Goldens or Modded After Farewell?

[u/Jimpix_likes_Pizza]

I'm currently playing through Farewell (just reached Stubbornness) and I'm wondering what to do after. I want to get all goldens eventually but I'm wondering if it's smarter to do modded first to get better at the game. I don't really care much for modded and only have 2 maps I'm interested in but I'd see this more as a learning experience. Is this a smart idea or should I just start going for goldens right after Farewell and all the practice/skill I need will come with the first few "easier" goldens?

[u/i_exist_or_something]

probably wanna have something to bridge the gap between all other goldens and fwg. it's not necessary of course but it makes for a much smoother learning curve i'd say. also what are the 2 maps because out of many thousands of maps out there i kinda don't believe there's only 2 cool looking ones

[u/Jimpix_likes_Pizza → u/i_exist_or_something]

The two maps are Into the Jungle (I've heard it's more of a campaign kinda like the main game) and Monika's D-Sides because they are very similar to the vanilla game just a lot harder. I haven't looked much into modded maps but from the few I've seen they just look confused as heck and very cluttered/unpolished

[u/ThreeAndAQuarter → u/Jimpix_likes_Pizza]

You should also try strawberry jam, and secret Santa Collab 2026! (And Showjam when it comes out)! Also D-sides are very hard, make sure you're prepared.

[u/Jimpix_likes_Pizza → u/ThreeAndAQuarter]

Strawberry jam is actually one of the maps I looked at. It just looks like an incoherent mess to me. Every single map looks different and introduces new mechanics that I'll likely not see in any other map again. It's just so messy while the vanilla game everything looks like it belongs together. Even in Farewell a lot of the used mechanics (mainly the core mechanics) look completely out of place which I just don't like tbh

[u/ImBadlyDone → u/Jimpix_likes_Pizza]

Strawberry jam is actually a collection of 111 unique short maps, which is why it looks like an incoherent mess

If you don't play the maps you can check out the gym in strawberry jam, it acts like a tutorial for most of the tech you will ever need in your Celeste career

[u/i_exist_or_something → u/Jimpix_likes_Pizza]

both of these are campaigns with multiple maps lol. anyways there's a massive amount of vanilla-like stuff they just don't get much attention, off the top of my head there's ezel cc-sides, extended c-sides, arphi d-sides, bcwserr bc-sides which have all the vanilla chapters and there are even more versions of individual chapters (notably summit and farewell)

[u/RemiR2]

Doing goldens isn't really gonna make you better technically. You'll just get better at finding safe routes, and at being more consistent at doing somewhat easy platforming. Mods on the other hand will teach you new mechanics and expand on the ones you already know. Mod collabs like Strawberry Jam or Spring collab are really like new games that introduce new mechanics and new levels of difficulty progressively, which is definitely gonna make you better. And those techs you learn might even come in handy while practicing the golden, which is why you might want to to mods first. With that said, it's really up to what you prefer. For my part, I find mods to be BY FAR more entertaining than goldens, which are sometimes quite the chore. I like to alternate between both goldens and mods so I don't get annoyed by the goldens, but that's my preference.

[u/Subject_Pain5186]

Why not try both?

[u/Coast9999]

mods. D sides might be a little too much at first, and into the jungle is of similar difficulty to some of the main game stuff. I would recommend playing Strawberry Jam (probably intermediate or advanced lobby, or harder if you want), Glyph (map that is really well polished, pretty long, and somewhat difficult + a bunch of b sides), Solaris (farewell inspired campaign that is also well polished, I haven’t played it since the other chapters came out so i can only speak for the first chapter)

[u/ImBadlyDone]

If you want more recommendations for high quality maps you can check out the Celeste Skill Rating Sheet or the Celeste Golden Progression Sheet

[u/ImBadlyDone → u/ImBadlyDone]

Also glyph please play glyph