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Well, you all convinced me to buy this and I'm not regretting it so far. You're dying a lot less than I am! I've got really invested in Madeline's story now, and I look forward to seeing it through with the thread.
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Mar 28, 2018 21:26
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Fudge Handsome posted:One of the things that makes this game nice even for people who don't like hard games is that it doesn't make a big spectacle of your death, and you get to try again immediately. No big red YOU DIED, no dropped exp / item retrieval, no shot of the character kneeling, no having to pick what to do from a menu, no antagonist mocking you. Just pick up and try again. It really helps to manage the frustration of bashing your head against the same screen a dozen times before you figure it out. That helps a great deal. I'd imagine it's also the main reason for comparisons to Super Meat Boy - besides the general idea of a brutally hard platformer - since that also brings you back to the start of the challenge immediately upon you dying. The main difference in my mind is that SMB revels in your deaths - after every level you get a quick replay of all your attempts simultaneously, and later levels reference the sheer amount of deaths you go through to get there - while Celeste is doing all it can to encourage you to push through despite them.
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Mar 30, 2018 18:10
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Ramos posted:To be fair though, it would be fun to complete a room and see the various Madelines charge forward in a suicidal death line just like Meat Boy. There's just something really viscerally satisfying about watching that after every level. It would be awesome, it just wouldn't fit in with the theme so well.
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Mar 31, 2018 01:16
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This is probably my favourite chapter too. The dream-blocks gimmick is tremendous fun; the aesthetics around them make them so much more than just an extended dash. It's a shame it's so short. It's also what really got me hooked on the story. The dialogue tells you so much about why Madeline is here and why she needs to do this, and it really made me want to finish the game for her sake. And I didn't expect coming into the game that Madeline's struggle with her demons would be quite so literal. And Theo is such a #millenial. Haha. The memorial at the start of the level is a nice touch too. Have you ever tried reading something in a dream?
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Mar 31, 2018 14:57
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Lazy Bear posted:Also, Theo is such a hipster that his textbox is plaid. Jeez. In fact, everyone has a unique text box! With the exception of Madeline's mother and her ex(?) from the phone calls, anyway. It's a nice touch.
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Mar 31, 2018 23:13
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God drat, you beat Oshiro's chase insultingly fast, that one still trips me up. Celestial Resort is such a ramp-up for the game, both in difficulty and length. My first time through I beat both the first two chapters in ~20 minutes with 60-80 deaths. Then this level took me one hour with three hundred deaths. Oddly, the next chapter didn't feel as long to me when playing it, despite it taking me an hour and half with four hundred deaths. Something about this level just dragged the first time through. Maybe I was more used to the longer levels by chapter four. Or maybe I just preferred the mechanics of the next chapter. TooMuchAbstraction posted:Oshiro does a few really important things for the game. Where we see Madeline's struggles from the inside, we see Oshiro's from the outside. He really does need help, but he's not able to admit it to himself or not be a jerk about it when people help him. It's easy to imagine that Madeline has behaved similarly in the past, but we as the audience wouldn't be able to view her past issues objectively (were they presented to us) because she's the viewpoint character. What I found interesting in particular is that Oshiro doesn't seem to make any distinction between Madeline and her reflection. He's mystified why Madeline would be so mean to him after helping him out so much, without seeming to notice that the one who insulted him wasn't even standing in the same part of the room. On top of that, you also see him argue with himself a lot - makes you wonder if he's got his own shadow-self around that Madeline can't see. Oshiro looks to me like an example of someone who failed at the quest Madeline is on. He couldn't resolve his own issues when faced with them, and has apparently been quietly resigned to them for decades as a ghost. It's no coincidence that he, unlike the rest of the hotel staff, took the decision not to climb the mountain. Theo comes across as no stranger to mental issues. On top of having the right approach to Oshiro, I noticed his response when taking a selfie in the previous chapter - when Madeline said she wasn't photogenic he managed to give an affirming response without doubting her judgement. That was pretty clever. He's kind of the mentor character in this Hero's Journey. Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 2, 2018 22:32
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Tombot posted:Is Madeline's shadow actually a real entity or is it just the manifistation of madeline lashing out? Seeing as the last time we saw it, it was inside of a dream world I can't really say for sure. Well, she managed to smash a hole in the ceiling. Chapter 2 was a dream - albeit a dream where Madeline found places she hadn't seen in real life yet - but chapter 3 is some straight up magic. There's an actual ghost haunting a hotel covered in dangerous blobs of manifest grief. Madeline's reflection breaking out of a mirror and loving with things fits right in. The mountain will show you things. Things you might not be ready to see.
