Reviews: Celeste and Lizard Music (re-read)

[roadrunnertwice]

Daniel Pinkwater — Lizard Music (re-read)

March 21

Really, the thing to do instead of reviewing this book is to make copies of it mysteriously appear in places that don't wholly make sense, just in time for the right person to find it.

I'm trying to remember what provoked this re-read, and it went something like:

Play Celeste -> "I bet everyone who made this game has read Mount Analogue" -> "I should totally re-read Mount Analogue" -> "still can't fucking believe that offhanded Chicken Man reference turned out to be real life, wtf" -> "I should totally re-read Lizard Music"

This book somehow still feels eerily timely.

Bonus Level: Celeste

Feb something-ish

A story about a girl fighting a mountain while being harassed by the physical manifestation of all her self-sabotaging impulses. You might even call it a tale of non-Euclidean and symbolically authentic mountaineering adventures?? There's a cute dude from Seattle she keeps running into, and all his dialogue boxes have a plaid background.

ANYWAY, this is one of the most outrageously challenging yet entirely fair platformers I've ever played, and if you're into that kind of thing you need to get on it pronto. Basically it's Super Meat Boy but with crunchy pixely Towerfall physics instead of Flash-like slippiness, and with cute wryness instead of that antique Newgrounds grossout vibe.

Celeste got its teeth in me in a major way. Good shit. The critical story path in the game is tough but eminently doable (if you have some patience and aptitude for what my friend Isaac calls "Nintendo-ing"). But then there's the epilogue and a "B-side" for each zone, which add up to more than a full game's worth of extra content, and all THAT business is ✨fukken off-road.✨ Plus there's these crystal hearts that open up parts of that epilogue + B-sides path, and most of the blue ones are behind Fez-caliber puzzles. And there's these strawberries to collect, which don't unlock much but which sure look tempting. And finally, there's some truly eye-watering Punish-Me-Daddy surprises that open up after you clear the B-side of the core.

I found the difficulty curve in this game intensely satisfying. The postgame content demands perfect understanding and perfect execution of what you learned in the main path, but it also teaches you new movements, usually from weird emergent interactions of physics rules you thought you knew. (Basically starter-level speedrunner hax; the first thought after you learn them is "wonder what I could bypass with that.") In particular, I'm thinking of the starjelly launch from Old Site B, the starjelly grab from Old Site C, and the backboard launch from the last couple legs of Summit B.

And also, if you're NOT that dedicated to Nintendo-ing, it has a cool "assist mode" that lets you dial back independent elements of the difficulty (slow the clock by a % to accommodate reaction times, get extra air-dash charges, recover from a hit or two, etc.). I've never seen that kind of ala carte difficulty control before, and it seems much nicer than an omnibus easy mode.

And I liked the story, and its harmony with the gameplay. Celeste rules.