Tbh I'm not crazy about it. I got overhyped and sold on it because it had all the right vibe, but there's a subtle but significant difference between it and something like Meat Boy and End is Nigh. It's still an excellent entry in the genre, and as such, better than a lot of other games, but I keep finding myself not wanting to invest too much time in Celeste.

It's hard to criticize the game without sounding like I'm complaining that it's too hard, but the game is mostly trial and error, much heavier on the error than on the trial. Doesn't even matter how good you might be, it's mostly based on the precise moments that you're designed to use your dashes, and not deviating from that at all.

I feel like the wall climb/grab is pretty pointless and useless, and I'd so much prefer if it was a regular wall slide/jump, especially since it annoyingly also has a stamina bar that also adds more unnecessary frustration.

The dash should feel like fun, but it's more like an extreme limitation, and if you use it too soon or too late, even if you manage to save yourself and survive, you still have to start over and can't do anything to recover (in a lot of situations). If I could wall grip indefinitely, recover my dash based on a cooldown, and hold L/R to lock in diagonals (like Metroid aiming), I'd probably be considerably less frustrated about it since it would feel like the gameplay was more in my control rather than a linear roller coaster based on my inputs.

I looked forward to this kind of stuff in Meatboy because of how many interesting ways there were to approach the obstacles, and in End is Nigh, I also found myself looking forward to it because the controls allow for a lot of fast paced precision platforming, and when you are pulling off exactly the right move during complex sequences, it's a thrill.

And one thing that I hate that Celeste does is how it traps you in the "next room." After you finish or complete a puzzle, if you go to the next screen or fall in a hole that goes somewhere else, most of the time there's no way to go back, and it drives me nuts. Nothing is more infuriating for me, and after playing End is Nigh, I was so impressed with how that game handled it, Celeste level design feels relatively gimmicky.

And this is the one that's going to probably make people angry, but I think the controls are meh at best, especially compared to something like Meatboy. I wish these were just meatboy levels lol.