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It is not difficult to imagine that Celeste, perhaps the most well-received platformer game, ticks all the boxes: pretty pixel art, great soundtrack, simple and tight controls, and most importantly excellent level design.
But that is not all about Celeste. IMHO, what makes Celeste particularly shine is how it has both breadth and depth while welcoming all kinds of players, from casual gamers to die-hard fans for precision platformers, and even to speedrunners. If you are intrigued to know how this feat is accomplished, read the following paragraphs with asterisk which are mostly spoiler-free resumé of Celeste's content. Otherwise, feel free to skip to the end of this review.
Celeste has 8 chapters, each has an A-side, a B-side, and a C-side (a reference to records and cassettes), and a Farewell chapter.
* Each A-side chapter has its unique visual style and soundtrack, and introduces new interactable objects. Playing through the A-sides gives you a full taste of the story and mechanics of Celeste. The main story, which is about facing your depression and embracing your inner self and is inspired by the true emotional experience of the main dev themselves during the development, spans from chapter 1-A to 7-A. So technically the more difficult 8-A can be skipped by the most causal players. Collectibles (strawberries, cassettes which unlock B-sides, crystal hearts which unlock the main area of chapter 8 and Farewell) are completely optional and can be safely skipped. They are often hidden or situated in more difficult paths, and tease those who want a little more challenge for their upward journey.
* If you don't aim for those collectibles, the difficulty of the A-sides is gentle and manageable even for platformer newbies. There are checkpoints on almost every screen. When you die, you respawn at the checkpoint of the same room, typically from a couple of seconds ago. Hence, the penalty of dying is minimal. The game even encourages you to be proud of your death counts, which are the witness of your perseverance and progress. As a precision platformer, there is no doubt Celeste won't be easy for everyone. but Celeste is considerate enough to include an in-game assist mode that allows you to change game speed (down to 50%), to add invincibility, or to have infinite stamina or dashes, etc. You see, Celeste really gives you carte blanche to play the game in your own way and it only wants you to enjoy your climbing.
* B-sides, with roughly half the number of rooms compared to their corresponding A-sides, introduce no new mechanics. They are like condensed and more difficult counterpart of their A-sides: no story, no cutscene, no collectible, just Madeline and intense platforming levels, curated for fans of precision platformer.
* C-sides, unlocked by completing all B-sides, have few rooms but very lengthy ones, unlike most rooms in A-sides and B-sides. Here, your skills and consistency are tested to the highest standard so far.
* The Farewell chapter, also known as chapter 9, is the ultimate conclusion of Madeline's journey at Celeste Mountain. This lengthy chapter introduces new mechanics and is filled with rooms of difficulty parallel to those in B-sides and C-sides.
* For the most intrepid souls, completing all the aforementioned chapters is not even close to the end of challenge: there are collectibles (golden strawberries) awarded for completing a chapter without dying once.
* Speedrunners would be euphoric to learn that Celeste's levels are designed with speedrunning in mind. More concretely, there are many hidden moves and techniques. As a matter of fact, these advanced moves are under your sleeve from the very beginning, you just don't know it yet. They are not necessary for most players since learning those few moves taught in game suffices to complete the game. However, mastering these moves allows you to traverse rooms much faster by taking unconventional paths. These paths, brilliant demonstration of the excellent level design, are intentionally left in the rooms for the most skillful players, while appear to be downright impossible without knowing advanced techniques so that beginners won't even consider them as a possibility and spend time trying in vain.
As an average player, it took me more than 50 hours and a grand total of over 20,000 deaths to complete all the chapters: a dozen hours for the A-sides and collectibles, a dozen more hours for the B-sides, a dozen more for the C-sides, and a final dozen for the Farewell chapter. What amazes me most during these hours is that many times when I first look at a playthrough video, a room seems to be fiendishly difficult and I doubt I could ever make it. However, it turns out, every single time, that with enough patience and practice, I can really pull it off, and even consistently.
Climbing is not easy. Nor is this precision platformer with a climbing setting. Playing through those difficult rooms, deaths after deaths and occasionally stuck for hours, sometimes feels more like enduring and persevering than having fun. But it feels so good when I advance little by little in the same room, until I finally perform consistently enough to make it through. And those deaths and strugglings become commemorable when I finally complete a whole chapter, which always makes me jubilant as if I reached the summit of a real mountain. In that sense, I find the climbing setting of Celeste surprisingly appropriate. Persevere, then triumph. This maxim taught by Celeste also applies to our life, doesn't it?
tl;dr: just play it already. You will see what I mean.