About two months ago, familiar to everyone at least somewhat interested in the media sector to the user, the aggregator site Metacritic announced a list of the best computer games released in the first half of 2018. Similar loud words usually sound pretty gone, naturally provoking the familiar images of videos on YouTube in the spirit of “Top 10 Anime of betrayal”, but in this case are technically justified.
As the specifics of the site obliges, the ranking was carried out only taking into account dry numbers, and the projects were built on the basis of the assessment that each of them received on the platform with the largest number of reviews. On the first line, more than expected, you can see God of War (2018). Colossus Sony After the very first reviews screaming from admiration, he struck this place for himself. However, the following silver medalist immediately brought me out, lazily squeezing this news, from a state of bored idleness.
The feeling I had experienced was not even a surprise from the middle -born of the middle -born, which was so highly met in the top. It was only a comprehensive bewilderment. In the second position there was something under the name Celeste; color-pixel indie with an extremely impressive result of 92 points. After such as a person who is trying, let it be quite unsuccessfully, to maintain at least an approximate idea of the modern indie industry, it remained only to go and get acquainted with.
Question: What is this the same Celeste?
Answer: Perhaps the most shy contender for the title of best indie game 2018.
Celeste, First of all, – hardcore platformer. Released in the seemingly distant February of this year, the game for some reason did not attract serious attention. On one well -known gaming portal to us, it was not even considered a decent full -fledged video review. Is it worth talking about a lack of hype at all if today the game has only one official text review of all possible materials on the site, one blog post and one miserable mention in the news section.
After spending a sufficient amount of time in Celeste I will allow myself to make an impudent statement:
This game deserves much more
Plot
It all starts with the main character, Madelin. This piercing-red-haired girl, whose age in appearance can be determined more accurately than “something between 10 and 25”, we find at the time of an important decision. She, alone, going on a trip away from the house, stands at the foot Celestes – The most mystical and mysterious mountain, which is only known to man. And she is going to do what only a few managed to reach her – to reach the very top.
After such a simple and unpretentious entry, the presence of the plot itself seems a pleasant surprise. Contrary to the traditional canons of the genre in Celeste The gameplay is not the sole aggregate of the space between setting the goal and its achievement. On the contrary, fragments of history are unobtrusively woven not only into the general canvas of progression, but also into gameplay sections. The heroine under the control of the player during the rise is found with a number of peculiar, but charming and not similar characters to each other. Most of the scenario component lies precisely in ordinary everyday communication and spiritual conversations with them.
Although these dialogs are not a critical element for promoting the plot, all of them, one way or another, serve as an instrument of forming a audience involvement. Answers are given to many questions that the player did not even plan to ask, naively accepting the unknown for the banal conventionality of the genre. It is revealed why the girl initially decided on a crazy ascent, and it also becomes clear why she continues to move forward and what she lurks in the depths of her soul. Madelin It begins to feel truly alive, and all its problems and experiences, closely close to many people, inevitably provoke empathy. It is due to this that the story, not being a complex and confusing interweaving of events and characters, is capturing, and the resolution of philosophical and psychological conflicts that arise inside the main character fascinates.
Gameplay
As the genre belonging suggests, the process of climbing the mountain will be as far from the usual understanding. In the best traditions of game conventions, the player is faced with the task of passing many separate locations filled with obstacles. Bottomless abysses are interspersed with spikes and other objects located in the most unexpected places, contact with which immediately leads to death and restart. Fortunately, the heroine herself also does not engage in climbing in his classic form. Instead of complex systems from ice axes, cables and carbines, it uses slightly more spectacular and effective techniques and abilities.
Departing from the concept of strict minimalism in the spirit Super Meat Boy with two active keys, the game offers extensive tools in demand by a mechanic. A couple of them opens during the plot, so it will be honest to make a remark that it will be about skills directly to the final of the game.
The heroine is able to jump, https://nonukonlinecasinos.uk/welsh-not-on-gamstop/ cling to vertical surfaces and climb on them, make up to two jerks in the air and on the ground in one of the eight directions, as well as “reload” her forces when interacting with individual elements of the environment.
