Celeste: Chapter 9 - Farewell: Secret Route: The Moon Berry Challenge!
5Chapter 9 is the longest Chapter in the entire game. It was also the most difficult, so much so that it doesn't (need to) have a B-Side and C-Side. A lot was put into making this the true grand finale of the game.
This Chapter was so packed that it even has some exclusive secrets in it. I'm focusing on its more popular one.
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To start off getting to you, you need to get to the last big "Farewell" room of this "Farewell" Chapter. Get all the way up to the Power Box that controls all of the electricity in the room.
Hang off the left side of that box and then break it. Use the dash you gain from doing that to head to the left and try landing on a mostly-offscreen platform from over there.
You then have to go through an obstacle course upwards to go through a completely different path, one that outright extends this Chapter's length even further than it has already done this whole time!
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This new path is split into (what I'll say) 3 segments:
- The first segment is when you hit that first left platform.
- The second segment is at 4:18, when Madeline reaches the wooden platforms. That counts as a Checkpoint. If you die before reaching it, you'll have to start the entire final Farewell room over again.
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The third segment starts at 6:36, but more intimately at 7:08. You first solve a puzzle that actually involves DYING OR RETRYING ON PURPOSE JUST TO PROGRESS.
Beyond that is a tall room where you must use a Jellyfish to get all the way to the top. First by often throwing it at an icy wall and then dash into it for a boost when it bounces off. Then there's a smaller segment beyond that where you do two more cases of Jellyfish manipulation against eletricity before Madeline finally lands a Home Run towards the Moon Berry.
Strawberries don't actually exist in Chapter 9. So the fruit will be WOWED when you pick it up AND your Strawberry count for the Chapter will be at 1/0, and your grand total - if you got the rest - will now change to 176!
You hit one last Purple Orb by Badeline, and the ending of the game plays out like on the normal path.
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I've already described the ending in my Part 3 of the main Chapter 9 playthrough, but I don't mind doing that again:
In the dreamy clouds, Madeline finally reunites with Granny... despite knowing that she's still all making this up in her head...
Regardless of the situation, Granny was nonetheless happy to see Madeline again one last time, even if it was short-lived...
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Madeline finally woke up from her bed. The poor girl cried herself awake, but she was ready to face reality again.
Madeline got on her PC to talk with Theo. According to him, Madeline went AWOL for a very long time after Granny died. That knowledge made her depressed all over again, but only now was she feeling better about it. She learned so much of Celeste Mountain thanks to Granny.
Theo then showed Madeline a really old picture of his grandfather Carlos in his youth as a mountain climber. The picture showed him with a familiar young woman...
It was Granny... Her name was Celia, and she had long red hair similarly to Madeline.
Maybe Madeline hadn't already realized at that moment, but the final truth was there: Celia, the old lady that Madeline simply dubbed "Granny", truly was her own flesh-and-blood grandmother...
Such an inheritance that both Madeline & Theo had inherited their fondness for mountain climbing from their own respective grandparents. If only they were still alive to see how they've grown now...
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Once again, and this time for sure...
Thank you for watching this entire playthrough of an indie game that was as brutal to play as it was beautiful to follow; a study on overcoming seemingly-impossible odds physically AND mentally placed upon a troubled individual who at one point thought her world was lost that she contemplated taking her own life with it.
Madeline is such a great character. This trans girl deserves all the love she gets! Her and the creator of this game that she's based on, and all the rest of the game's staff!
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Aside from possible other extra things I may do, my time on this game and its overall story has come to a close...
HOWEVER! I still want to be done with Celeste as a whole, yet! Why?
Coming in just in time for the game's 5th Anniversary - which is when I first started publishing this playthrough - a community-sized effort of a mod known as Celeste: Strawberry Jam was released, featuring completely new levels, music, and even more beautiful graphics, alongside a MASSIVE Library feature that details every single intricate detail of Celeste's design and surprisingly deep mechanics for a game that mostly has you jump and dash.
I played the Switch version for this playthrough, but I eventually want to switch PC to record my experience with Strawberry Jam to see how different it really is.
Stay tuned for that someday, and once again, thanks for watching my playthrough of Celeste!