Celeste is one of the best platformers. It's both a masterpiece itself and host to a vibrant community of excellent modded levels. Strawberry Jam is the best celeste content that has ever been made. Its brilliance outshines spring collab 2020, the base game and even farewell.

Strawberry Jam is a gift to the world. One that is unbelievably jam-packed with the efforts of over 300 people.

So many of these levels just blow me away. So many of these levels are pure manifestations of fun. So many of these levels are incredibly clever. So many of these levels are delightfully evil. Even the ones that don't stand out to me or aren't my style are well done. I love how many different kinds of experiences these levels offer, this pack is non-stop creativity.

The visuals are so gorgeous...sometimes it feels like they're showing off. Even just exploring each lobby is a treat. I'm surprised how satisfying it is to collect each level's completion sticker.

The soundtrack is huge and incredibly diverse, it's one of my favorite osts

If you're intimidated by Modded Celeste, don't worry there's 5 lobbies of difficulty, each with it's own set of levels. The beginner lobby is easier than what the base game throws at you (and also has some of my favorite levels!) Also included in the pack is an excellent training and tutorial area, where you can learn and practice the tech you would need for any lobby. This is probably one of the best celeste resources that's been made so far, a perfect place to start if you're interested in going deeper into the game

2 of the lobbies here are way above my skill level. Each level in the advanced lobby took me hours. At the time of writing this review I have 150 hours in strawbery jam, 90 of them are in the advanced lobby. Yet as my deathcount piles up so does my love. {The heartsides are frustrating though, they're definetly the lowpoint of the experience. I hate how long their rooms are}

I've played a few celeste mods, I intend to play a lot more. This one will probably remain my favorite, i absolutely adore the insane variety. I am grateful to the strawberry jam team for creating something so wonderful. I am grateful to the celeste modding community for elevating one of all time favorite games to somehow greater heights

So far have completed everything past Expert Difficulty and currently 4 Grandmaster maps done. I'm gonna keep going until I finish Grandmaster or just give up.

But so far, this has been the best mod I've played period. Every map is unique in their own way and especially polished with decoration, gameplay, and even the original music everywhere. Celeste is one of my favorite games ever and this mod is a love letter to it. When I played the 2020 Spring Collab, it was a nice little expansion, but Strawberry Jam feels like a whole different game. Its beginner maps are also easily accessible to people new to the modding scene or even the game with a smoother difficulty curve later in. Props to the whole SJ team for making one of my new favorite things.

If you would've told me that one of the key questions in the new Dont Nod Game revolve around how violent should an anticapitalist revolution be, I probably would've met that prospect with a lot of scepticism. But after actually having played this game, I really think they handled their subject matter(s) quite well. It's sad that we're still at that point where it's a suprise when a game is explicitely political, but hey, I'll take what I can get. And Harmony does quite well in that department. Sadly, the ending dilutes the entire experience a little, but I get why they went the route that they did - the game's scope would've exploded if they didn't. Some more thoughts, because I cannot be bothered to structure this thing right now:

1) I really like the central gameplay twist! It's a really clever way of using a flowchart. Having to essentially "gather ressources" to reach your desired ending really helps in making the player feel like they are making a difference. Harmony is really good in that regard in general - the consequences of your actions are made abundantly clear, mostly before actually doing said actions. Which is a really nice way of conceptualizing a narrative but also led to me sitting in front of that flowchart for around 10mins each time a chapter began.

2) My biggest frustration are the load times on Switch. They are horribly optimized. Every change of scenery leads to a 5sec loading screen at least. And the game changes scenery often, sometimes even after one or two textboxes. It's really unnecessary.

3) The aspirations are just plain fun. A great core concept executed with a lot of charme and great voice acting. The voice acting is really great in general!

4) A LOT of queer and non-binary representation <3