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Apr 3, 2018 20:38
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There's a couple of other things I'd like to consider about Oshiro. The story of Celeste is a classic hero's journey. Madeline has heard the Call to Adventure (gotta climb that mountain), Met the Mentor (Theo is remarkably good at dealing with her very problems), Crossed the First Threshold (literally, through a mirror) and Refused the Call (in a violent argument with herself). In chapter 3, Oshiro presents Temptation. He is the one thing in the story that lures Madeline away from her quest. Did you notice he actually did manage to get her to stay at the hotel? Not as a guest, but she might well still be there if her shadow hadn't forced the issue. She just couldn't say no to him, even when he wasn't asking anything of her. It's an interesting contrast to the usual depictions of temptation in these kinds of stories - usually the hero is tempted by beauty, or wealth, or fame or glory. Madeline just wanted the satisfaction of helping someone else - which is still a pale shadow of what she's really looking for. The other thing is Oshiro's grief. That's at the heart of his problem - he lost something crucially important to him and wasn't able to let go. We see him flit through Denial, Depression, Bargaining and Anger... only to loop round again and never achieve Acceptance. What interests me is the Depression stage, when you're in the big mess. Oshiro stops pretending the hotel is functional and stops trying to convince Madeline to stay, brought low as he was by the state the place has got to. And I think it's no accident that this is the point that Theo offers her a way out; it's the perfect opportunity for her to escape, but Madeline chooses not to. She chooses to help him instead. She was never asked, and indeed Oshiro didn't appreciate it either. Unrelated to Oshiro, there's a lot of neat visual flair that can be easy to miss. Have you noticed the screen transitions are different in each chapter? This one is more obvious, with it being a lock on a door. And have you noticed each character is referred to with their own text colour? Any time someone says "Madeline", it's in red, "Theo" is orange, "Oshiro" is green - even when not referring directly by name (eg "Creepy Old Dude"). Even Badeline gets her own text colour, where all the "part of me" etc is in purple. And the Mountain is in blue.
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Apr 4, 2018 20:00
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You missed some dialogue with the old lady at the start of the level - she talks a bit more about Oshiro and herself. It feels a little friendlier, since Madeline has been a bit of a grouch with her otherwise. (Not that the old lady was particularly friendly herself. She knows people don't come to the mountain looking for sympathy). She still never introduces herself. The Steam trading cards call her Granny. I'm not a fan of the blue heart puzzle in this chapter, personally. Partly it's that I never played Super Mario Bros 3 - that game came out before I was born, I never grew up playing Nintendo consoles, it just passed me by. So I had no idea what the white block was referencing. But on a more philosophical level, in a game with the whole theme of "you can do this" pushing you forward, having a puzzle that certain sections of the playerbase simply cannot do without giving up and looking up the solution doesn't sit right with me, even for an optional challenge. Every other puzzle in the game can be solved with the tools available in the game. No one's going to duck on the weird block for several seconds if they don't know that's what you do with it. If it had to be a Mario Bros reference I think it would have been better to go for the famous warp zone trick from the original Super Mario Bros, since jumping up out of the frame is something a player might try to do if they see there's no ceiling there. Also Theo is a goddamn hero. I wonder if the feather thing actually works.
