From Super Metroid to Metal Gear, Shadow of the Colossus to The Last of Us, games have spawned all kinds of stories in their relatively short history. But while these characters and motivations are fascinating, are these stories being told in a way that inherently benefits games as a medium?

Very few games really take advantage of the fact that you control the action on screen to tell a meaningful story. You could argue that you were drawn in by the moment you defeat a boss in Snake Eater or slay a colossus in Shadow of the Colossus, but at the end of the day, that scene can only play out in a video game. And can its impact even be expressed in film or on paper?

I’m thinking about something like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. As the game progresses you get used to using the analog sticks and triggers to control the two main characters at the same time. It’s a bit of a learning process, but when one of the brothers dies you’re playing with only half the pad and it literally feels like the fun is lost.

Cut to the end of the game, where the younger brother has to remember the lesson he learned from his older brother, but he actually reuses the inactive parts of the controller to make him more complete as a character and basically move him more. Deftly running through the world.

It’s fantastic and shows a style of storytelling that is very rare in this medium.

This reminds me of Celeste, because it’s been a long time since a game has left me feeling so emotionally beaten down. Not in a bad way. It’s like, “Yeah, I’ll never experience that first time again.”

Of course, we encourage you to play Celeste for yourself, but if you stick around, we’ll teach you everything you need to know. What the two-man development team of Matt Thorson and Noel Berry have created is a thoroughly exquisite experience.

Celeste is an exploration of doubt, fear, and failure; emotions and sensations that we all know, and some are totally in control of. The focus is on the physical act of the character Madeline climbing the titular mountain, and along the way she encounters several characters who act primarily as commentators for her struggle.

There’s the chipper, self-confident Teo, the ever-worried Mr Oshiro, and the sneeringly forthright “Well, give up, why bother” attitude of a character literally called Granny.

These come together to add structure to this fantastic pixel adventure and make for some very challenging platforming. Celeste is a difficult game, but you can tell it’s been tested and refined until the difficulty curve is just right. All you can do is jump, wall kick and boost, but it’s used in a series of levels that add variety with puzzles, environmental hazards and more.

Celeste presents more than just mountain difficulties as a manifestation of one individual’s life challenges. Accepting setbacks and using Madeline’s own strengths to gradually move forward explains why there is such a positive message in this game.

Back to the story itself. It doesn’t take long before you encounter a dark mirror version of Madeline. Because he has no name and is only referred to as “a part of you” to Madeline, it’s clear that Madeline has dealt with the creature’s effect on her psyche before and been overwhelmed by it.

It’s immediately clear that this dark avatar is the on-screen representation of Madeline’s worries, doubts and fears. She’s the voice that hangs in all of our heads as we strive for something bigger in real life. The idea that we should stay in our place is almost socially reinforced. We should stick to what we can trust. We shouldn’t leave our comfort zone because what if something goes wrong?

The game primarily portrays this dark self as the villain, and the game in general dictates a sort of “final boss” scenario in which Madeline overcomes her doubts and emerges victorious.

But she isn’t. Or rather… In one of the most heart-wrenching and emotionally powerful scenes I have ever seen, she begins to talk about her worst self. She learns to rationalize these often overwhelming negativity with reason, determination, and the will to keep moving forward and prove herself no matter what.

In the game, this happens initially through many graphic exchanges and chases, because Madeline’s shadow self does not want to “open up”. She does not want to be understood, because she represents the uncontrollable negativity that often paralyzes us. To understand this is to conquer it, to refine it, and therein lies Celeste’s greatest achievement.

Finally, they agree that they can reach for the stars despite their fears, and they start working together to make bigger jumps, to climb a little higher, to avoid crashing at the last moment, to climb the mountain together.

The onslaught of fast-paced levels that followed, the reality of working with an “adversary” you’ve feared and run from so many times – the fact that developers Thorson and Berry created the most intense visual flourishes and controller rumbles when canceling the last few steps. It really delivered in an emotionally overwhelming way, and I had to sit there for a while, feeling pure happiness, reward, and accomplishment.

Celeste is a positive mentality that helps people who struggle with depression, anxiety, general worry, or a sense of distant dread in everyday life visualize their “out of control” elements, bring them back under control, and get back on track, otherwise anchored in the paralyzing sensations of worry and hyper-vigilance.

Everyone feels anxiety, fear, and stress, but they are human thoughts, impulses, and emotions that can be channeled for the better. As Celeste says, and I agree, the key is moderation.

With modern technology and new generations continuing to dissect and truly understand every part of our incredibly complex chemical makeup in regards to mental health, it’s so refreshing to see a video game do something that gives all players a deeper understanding of what it communicates and what it means for each of us to conquer our own mountains.