In addition, a wide variety of objects are found everywhere, which one way or another exertion on the movement of the character. Their rich arsenal varies from banal sites with a spring to mysterious magic feathers. The former launches Madelin into the air, and the latter for a short period of time turn it into an ignorant laws of physics, a soaring clot of energy. And the role that physics plays in Celeste, Do not smile. Here its manifestations are not limited to the usual gravity. The girl is seriously subject to inertia, and any impetus can give the most ordinary jump a force sufficient for an impressive distance.
Together, such details form an incredibly interesting and integrated control system, where to overcome a specific obstacle, each individual action is significant. This allowed the authors to create an abundance of complex routes requiring the player to use absolutely all game mechanics.
Levels
The plot part of the game is divided into 7 large metro -like stages, and each of them, in turn, consists of separate areas, conditioned “screens”, transitions between which the role of checkpoints play. This crushing itself was made extremely skillfully and comfortable. Never on the way to the finale will there will be an inadequate fraustration like a piece of gameplay with a length of 30 minutes, completely deprived of conservation. Additionally, in the piggy bank, the smallest details should be mentioned that even the transitions themselves, no matter how strange it may sound, under certain circumstances can serve as a tool for passing.
However, the feeling of metroideicity of levels appears not only due to mechanics of promotion on the screens. On each location, the abundance of various secrets is hidden. Even ordinary collected items in the form of small strawberries can often be hidden behind a series of phantom walls, which can only be detected with careful study.
But the berries located in sight will also not be so simple. Not only does they, in addition to contacting them, need to “fix the result”, having achieved the full preservation of a stable surface. Some also behave frankly capricious. Some fly away forever if in their presence a jerk that is a key element of control, and some are not materialized at all until a complex trick is performed. Without perseverance and application of efforts to collect them definitely will not work.
At the same time, it is worth noting a rather obvious, but important fact. Absolutely all levels in Celeste completely unlike each other. They possess their unique visual and sound design, and special endemic conditions and mechanics surrounded by each of them are felt by a separate integral chapter.
Design
Perhaps the most important distinguishing feature Celeste, striking already in screenshots. Boldly and unequivocally we can say that the project is able to serve as a final argument in any dispute with those of your friends who curl the face from one pronouncing the word “pixel”. The game is very beautiful. From one glance it becomes clear how much work was invested in the drawing of locations. Worked out to the smallest details, they are simply crowded with paints. Light and shining with snow, the slopes are easily inferior to unknown mystical ruins. A bright, filled with life, the mountain pass is replaced by a mysterious and gloomy ancient temple, which stores many dark secrets.
And each time, along with the situation, at the expense of skillfully selected sound, the atmosphere is replaced. Excellent musical accompaniment, depending on the situation, accepts the embodiment of a dense traction embedient or a vigorous and exciting motive. But in addition to the purely aesthetic significance of the accompaniment, made at the highest level, it is important to note more practical: he remembers the specifics of the game every second every second. Melodies never distract from the gameplay, and do not begin to annoy even after several dozen attempts to go through the same place.
Together, the above components form an objectively excellent, multifaceted and integrated project. But there is something else that made him truly outstanding and standing out, at least in my eyes. One small detail, in a sense, turning the entire current picture of the idea of the game and leading it to a completely different level.
This will sound suddenly, but, starting from this moment, thoughts are able to contain a certain share of microspoilers. Not details of the plot, and not twists of the level of “suspicious persons”, but only individual game elements found during the passage. Small enough so that with their disclosure not to spoil the impression when familiarizing, but critical for understanding the context of reasoning.
The official warning is completed.
IN Celeste The global author’s idea is easily traced. A single message that permeates all the components of the game without exception. "Metaceptive", rising above the work and uniting the main, fundamental elements and the smallest, inexperienced details in a whole canvas. The idea of complexity and "overcoming".
Frankly, contrary to the traditions of the genre she represented, Celeste – far from the most difficult game. Yes, it will provide a certain kind of test for a person spontaneously and without the concrete intention of the meter. Some purely random hypothetical video game journalist can completely get stuck in training, because unlike Cuphead It here even really contains threats to the character of the character. However, in the head of any avid “hardcore gaming veteran” during the viewing of the final credits, a strange thought may suddenly arise: "Hmm, it was somehow not so difficult". And this will not be an accident.