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Apr 6, 2018 18:31
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The magic of the Mountain is actually the developer console I assume you all spotted Badeline on the gondola when it stalled out. Notice it stopped a little while after Madeline started panicking, and started again a little while after she calmed down. Badeline is her reflection in a lot of ways. Following up with the hero's journey stuff I mentioned earlier: the Golden Ridge is the Road of Trials, where the hero proves their worth in tests of skill and spirit. After how heavy with dialogue and character chapter 3 was, chapter 4 is just Maddie against the mountain: no gimmicks (in story terms, at least), just a pure test of her ability to climb. The gondola section is the Meeting with the Goddess, where the hero is given boons by a sympathetic figure. In this case the floating feather is Madeline's boon, which we will see means more to her than just a breathing exercise. In many stories this is a show of love - not necessarily romantic love, as the Goddess is not anywhere close to equal enough terms to the hero for that to work. Love doesn't feature heavily in Celeste but it's fair to say that this is the point where Madeline and Theo become genuine friends. Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Apr 7, 2018 |
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Apr 7, 2018 18:22
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The Belly of the Whale is the hero's darkest hour. This is the part of their journey where they're cut off from all of the help they have received so far, alone against the cruelties of the magical world. In many stories this is precipitated by the mentor's death - in this one, Theo is fine, but he is helpless, and needs to rely on Madeline. The hero must find the resolve to go on when hope is at its lowest ebb. I thought it was a nice touch that until now it's been Madeline's dark side that came from the mirrors, but after passing through one herself, she sees her courage in her reflection. I feel like the backmasked confession goes a long way to explain the significance of mirrors in this game. And of all the creepy easter eggs in video games, this one to me hits so much harder because you can tell, deep down, that it is not fiction. Incidentally, Theo can die in the section where you're carrying him around, if he falls into a pit or gets crushed under a moving block. He has the same death effect as Madeline, except in green instead of red or blue. (Then Madeline immediately dies because you can't continue without him)
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Apr 10, 2018 18:58
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Man, there is a ton to unpack in this chapter. It's easily the most significant one in the game, and it doesn't even involve climbing the mountain. So, let's start from the start. I don't think it's a coincidence that Madeline and Theo are climbing the mountain together. We've already seen how important he's been in giving her the mental tools to tackle the problems she faces. Now we get to see how important Madeline is to him. As far as we know he hasn't faced any magical stuff specific to him until he got caught in the mirror temple, because the mountain didn't need magic to show him what he needs. He came to Celeste seeking a direction, and a purpose. And he finds a woman that reminds him on so many levels of his sister, whom he loves, and who is going through major challenges herself. A woman who he's both managed to help, and helped him in turn. He'll figure out where he needs to be. Speaking of which, if you name the character Alex at the start, Theo's sister is instead called Maddie. It's a nice touch. I find it interesting to note that when Madeline starts talking to her Badeline, her reflection is actually quite happy to co-operate at first. Even sympathetic. In fact, she gets downright hurt when Madeline says she doesn't want her around any more. And I'm reminded of when they first met in the old ruins. The first thing Madeline does is insult her appearance. Sure, she's probably less guarded than she would be with a real person since she was already told Badeline was part of her, but it shows that the aggression isn't just one-way. When I first saw the game I was a bit put off by the mix of art styles - pixel graphics for the gameplay, 3D for the menu screen, and traditional art for the dialogue. But Badeline leaning through the dialogue box to scream at you makes it totally worth it. There's no strawberries in the chapter, and that's an interesting decision in terms of unpacking what it means. For one thing, this cave isn't on the mountain any more - though obviously within its sphere of influence - so if strawberries are a part of the mountain's challenges, they wouldn't be found down there. But it also plays into Madeline's mindset, where she is now done trying to conquer the summit, so why should she care about challenging herself? I didn't notice this when I was solving the crystal heart puzzle, but the chapter title tells you exactly what the symbols mean once you've figured out how they relate to directions. It's a nice touch. The old lady never gets a name. The game files call her Granny. She represents more than just a person on the mountain - more than anything, she seems to be its mouthpiece, explaining the mountain's challenges and pushing Madeline on a little. She's been doing it the whole time. And her every appearance is heralded by the same crows that give you tutorial directions, which seems significant to me. Another, more meta read of her is that she represents another kind of player of the game. She's the one who not only played and enjoyed the story, but stuck around for all the extra challenges. She chose to live here for a reason. If you get to that point, you might start to find her quite relatable... Oh, and, of course, the hero's journey. This is the big climax of the whole story. Madeline has her Apotheosis moment, where all the lessons the hero has learned culminate in a shift of their viewpoint. She's gone from running away from her reflection to chasing it down - you can really feel it after the talk with Granny, when the tentacles are retreating away from her. Then comes Atonement. The hero resolves exactly who they are, and what their purpose is, with a figure of ultimate authority in their life. In many traditional stories this is their father, or perhaps a god or king, but in absence of those, it can be the hero themself. Of course, Madeline has a more literal time than most in making amends with herself. This culminates in The Ultimate Boon. The hero's reward for passing all their trials is enlightenment - they get true power within the magical world, and can now conquer whatever it is they originally came to struggle against. This is a very popular moment in video game stories, as it's a great opporunity to give you a thematically-appropriate power-up, as here where Madeline's double-jump becomes a triple-jump. It's a real explosion in your power as a player. And it goes without saying that you'll need it to conquer the summit. Consider for a moment that, even if Madeline had never fallen from the mountain, she mechanically wouldn't have been able to reach the peak without going through this resolution. Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 00:48
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Several of the development team have said in interviews that the story means a lot to them, because they've been through the same things. As for Madeline's age, the car you see at the start of the prologue is hers, it's how she got there. I don't know what the driving age in Canada is, mind. Her portrait doesn't look very adult, but I don't think she looks like a child either? Just kind of ambiguously cartoon.
