Replies

From the game Celeste by a user named burqawitz on the gaming guide website GameFAQs back in 2018. Burqawitz was working on an extensive walkthrough for Celeste. When they reached the endgame content and analyzed the brutal requirement for Golden Strawberries (which require you to complete an entire chapter from start to finish without dying) they concluded that it was impossible.

The original article had been removed from GameFAQs but a community archive and responses by burqawitz were saved on the wiki site.

I do not believe that it is statistically possible to get every golden strawberry without using assist mode, or cheating in some way. I kinda think that [Maddy] Thorson was trolling us by putting these strawberries in the game, and having no way to tell if someone is using assist mode just by looking at the screen footage. I think [she] knows full well that it's impossible, and the whole thing is little more than a social experiment to see how many people will cheat and then try to pass their work off as legitimate. There is no achievement or reward for getting these strawberries. You don't unlock a special ending where Theo chips a tooth on the gold strawberries in your pie. You do get a stamp of a gold strawberry on your save file if you succeed in getting all 25 gold strawberries. But PC players have already learned to hack their save slot to manipulate these stamps - including removing the assist stamp.

Certain youtubers who shall remain nameless claim to have gotten every golden strawberry legitimately within a week of the game's release - even going so far as to say that it was fairly easy to do compared to other games they've played. Having carefully inspected their videos and held extensive conversations with them and hearing their conflicting stories about why they were forced to use an assist mode enabled save to make their videos, but did not have an assist mode enabled save slot to show at the beginning of the videos, I am 100% certain that these are doctored videos made by nerdowells.

That's not to say these people aren't good at the game. Even making a doctored video to look like you got the gold strawberries without cheating requires a tremendous amount of skill at the game. Please do not take this as a personal attack against anyone for their videos. Rather, consider this a cautionary note to you. Do not take these videos as proof that it's possible to get these strawberries and decide that you too are going to accomplish this, because if soandsoyoutuber can do it, so can you. I have yet to see a legitimate video that convinces me that it's possible. In the hunt for clicks and subscribers, youtubers sometimes deceive their audiences and end up wasting their time.

If you're going to attempt these golden strawberries - understand that if you want recognition for the feat, you're going to have to make sure that you have proof that you're not cheating. If you're just doing this for your own personal sense of self-satisfaction that's great. But nobody is going to believe that you got all the gold strawberries if you tell them that you did. Don't even attempt to tell people you accomplished this unless you have video to back it up. Do not play on an assist mode enabled save slot, and then expect people to believe that you just didn't use any assist options. Play on a non-assist enabled save slot, or don't bother. Show the full experience, from title screen to level. Play with the game clock turned on. Pause the game on occasion so that people can see that you don't have assist mode available in your options. Play with the original music on. Don't make up some excuse about how you had to turn the music off because it was distracting. Anything to make it difficult to doctor the video. And even that might not be enough. The only surefire way to prove you did this is to livestream your accomplishment.

But more importantly - think long and hard before you even attempt this. Is it really worth it? People aren't going to believe you unless you show proof, and that proof is going to be difficult to produce. You're unlikely to be able to monetize a legitimate video because it will contain copyrighted music. You're not going to make money doing this.

Don't let an ambitious youtuber vying for clicks trick you into wasting your time. Understand before you begin that it's probably an impossible feat. If you understand this and you still want to go for it - good luck. I sincerely hope you can prove me wrong.