Surprisingly, last year hit Cuphead was mentioned not only for the sake of a dumb and irrelevant joke. It will serve as an excellent guideline for further reasoning. Extraordinary exclusive Microsoft The happy but difficult fate of the niche product that got to the mainstream suffered. Players from a more “casual” part of the community, faced with a demanding project, often remained sincerely unhappy. People who paid for the game could not fully enjoy it, since their passage was forever stopped at some single difficult level. Negative reviews were accumulated, and in some, frank requirements even sounded to introduce an additional button that allows you to miss an unbehabited segment at any time.
Celeste takes a very serious step away from this problem. The game deliberately and consciously does not force the player to suffer. Up to the top Celestes inclusive in it will not meet such an episode, the process of passing which would cause negative emotions. Yes, you have to die and replay quite many times. Yes, many mechanics for use require skill and honed actions. But all this, one might say, only flirts with a person and does not cross the boundary when entertainment turns into suffering. Pleasant and convenient checkpoints, comfortable and responsive management, the structure of levels, which provides exactly what a feasible test – each element of the game works for the player to receive only pleasure.
Thorough care is visible everywhere. At the beginning of its rise Madelin periodically receives support letters, directly addressed to the one who is on the other side of the screen. One reports that the game allows you to get out of the level at almost any time without worrying about anything. All progress remains accurately up to a specific screen, eliminating the need to persist and gulp through long stages. Another unobtrusively hints that the things collected are nothing more than “a reason to boast of friends”, and their collection is completely unlikely. In the third, it is completely reminded that death is the natural part of the game and their counter only displays the volume of the path traveled by the player.
Moreover, even at the time of the start of the game, it is proposed to enable the additional “Assist Mode” function. This action itself has no effect on the gameplay, however, a special settings tab appear on the menu, allowing you to directly change the conditions of passage, facilitating it in one way or another. You can reduce the speed of the game, increase the amount of available jerks to infinity, remove the energy limit on a climbing or enable absolute invulnerability. With this regime, it even becomes possible to completely skip any one that has not been accurate. Thus, it is possible without the slightest labor to go through any fragment, which in the usual passage could demand, perhaps, more than a dozen restarts.
The game in fact openly and directly asks the question: “What is the point of overcoming obstacles, in overcoming which there is absolutely no need?". Madelin As a character, faced with obstacles rising in her way, as if intentionally interfering with her to achieve the goal, he reasonably thinks about the very meaning of his journey.
“Why go up?"
“Why fight and continue to rise contrary to constant hardships and difficulties?"
And she finds the answer. All this needs only she. Madelin should conquer the top only for itself. Not for any external reason and not for the sake of someone’s reward. She herself decided on this and she herself forces herself to move on.
This is the message of the entire work.
A person sets himself goals and he strives for them himself. No one will force to explore the levels and collect all berries. Each strawberry is only a small potential additional test, which the player himself is free to accept or reject. You can go through the whole game without excessive labor up to the final credits, achieve a logical end of history and with a calm soul to complete your acquaintance with Celeste. She will accept it. But having run through the script, not being distracted by anything around and going to the desktop immediately after the final screensaver, a person will never know that he saw a third of its content from the strength. 17 of the other disproportionately heavier and demanding levels with their unexpected mechanics and excellent music will forever remain hidden. The whole minigrait in the game will remain in the hidden area and will never be a bonus line in the main menu. And there is nothing reprehensible in this.
IN Celeste everyone determines their path. She will encourage and gladly accept anyone who wants to plunge into her with his head. For a player thirsty for testing, there are trials. Squeezing all the forces and bringing to frenzy with their complexity. But for their passage, he will not be dedicated to any sacred secrets, inaccessible to those who did not want to force himself. The game will never exclude anyone or condemn anyone. She will always give a maximum of what a person wants. And this is her amazing and unique charm.
Quite a little curious facts is purely from me for all those who, for some reason, have read it to the end, as a post-cryptoma:
1. At the third level, in the hidden location there is a computer on which you can play in Celeste Classic, which is the ancestor of this project, created in just 4 days.
2.One of the characters in the game mentions its Instagram,* and its page really exists in reality. Cute arts even periodically continue to give apart.
3. The game has a full-fledged cheat mode, which gives access to absolutely all levels, which opens the input of the combination at the secret location previous. (To the left of the LT RT upward upwards RT)
* The activities of the parent organization META are recognized as extremist and prohibited in the Russian Federation