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Apr 13, 2018 19:09
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Saying the Summit is the best level kind of feels like cheating for the choice - it's got all of the levels in it, after all. But even without that, it really is the best level. This is the Magic Flight, where the hero demonstrates their mastery over the world that they earned on their journey. Sometimes to defeat the villain, sometimes to flee, or maybe just to reach the end. It's an amazing step in a video game, because you get to feel all that empowerment yourself. The double-dash is thrilling to use, and I'm glad this chapter revisits the previous ones, because it changes up all of their gimmicks. None more so than the dream blocks, I think. With the double dash you can chain them much better, since you can dash in the air once while still saving a dash to enter the next block. So you get some fantastic sequences that feel like you're flying through the maps. Chapter 2 is fun, but chapter 7.2 does it so much better. And then, after climbing your way back up the mountain in record time, you reach the actual summit section. The pacing in the music is genius - the Golden Ridge section toned down the theme (similar to how the Golden Ridge music is) then the Mirror Temple section reduced it further to just the chords. And then, for the home stretch, the intro music starts up again, and then the full theme bursts to life, with a heavy drum beat and uplifting synths and god damnit I've never heard more encouraging game music in my life! And the game is counting down the checkpoints, and you're moving consistently upwards with each one, then you reach the final four and the binoculars that let you look ahead not just through this challenge but all the way to the top, which is an excellent way of conveying "the end is in sight" in a 2D view. It's funny, really. You reach the top, the culmination of your entire journey, and what's there is... a flag. Madeline stands at the top and has a brief conversation with herself. Then the credits roll. There's no fanfare, no fireworks, no visceral reward for you waiting at the top. There doesn't have to be. Just like climbing a real mountain, the destination has nothing to do with it - your prize for reaching the summit is to have succeeded in getting there. Look at how far we've come. In the final stage of the hero's journey, they return from the magical world to the life they lived before. But they will be forever changed by their experience. The final step is Freedom To Live, where the hero, even if their life hasn't materially changed, has cast off the struggles that drove them to seek adventure in the first place. Perhaps they found peace, or liberty, or wisdom or love. Madeline arguably found all four. She hasn't left depression behind yet - even when they're supporting each other, Badeline is still negative by nature, waiting for things to go wrong, holding grudges, questioning her capability. But they've learned to trust each other more. Badeline gives her support despite her reservations. Madeline forgives that side of her, and realises how it is still able to help. Her future is so much brighter than when she took her first steps on the trail. Oh, if you didn't click the link to Theo's Instagram in Iggy's post, do it! There's a bunch of extra art not in the game for other things Theo took pictures of. You can see his sister, and Granny's sick gamer chair. 
Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Apr 17, 2018 |
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Apr 17, 2018 00:16
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It's worth noting we're not even half way through the game at this point. The story is finished, but we've got another chapter to go, then all the B-sides, and even that's not the end of it. Madeline got her big breakthrough that makes a satisfying story, but if you as a player keep putting in the effort, she's going to keep climbing that mountain.
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Apr 18, 2018 17:00
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I listed interpretations of the themes for the first seven levels earlier. Here's my much more wishy-washy interpretation of chapter 8: it's about Madeline learning to love herself, in her entirety (i.e. including Badeline). Symbolically, of course, we've been collecting hearts all this time; they're a symbol of love (Strawberries are also reasonably heart-shaped, for that matter). We also see the same platforms here that we saw before chapter 6, leading up to the time Madeline thought she had everything figured out, right before she fell. The implication (supported by the fact that here, it is literally impossible for her to fall because she just loops back to the top of the screen) is that this time she actually has figured herself out. She's at peace as a whole person, unseparable by the Mountain. That seems like a pretty good read to me. The way I see the Core, Madeline returned to the mountain looking for more enlightenment and guidance, and ultimately found that it had nothing left to teach her. It's just empty in there, but calm and peaceful. Just reflecting her inner harmony. I'd imagine there's a ton of different ways to read what the Core really means, though; it's very open-ended and vague. I'd love to hear what other people think. I quite like your read of the hearts as symbols of self-love too. I'd been trying to figure out what they might represent, especially as Madeline is specifically shown holding one in the closing splash. Worth noting that if you go to the Core without four hearts and can't pass the barrier, then on your way back you can talk to Granny who will tell you that you still have more to learn from the mountain before it will let you in. Like all these extra challenges, the blue heart puzzles and the B-sides, are more struggles for Madeline toward learning to love herself and overcome her problems, even if they aren't part of the explicit plot. When I first played this chapter I assumed it would be similar to the Running Hell level in Cave Story and things like that; ie a level outside the main plot that shows you what the real deal behind the setting is. But I guess not, the mountain just remains a mysterious place of healing and introspection. On top of that, I'd seen a screenshot of one of the levels in it on the Steam store page, the one with the rings of fireballs circling the upper exit. To my mind that wasn't familiar with the game yet it looked like a boss fight, so I kept going through this level expecting some sort of battle in the end with some sort of mountain spirit or something? Considering how positive the mountain had been in the story I was worried this was going to be some sort of Undertale-style "you couldn't leave your happy ending alone, now look what you've done, you've ruined it" thing. I'm glad I was wrong.
