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hexaliamapreviews · 6 months ago

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Celeste Map Reviews #25

The SPECIAL 25TH anniversary review is here! After a break from the very crowded december, and the infiltration of epic vivid/stasis video game (go play it right now :3), it's time to bring home another batch of cool modded maps! Let the Celebration Begin! FIRST! - NEW! Super Mario Bros Wii! Not really lmao FIRST! - NEW! 4D, 5D, 4Dark and 5Dark! from Monika! - A massive D-Sides update dropped soon after CMR #24, and here, the oldest and crustiest maps left were given a huge makeover! And a fully new 5dark was implemented too! 4D is now much more polished while still retaining many elements from its predecessor. The start is easier but it still comes out to be about the same difficulty by the end. 5D is similar, with a good mix of old, new and a shortened final checkpoint which improves the overall pacing! However, the highlight here are the 2 BANGING remix tracks! BeanJammin cooked a super chill remix of 4b's theme, and iosun (one of our clodded own!) made the 5b remix! I love both the songs, especially the vibe of Io's remix! These tracks also play in the dark sides, of which 4D keeps the same obfuscation gimmick but is of course modelled around new 4D, but 5Dark is brand new! This map is quite incredible, so it gets the bulk of my analysis. The first checkpoint houses the first primary gimmick, being this split where you can see the gameplay above, but the lower half is completely impossible to see, and so you must use your vibes to guide madeline through! It's incredibly tense but fun to figure out how to do the screens! The next checkpoint is another highlight... it's like the Central Chamber area of other 5b'ish maps, but on steroids! The puzzles in this area are genuinely tough to solve! There's loads of gates and keys and alternate routes that need to be considered. Along the way you can even read lore from Mr Oliver- (oh uh, wrong map) Mr OSHIRO about this travel through the temple! Eventually though we reach the mirror and the next big twist is revealed. Dust bunnies in the temple! It seems that Oshiro's influence is felt here now, as we've got to deal with cycles and seekers at the same time. The map gets quite hard from here too, which I don't mind. There was an insanely intimidating room with lava to end the checkpoint, and then it's on to the (theoless woagh) finale! Lots of gameplay variation here, including more of that gimmick from the start. But eventually it does end off with a pretty tough cassette room! Ok yeah so my memory is definitely a bit off but I do remember enjoying this map a lot, the most out of the 4 here. So yeah with this and the music I'd say this update was a massive W! Overall, Oshiro murdered Theo obviously, 9.6/10.

SECOND! - Bone Skull by Donker19! - This pretty popular MTC2 (winner i think?) was next on my wheel spin and I knew I could expect a really good map going in, due in part to Marz's eternal shilling of it! Well, actually heading in, first thing that jumped out to me was the map's incredible decoration and atmosphere. Being a MTC entry, of course it's all meant to fit the music, and it does so perfectly. We start on a beach-like area, and truly, this map is gorgeously decorated. There's also quite the story to explore in this place, with several npcs and environmental aspects to interact with throughout the map, which reminded me of the first time I played Solar Express with it's worldbuilding. And the story here is quite the deep one... I won't go into details for spoiler stuffs and it truly is something you should experience yourself! But I will say it's a damn great story with lots of deep-reaching themes and possibly relatable characters and situations! Very well written! As for the gameplay (finally getting on to that lol), I mean yeah of course it's good! I liked the cool sound effect swap blocks and reverse gravity falling blocks in the first half, and the fish and extrajump gameplay of the second half. Also in the second half was a neat gameplay gammick where you switch between areas and mechanics based on grab presses which I thought was super cool! All the gameplay has nice routing and even nicer flow and it was all a lot of fun. Um yeah, overall, Great gameplay, greater aesthetic, great music, greater story! 10.9/10

THIRD! - Silence Storm by Gorffy! - Sophie's influence infected my wheel and selected this map not long after adding it (baps u). Despite me holding off for a while after getting infected by the vivid/stasis virus, I eventually managed to hop on this map and wow do I wish I experienced it straight away! What I played was a complete EXPERIENCE, not dissimilar to the Prisoner! Once again, I feel like you've really gotta go in unspoiled n stuff for the maximum experience ALTHOUGH you'll definitely want to contact sophie for help with some puzzles (they're hard AND in Russian) and you'll also want a way to read the Russian languaged lore throughout the experience. The map itself is a huge world divided into many areas, with a story that brings it all together. There are warp spots to go between areas quickly (for finding those secrets of course), plenty of berries to find, and even 2 separate endings (told u it was similar to Prisoner). The deco, atmosphere and music choices are all flawlessly done and it added to the immersive vibe of the map for me. The gameplay is on the easy side, mostly beginner and intermediate stuff and is pretty manageable to do repeatedly while exploring. It's still fun wholesome gamplay, even if the camera is weird in a few spots, and there's a couple of janky moments. But yeah, as the map creator pointed out, some of the late puzzles definitely are quite hard to understand, and so you will need that Sophie help unless you are REALLY determined. That's all I'll give here, but it really is an excellent experience, I liked the mysterious and interpretation aspects of it, all very intriguing! Overall, Loudness Calm, 10.5/10

FOURTH! - Halcyon by corkr900! - A quick breezy (BREEZE???) easy map to cleanse off the palette after the many heavy stories, this ambient jaunt brings us through a rainy foresty area as we traverse the many dream blocks and zippers! It truly is a chill map, with nice deco and music (mmmmm rain asmr) and very, very wholesome gameplay. I liked the berries scattered all over the place (and the room with 2 berries in it!). There were some cool setups too! Like the zip-boosted dream jumps which added some fun speed for free! Even the custom end art was cute! Overall, just a very likeable map, 9.8/10

FIFTH! - The Gigglebug by Ukiran! - And finally this 3 room...thing was another fun quickie! It's intermediate and focused around green jellies that kinda stop in midair after you throw them. There's a bit of routing but it's nothing too hard. The rooms themselves are quite fun and creative tho! The deco is very silly (made me giggle(bug lmao)) and the music was neat (honestly i think i forgot what it sounded like I beat this thing in 3 minutes :3). I liked the custom gigglebug art added in (and the npc at the end!). So overall, cool map, surely I will play Frownbug next? 8.3/10

And that's it I think?! Hm I feel a bit rusty when it comes to my yapping and I'm kinda experimenting with the whole not-going-over-the-entire-story-of-the-story-heavy-map thing this time around (back on discord i'd just spoiler up the text). So I don't want the first-time experience of these lore maps to be ruined for other people (do enough people read these for that actually be a real problem tho? idk). Well it probably helps keeps things slighty more coherent and well-paced (well as well-paced as unprompted yapping can be). Hopefully the next gap isn't as long, I was really in need of rest after the peakfest that was december lmao. Now I need to up my vivid/stasis ratingscore. Bye!!!!! Glad to have yapped 25 times about cool maps!

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