-Quick Review-
Lets kick this review off with getting my quick opinions and biases out of the way: I've been a star wars fan since I was a kid, a fan long before Disney acquired the intellectual property, I'm not very fond of EA games as a publisher, and I love flight simulators - that counts double for Space Flight Simulators, specifically: X Wing Alliance and TIE Fighter.

I have a lot to say about this game, simply speaking "I like it", but make sure you pick it up on sale just in case you can't get the game to ACTUALLY load for you... I added it to my library when it was 90% off over the Steam Christmas Sale so that was worth the risk, but it does go on sale often other times. Be warned there's lots of people who have had problems getting it to run.

Star Wars Squadrons is a Space Flight simulator which can be played with an Xbox controller, flight stick, steamdeck, and can be played in VR. Squadrons was published by MOTIVE and released in 2020. Squadrons is broken up into two areas: The Single Player Story and the Multiplayer Experience.

Review Video:
If you don't like reading, or are curious about watching gameplay check out my video here:
https://youtu.be/dVD-4JccysU

-Detailed breakdown review-
Story: Welcome pilot. As far as the story is concerned you're already experienced and have recently been transferred to the New Republic's Vanguard Squadron or The Galactic Empire's Titan Squadron.

The story for Squadrons is told from the perspective of both Vanguard and Titan. You will switch between both factions as you play, at the start of the game you'll actually customize and name both pilots for the New Republic and Empire. There are 14 Missions and 2 Prologues in Squadrons the story will take roughly between 9 to 11 hours to complete. There are four difficulty modes, Pilot felt about right for me, Story Mode should make the game playable for nearly everyone regardless of flight simulator experience.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3136215191

You'll get a chance to know each member of your squadron a little before each mission. I would encourage getting every extra bit out of this game. I found the diversity of characters with the New Republic refreshing and much easier to identify, and laughed over how the Imperials were much less memorable because they were all humans with greasy slicked back hair.

As you fly through the 14 missions in Squadrons you'll learn of a secret weapon the New Republic is building called "Project Starhawk", but there's a level of intrigue due to the fact the man leading the project is imperial traitor "Lindon Javes", who Commodore Sloane tasks Terisa Kerrill with tracking down her former commander and ending project Starhawk.


https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3136282357

Gameplay: Let's start with the basics. You boot up the game, you click Story, or training (please don't click Quick Match yet)... Now what happens?

The WAY you fly will depend on your controller, but basically you'll point your ship in a direction and throttle up to speed up, or throttle down to stop. (Note the detail on how the cockpit shows where your throttle is as, and notice where the line is for where to cut your throttle to turn faster)
There are other indicators in your cockpit, three or two colored lines. Blue is your engine power, Red is your laser power, and green is your shield power (if you have shields).

There are also indicators for your left, and right auxiliary equipment, and countermeasures. These systems along with your Hull, Shields and Engine, can be customized to your liking for perks and drawbacks.
On the left of your dashboard there's a radar-map-type-thing which I mostly ignored but that's because I don't play games optimally.
On the right you have your shields and hull percentage. After shields go boom, your hull go down, hull go down to zero, you explode. Lastly there is also a Targeting screen in the bottom middle of your dashboard, it's the biggest screen there with a picture of the thing you're targeting.

Multiplayer: First things first, make sure you check your settings and turn off voice chat, or switch to push to talk mode before you play multiplayer, because it's left on by default.

So there are really only two game modes in Multiplayer: Dog Fight and Fleet Battles. Dog Fight is where you pit a squad of 5 players against 5 other players. I can't seem to ever get into them because no one is playing when I do... but I've been told by my brother he got into them over Christmas. Fleet Battles are where a squad of 5 players go up against a human or AI squad of 5 "players", and try to destroy the enemy capital ship the fastest.

As was discussed earlier about customizing ship loadouts... In Multiplayer you can go even farther by being able to customize your starship's paint job, add decals, add holograms, dashboard hanging flair and decorations! But woah hold on there cowboy, before you go spending any of your currency you should know there are two currencies in this game... One for ship upgrades, and another for cosmetics.

You can get these by leveling up or participating in daily challenges... but sadly I can't do any daily challenges because I can't seem to que for anything multiplayer. As it is right now. The only way I've unlocked anything is because I can play Fleet Battles vs AI on my own and get experience to level up my pilot.

VR: Normally I can't comment on VR because I don't have a VR headset (yet), however one of my brothers has a headset and streamed the gameplay to me. If you can get this game working in VR mode, you might never need to go to a theme park again! It looked good from my *over the shoulder screen shared perspective.*
It made me very jealous to hear him exclaiming "WOAHHH!" "This is so fun!" "Weeeee" "AHHHH! *Crash*"

I see some people are saying "Don't buy this game for VR because VR controllers don't work" or other reasons... That might be fair, I can't entirely speak for it because I don't have a VR headset... but it LOOKED fun to look around the cockpit. (Unless it's a TIE, there's nothing to see in there) But typically the problem people seem to have in VR is not being able to see as much as conventional gameplay from a monitor.

