Celeste first playthrough, part 10

Channel:

CnEY

Subscribers:

289

Published on August 3, 2023 1:13:24 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV7WbUsDwdc

Game:

Celeste (2018)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 8:26:07

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2

I finally have all that's needed to unlock the rest of the postgame.

(Spoiler warning: postgame details ahead)



I can now open both the gate at the beginning of Core B-side and in the middle of Farewell, so I set out to play through both of those - after cleaning up the 2 remaining berries in Core A-side that I overlooked, and finding out whether the epilogue would change again.

Core B-side was easily spicier than anything I'd seen to that point. Heading straight for Farewell's conclusion immediately thereafter may have been inadvisable, as finishing the final B-side also unlocked C-sides, and in retrospect I suspect that Farewell's difficulty curve might expect you to have also played those before continuing to its conclusion.

I only came to that realization midway through one of its later checkpoints and didn't want to lose progress by returning to the map, and by the time I reached the next checkpoint, I thought I was likely close to the end and might as well keep going. I wasn't quite as close to the end as I thought. And then when the game straight-up TOLD me I was (really, really) close to the end, it was still quite an endeavor to finish.

I have MANY thoughts about the final room of Farewell in particular. I feel that it is excessively and unnecessarily frustrating. At the same time, the fact that I invested multiple HOURS in this one room and didn't give up is a huge testament to how well-designed the entire rest of the game is.

This room is the most extreme "difficulty" spike in the game by several orders of magnitude... but I air-quote "difficulty" because the main reason this room is such an ordeal is not because of a legitimate increase in difficulty, but because it expects you to pull off MULTIPLE MINUTES of consecutive tech, and react to a couple of surprises, without any continue points (I'd estimate it's at least 3x as long as any other room in the game, likely even more).

Once you start making it further into the room, it takes extremely long just to get back to where you last made it to, and your chances of dying before making it back are extremely high. This is a blatant waste of the player's time - possibly my number-one pet peeve in video games, and the reason I do not touch certain genres whatsoever. I had no interest in touching Celeste for a very long time because I suspected it would be one of those games.

But for the most part, Celeste is NOT one of those games. Rooms are typically rather short (I want to say usually less than 30 seconds?) and retrying is extremely quick. Moreover, Celeste generally introduces challenges gradually enough that you feel like you're constantly learning and improving. You always feel like you can conquer the next room. The game has managed to consistently underline that point for 30 hours, and in the process it has earned my respect in a way that very few games have. That alone kept me from rage-quitting; I can probably identify half a dozen moments in this room where I would have otherwise.

I imagine the developers wanted to make this last room really count, really be memorable, and really feel rewarding. But when it wastes the player's time at an exponential rate relative to any other room in the game, I don't really feel rewarded anymore, I just feel tired. I really think this room would have benefited from _one_ continue point, probably right before the upward section. I expect that would have cut my play time for this single room in half (saving me nearly an hour).

I debated chopping up my final room playthrough and only including the most remarkable attempts, but decided to upload the whole thing so anyone who wants to appreciate the long and grueling process has that option. For those who would rather skip around, here are some key points to jump to:

6:33:06 - I first reach the Farewell checkpoint
6:56:52 - I clear the first ~1/3 of the room for the first time
7:02:45 - An amusing near-save, followed by some remarks about the room's padding due to lack of checkpoints
7:09:54 - I clear the first ~1/3 of the room for the second time (clearly I didn't fully understand it the first time if it took this long to do again; I start getting there more consistently after this point)
7:26:43 - I reach the downward portion for the first time
7:35:20 - I reach the visible home stretch for the first time
7:46:56 - One particularly unfortunate surprise death
7:51:06 - A couple of comments about visual accessibility, interspersed across a couple of deaths
7:54:25 - I encounter what feels like the closest thing this game has to kaizo without being kaizo
8:02:43 - My distrust of fish continues
8:06:24 - I want to strangle this one fish in particular
8:10:26 - This is the run

I'm still not done with Celeste. Since I unwittingly headed straight for the end of Farewell without touching the C-sides, we've still got that to look forward to when I next have the chance to play.

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