Thoughts on "Celeste"

Source: celestegame.com

I (finally) started playing the game Celeste recently, and completed Chapter 8 (haven't done the B and C-sides yet).

Since this post does address the main story, if you have not played this game and you wish to avoid spoilers, do not read past this point! (Play it first!)

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Source: celestegame.com

In short: I'm glad I gave it a try! Some elaborations below:

• In high school I had nightmares that closely resembled the chase sequence in Chapter 2 (shadows of yourself coming out of the mirror and coming after you to kill you). After finishing Chapter 2 I couldn't get myself to keep playing for a week or two O__O Eventually I came back to play Chapter 3 and almost regretted it - that learning curve was steep.
• I appreciate the amount of thought and effort the creators of the game put into the portrayal of struggling with mental illness. I think it was very well executed - both the visuals and soundtrack made the above gondola scene at the end of Chapter 4 (the other memorable ones were Chapter 5 and the beginning of Chapter 6) frightening in a paralyzing way - it's not something you can just shrug off. In Celeste Mountain the boundary between dreams and reality is blurry, and I think this concept is what more people need to understand: Yes, the anxieties can be in someone's head. But that doesn't mean that they're not real. Arguably, they are the reality experienced by that person.
• I also appreciated Madeline and Theo's conversations post-Mirror Temple - in particular, the way Madeline spoke about what depression felt like and how Theo was reacting to it. It gave me a framework for how to navigate through conversations when someone is making an effort to open up about their struggles.
• The resolution was something that I did not expect - it was not about defeating or overcoming mental illness; rather it was about listening to yourself and working with yourself as opposed to working against yourself or destroying yourself. I loved the way that message got translated into the game's mechanics at the end of Chapter 6.
• After playing through the game spending hours and hours, I am now attempting to speedrun (well, not really) Chapter 1. My very first playthrough took a whopping 1 hour and 40 minutes. Now I can complete it in 1 minute and 40 seconds. I did learn something after all, through all those deaths.

Now I am getting my face kicked in by the latest (and final) DLC (Chapter 9: Farewell), but I'm taking it on bit by bit. I'll complete it eventually. I'm looking forward to how easy a lot of the other stuff feels once I finish this beast of a level!

Also... the aesthetic of this game is almost making me want to go back to asset creation (I used to do that several years ago). It is one of the numerous items on my to (get myself back to) do (ing again) list.