Celeste is a game for Gamers
143Celeste, one of my favorite games of all time, teaches us all some great lessons in relation to what it means to play video games. Aside from the mental mountains it climbs, Celeste also reaches the pinnacle of what it means to be a game for gamers. Let's talk about why. Full script below.
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Script (max it would let me paste):
Hey nerds, I’ve been meaning to make this video for months now. Let me start by saying that Celeste is one of my favorite games of all time, from the time of me playing Space Invaders on my parents Atari to playing Overwatch at some of the highest levels a non-pro seeking player can reach. But, my experience with Celeste is a little different than most. It impacted me as a gamer first and foremost. The figurative mental mountain Celeste climbs also affected me in a few ways, but that won’t be the focus of our conversation today. There are plenty of great videos that rightfully place Celeste as an emotional platformer with real positive mental impact. However, if you’re still interested, you can listen to me talk through why, to me, Celeste is one of the greatest games of all time.
I think this is a seldom discussed topic because most the focus is directed at Celeste’s emotional triumphs over anxiety and other difficult mental conditions. While Celeste did a phenomenal job broaching these topics, I think we should take a moment to appreciate the elegance of the platformer itself and, specifically, once of the most brilliant phases ever thrown at me in a video game. It reads as this – “Be proud of your Death Count. The more you die, the more you’re learning. Keep going!”
Why is that so important? To me, and many other more competitive gamers, we get stuck in the continuous competitive cycle of grinding, losing, flaming, and everything else toxic associated with competitive games. Very early on in Celeste when I was still unsure what to think about the game, I saw this postcard pop-up on my screen and I think it was the first time in a long time I smiled from the bottom of my heart about a message provided to me by a video game. You can feel the encouragement and support the game is giving you; it tries to adjust your feeling of defeat to a feeling of hope and pride in that it looks to your Death Count as a measure of progress rather than a marker of failure. I have not played a single competitive game – Dota, LOL, Halo, CoD, Overwatch, name any you want, where at the end of my match or during the playthrough some random assortment of code took the time to remind me that all is well and I’m always getting better no matter the outcome. I could go on about this for a while, but I dislike when folks beat a single topic to death for the sake of YouTube minutes, so feel free to discuss with me below if you want to talk about this more.
Instead of discussing the philosophical implications of what I stated above, let’s discuss the most embodied form of this in game, at least in my opinion. This is actually my original playthrough of Level 7C. Over and over you’ve watched me die from the very start of this video. This is the only footage I ever really recorded of me playing Celeste, because even though I recorded this on April 2, 2018, I knew that upon completing this level, it would be one of my favorite personal accomplishments as a gamer. Why is that? Celeste builds your mechanics up from the start of the game, slowly making each puzzle more difficult. The final segment of 7C is an extended fight for you to prove to the game that you’ve mastered it beyond all doubt. From the beginning to the ending sequence, your game awareness, mechanical skill, and short-term memory of the map is tested.
Let’s take a moment to watch my completion of this level after over 1000 deaths.
When you speak to the older lady near the end of the map, she reflects it’s “Funny how we get attached to the struggle”. To myself, and competitive gamers all around the world, that is one of the truest statements an NPC has ever uttered. We become almost addicted to the repetitive cycle of winning and losing, then slowly improving over time. Maybe we’ll have another discussion about this at some point, but again, I dislike belaboring points because the overall topics will lose their intended message.
So, where do I want to end this discussion? If you are a gamer who is feeling burnt out, unmotivated to play anything other than online games, or in general just can’t find joy in your standard 1 player games, then I highly encourage you to pick up Celeste and give it a try. I promise you won’t regret it. Thank you for your time and thanks to Matt for understanding how many gamers truly feel by creating a truly exceptional game.
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Celeste Statistics For LowKeyNerd
At present, LowKeyNerd has 3,375 views spread across 1 video for Celeste, and less than an hour worth of Celeste videos were uploaded to his channel. This makes up less than 0.49% of the total overall content on LowKeyNerd's YouTube channel.