While a few years late to this one, I picked up Celeste on a whim and got right into the "masocore" platformer by Maddy Makes Games.
I love the breadth of creativity in platformers, and its rare to encounter one that delivers the full package - phenomenally designed levels (and mechanics), education through gameplay on building your skillset, wonderful soundtrack to complement the mood of the game narrative, and differentiated environmental color tones to really set the mood for each "stage". Having (somehow) completed the game through its myriad of labyrinthine levels and increasingly masochistic difficulty, it has earned itself an absolute favorite of mine.
First, I am not a masocore gamer by default. I love a good challenge, but I hardly made it more than a couple of bosses in Elder Ring before switching gears to just marauding through the landscapes by horseback and avoiding confrontations. So... there was no way I was playing this game with the default one AirDash value -- I used the assist option to up that value to "2", because, in retrospect, you have to be a far, far more talented player to get anywhere in that game with a single double-jump. And you do a lot of double-triple jumping in this game. It's safe to declare it's the game's signature, and primary, method of movement.
And that is, of course, what makes the game exceedingly challenging and sequentially rewarding: you are given a screen of obstacles that must be navigated, typically by way of dying dozens – dozens – of times to perfectly move the Celeste accurately and correctly through to the end point. Not unlike nearly every other platformer, sure, but there is something melodic about this one that really emphasizes the timing, the learned maneuvers over the course of the stages, that brings everything together in that single screen's set of obstacles. Once executed, there's a thrill to having completed it correctly. And there is usually only one way to complete any given area in this game correctly. Which... is part of the charm.
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