The detail that this game was made for VR also explains some design choices which I didn't really care for... You have some "viewing angles" for your starships when you're in the hanger, or in the briefing room. You don't move around 3d space, which I really REALLY wanted to be able to do. But since movement in VR tends to make people sick, it makes sense why it wasn't allowed.

Conclusion: In conclusion we swing back to the start of this review: I like Star Wars Squadrons. Perfect game? Nope. Can I play online? Not really... Will it work for you if you buy it? It very well might not! That's why I suggest picking it up on sale.

There's also a chance this game isn't really something you'd be interested in playing. That's fair too. I hope that my review either pushed you in one way or another and was reasonable. (If not maybe a little long winded) Thanks for reading!

-Quick Review-
Lessons learned while playing Celeste:
“If at first you don’t succeed; try, try again.” …and again, and again, and again, etc.
“Just let me try this part of the level one more time, I’ve nearly got it”
“I suddenly have an usual desire for strawberry jam.”
Also, my thumbs are sore.

Celeste is a very difficult precision 2D platformer with great music, great visuals, and a heartwarming story you *WILL* work to complete without toggling on any Assist Mode help.
(But Assist Mode is there for you to use if you want to, but it’s strongly encouraged you do your best first without Assist Mode, completing the game the way it was intended to feels very rewarding… Madeline worked hard to overcome her challenges to climb the mountain, and I worked hard to overcome the 2D platforming challenges. But if you’re frustrated and stuck, it’s better to finish with help, then start and quit due to frustration)
Celeste was developed by the formerly known “Maddy Makes Games Inc.” now rebranded to “Extremely OK Games, Ltd.” and released in 2018.

Review Video:
If you don't like reading, or are curious about watching gameplay check out my video here:
https://youtu.be/fvHRIPS0C1I

-Detailed breakdown review-
Story: You play as Madeline, who is on an adventure on her own trying to escape some past troubles in her life as she applies herself to the task of climbing the Mountain Celeste. But it turns out the mountain has some mystical powers, and her demons quite literally come to life as she climbs to the summit. Along the way she’ll meet Grandma, an “InstaPix” influencer who you can find on Instagram IRL, and a hotel owner.

The story is a nice respite between the tough 2D platforming for the rest of the game, but it’s also heartwarming how the characters interact with each other and I thought it was well written. The characters have their own Bit-tune/Chip-tune voices instead of voice actors, and the character's drawn style was very complimentary to the pixel themed gameplay. Celeste was just destined to hit all the right points for me to absolutely adore it.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3304436047

Gameplay: Celeste is a 2d platformer, therefore the controls are pretty straight forward, movement, climbing, jumping, and wall jumping. I first tried playing with a keyboard, which was possible, but not very advisable. Please do yourself a favor and play with a controller or on the Steamdeck, Celeste is hard enough without making it harder with fighting against the keyboard input limits.

Also with cloud saves, I could seamlessly jump between playing on my computer and Steamdeck. Just wanted to make a quick note: Celeste works well on the steam deck from the comfort of my own TV and couch!

As you progress through the game you’ll encounter new ways of moving with either new abilities like a directional dash, or an extra jump when you dash through some special boxes. Each level will have its own theme in appearance, music soundtrack, and gameplay gimmick.

Seeing as Celeste is sometimes painfully difficult, thankfully the developer wasn’t cruel about it. When you die, you near-instantly respawn to try again, and whenever you move to another screen you respawn there, not at the start of the level. If I had to play through the whole level in one life, take me out, coach. I can’t do it. I think I died over a hundred times on each level in Celeste…

Speaking of the difficulty, there are optional secondary objectives in Celeste to collect strawberries. They’re completely optional! The developers tell you so with a pop-up-hint! You could go through the whole game and ignore the strawberries, but for those of you who are looking to push the limits of the 2D platforming and mechanics in Celeste you’ll want to go for the strawberries.
There were some strawberries where I said “there’s no way”, and sometimes I figured out how to get them… but I’d say “I got lucky”. Others were hidden too well, or I couldn’t figure out how to get them, and with other strawberries I took a few attempts and said “No. There’s no way I’m getting that and still finishing this game”.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3304458431

Conclusion: In conclusion, Celeste is great. I really enjoyed smaller, by themselves almost “peripheral” details but added together really created a special gem of a game. Celeste is mostly precision platforming, but it has a heartwarming story, a lovely soundtrack, I love the choice for “voices”, the pixel styled theme will make it continue to look great years from now. Celeste is difficult but totally worth the work to finish, but even if you find it too tough you can toggle on Assist Mode so that makes it more accessible for those that need/want it!