego esta parte oscura cada vez se va comportando más como Madeline hasta que finalmente son idénticas en cuanto a virtudes y personalidad.

Eso no es aceptarse uno mismo con las virtudes y defectos como humanos que somos. Eso es dejar de tener prácticamente defectos y asemejarse más a un robot que a un ser vivo, como si pudiésemos cambiar todo lo que hay en nuestro interior con un chasquido. Por como se tratan los temas durante todo el juego ya me parecía una banalización enorme, pero este elemento ya supera todas las barreras. Por eso me parece una de las mayores banalizaciones y cobardías que he tenido la desgracia de ver en cualquier obra.

Y en cuanto a la burla. En el juego hay una serie de coleccionables en forma de fresas que están repartidas por casi todas las pantallas, siendo mucho más difícil conseguirlas que superar el nivel propiamente dicho. Creo que es el único contenido secundario del juego.

De acuerdo. Si hago el esfuerzo de entrar en la narrativa de todas las alegorías y metáforas que el juego me tira a la cara y ``disfrutar´´ de esa trama de superación y emocionarme con los personajes etc.., ¡¿me puede explicar alguien a que viene lo de las fresas?!

¿No se supone que la dificultad que ya tienen los niveles de por sí representa lo dura que es la depresión y aceptarse uno mismo? ¿No se supone que cada vez que superamos uno nos estamos acercando más al fin de ese dolor? ¿No se supone que poner fin a ese dolor es el objetivo primordial de Madeline y de la obra?

Y me respondo a mí mismo. Las fresas están ahí simple y llanamente para alargar ese dolor. Para alargar la depresión y ansiedad de la protagonista. A costa de mutilar el mensaje que supuestamente pretende transmitir el juego. Todo porque los juegos tienen que tener coleccionables secundarios por norma. Todo para que los jugadores completistas enseñen las miles de veces que han muerto a lo largo del juego y las fresas que han encontrado. Para tener la medalla. Por puro gaming barato. Porque toda esta obra no es más que una pobre excusa para hacer el plataformas de turno vistiéndolo de temas serios para que la gente hable de él. Esto no es arte. Es el antiarte.

Quizá le daría menos importancia a las fresas si estuviesen escondidas, pero el juego te las pone en la mayoría de los niveles. Quiere que sepas de su existencia, quiere intentes cogerlas las decenas de intentos que tardarás. No solo eso, sino que en los pocos momentos en los que los niveles son un poco más abiertos y hay varias zonas por donde puedes ir, mientras yo estaba buscando el camino correcto para seguir la trama, continuamente me metía en salas cuyo único fin era conseguir la dichosa fresa al final de ellas, custodiada por muchos peligros.

Al final, lo que hacía era darme media vuelta después de haberme hecho perder el tiempo y seguir buscando el camino bueno. Literalmente le estaba dando la espalda a las verdaderas intenciones de la obra, y me parece perfecto.