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Apr 21, 2018 00:33
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MachuPikacchu posted:Sever the Skyline is hands down my favorite track in the game. It perfectly conveys the "Kid gloves are off" ambiance of the B-Sides. Sever the Skyline is a great intro to the B-sides. Personally my favourite is split between Good Karma and Say Goodbye later on. Really, the sheer energy in the Good Karma remix is all that kept me going through 3B! I don't know many of the remix artists, but Black Moonrise was remixed by Ben Prunty, who wrote the music for FTL and Into The Breach. The guitar work in particular is very reminiscent of ITB's soundtrack.
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Apr 23, 2018 18:27
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Haha, it's kind of weird to see Madeline not dressed for mountain climbing. Cute though.
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Apr 25, 2018 08:11
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I can't believe Theo broke Madeline's heart after all they went through! I'm really torn on the Golden Feather mix. The first half of it is great, but once it's built up to the point where all the instrument lines are playing together it goes on for like two minutes too long. It feels like a barrage of noise, it's not pleasant. But the building up part works really well. 6B might be my least favourite in the game. It really, really suffers from not being able to look ahead and make a plan. Most of the rooms are huge and most of them don't give you binoculars to see what's coming up. It gets even worse in the Badeline fight parts since you don't know where she's going to move to. So I ended up making a little progress, seeing a new section of the screen, and trying to plan how to navigate it in the half-second or so before I die from not having the correct response already planned. The worst one to me was the room where you use the feather to circle around Badeline and hit switches. There's several routes around you can take, but the time in the feather is just barely too short for most of them - especially if you're controlling it with a keyboard and not an analog stick - and you can't even plan the route properly until you've progressed enough to see all the points Badeline moves to and in what order. There are harder rooms in the game, but this one above all others frustrated me the most. Luckily it gets a lot better about that from here. Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Apr 28, 2018 |
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Apr 27, 2018 18:51
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I don't know what their proper name is but I think of them as grumpy blocks. The noise they make comes second only to the sound of passing through the dream blocks. That part in 2B where you go through one that's some three screens wide is just a joy to hear.
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Apr 28, 2018 00:57
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Hah, a lot of those 7B screens reminded me that they were only on the B-sides... Anyway, warm-up's over. Let's keep going! Say Goodbye was written by Matthew Burns, who also wrote the soundtracks for the Zachtronics games - Infinifactory, Shenzhen I/O and Opus Magnum, that last one in particular being very reminiscent of this track. Speaking of more game, I'm kind of disappointed that the only time different level mechanics are combined, other than one single room in 2A, is in little gimmicky "one mechanic from every chapter" rooms in the Core. If there's one thing that really makes me hope this game gets a level editor, it's seeing how you could combine all the various mechanics into unique challenges.
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Apr 29, 2018 17:34
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Explopyro posted:my brain is still a bit broken from trying to imagine the topology of a cassette with three sides Just imagine a USB stick!
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Apr 29, 2018 21:59
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Man, the C-sides. They are so perfectly done. You first go into 1C and it looks so daunting, but then you try it a few times, and come up with an idea for how to handle it, then you get to the next bit... The game never quite lets go of the theme of self-improvement, and the C-sides really teach you to believe in yourself. This time you get full view of the path ahead, so you can take one step a time, make a plan, and with all your experience so far you can trust that you can do it. That's powerful. Thank you for this LP, Iggy, and thank you so much for introducing me to this game. And thanks for putting up with my essay-length rambles in the thread! It's funny how we get attached to the struggle. It's been a great ride. Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 21:45 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 21:42
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