Farewell Golden Strawberry strategy guide

Farewell Golden Strawberry
Other names	FWG
Found in	9
List of entities

In Celeste, the golden strawberry for Farewell (often referred to as FWG, after "Farewell Golden") is considered to be by far the toughest challenge the game has to offer. It is a challenge that tests your skill, consistency, patience, and perseverance to conquer what is often the final mountain players encounter in the game. This page will center primarily around the various strategies on how to collect this very difficult strawberry.

Beginning in late 2019, a list of players whom have managed to claim the Farewell Golden Strawberry had been created and actively maintained to honor everyone who has completed this daunting achievement.

This page will assume that you have already beaten Farewell (without the golden berry), and as such, will be filled to the brim with spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.

General hints

These hints aren't necessarily dedicated to any specific rooms, but to the entire golden run in general. They may help you with issues like nerve control or consistency issues.

Do low death runs

Since Farewell is a tough chapter, your first run will usually have a fairly large death count, often above 3,000. Finishing the chapter multiple times will show your general progress and give you a view on what rooms you have to improve on, or what's your current choke point. Once you get to a really low total death count (20 or less), these runs become rather obsolete, however it's useful to do at least one of them to see what checkpoints you need more practice on.

Practice deathless checkpoints

The next step is to be able to consistently pass through entire subchapters without dying once. Play through them multiple times, mess around with strategies and check what causes the most amount of deaths on your runs, and try to improve on them. Here's a recommended priority for checkpoints:

• Event Horizon: One of the hardest checkpoints, although it is fairly straightforward for most of the time, but some rooms require a decent amount of precision, therefore requiring a bit of practice to get your muscle memory down.
• Determination: usually the biggest choke point on golden runs. It's less precise than Event Horizon for most of the time, but it has several rooms that contain cycles or quick movement that can be difficult to get used to.
• Reconciliation: although it's not particularly difficult until the last few rooms, it's a really long and stressful section, especially so far into a run. Great checkpoint to practice some nerve control, as it's the longest one and it has a couple choke points.
• Remembered: has a couple tricky rooms that can be annoying to deal with, so it's recommended to do a few runs of it to be able to pass it consistently. Dying in Remembered often feels frustrating for players, as it's past the Power Source skip, but not far enough to get to the hardest parts of the chapter.
• Stubbornness: despite it's length, it has three rooms that can be difficult to get used to (ST-2, ST-4 and ST-7). It's highly recommended to play through the final room multiple times, as it's very easy to mess it up. Don't rush as you might end up missing a cycle.
• Farewell: it's only a single room (unless you're planning to get the Moon Berry as well), but for as far as it is, nerves will make this room a lot more intimidating. You need to be able to consistently first try this room, or else you need more practice.
• Power Source: there's not much else to practice than the key skip itself. Try to get used to the Jellyvators, as the dashes are 3 frame inputs.
• Singular: basically no need to practice this checkpoint as it's the very beginning of your run. You'll get better at it the more runs you do.

Do not overcomplicate things

A lot of deaths in golden runs are caused by doing overly difficult strategies a player isn't consistent with, or done for the sake of going faster. If you're not comfortable with speedrunning or fast strats, don't go for them as they will waste a lot of your attempts. If you get far into a run, try to avoid as many unnecessary inputs as possible. A lot of players for example avoid doing Jellyvators far into a run, as with nerves it's easy to accidentally fail the neutral drop. Another example is to wait for the Crystal Heart Gate to open, instead of using the speedrun strategy to bypass it.

Use the Debug Map

Disclaimer: the Debug Map is only available in the PC versions of Celeste! (sorry console players)

Debug Mode has an option to enable the Debug Map which shows the layout of the entire chapter, allowing you to teleport to any spawn point you want. It's a big quality of life improvement, as it allows practicing certain rooms without having to go back, or restarting the entire checkpoint. It becomes very handy for practicing Determination, as it has multiple cycle based rooms, and debug spawns allow you to spawn right before a room to practice them from entry.

An alternate way to practice entry cycles is to enable Assist Mode on consoles and to fly through the rooms backwards with invincibility enabled. Unfortunately this method doesn't work with the Reconciliation checkpoint due to the inability to go back.

Keep your own pace

Don't feel forced or rushed to complete the run, as it may eventually lead to frustration or demotivation. Everyone learns at their own pace, and it's important to be prepared for runs. Don't force yourself to play on an off day, and instead take some time off from the grind, or instead do something less stressful such as deathless checkpoints or rooms. This will help you maintain your muscle memory, while not trying to force yourself too hard to the grind.

Major strategies

These strats are dedicated to some of the trickier rooms of Farewell and are generally useful for safety, or to make infamous rooms less intimidating.

Oil skip

See also: Farewell: Oil Skip

Oil skip allows you to have two dashes for the majority of the chapter. The glitch is performed in Start, allowing you to bypass the dash count trigger located in Farewell's first "space" room.

Power Source key skip

See also: Farewell Speedrun Strategies: Power Source Key Skip

While the key skip isn't mandatory for the golden run, and for some people it might be harder due to the Jellyvators leading to the skip being rather tight, the significant timesave it gives makes the beginning faster by a fair amount. Since you'll be going through Singular and Power Source a lot, any form of timesave will reduce the tedium of repeating the beginning over and over.

If you're not comfortable with the Jellyvator, you can take the red bubble to the right, grab the pink refill and use it to reach the Power Box. There will be another Jellyfish on the left side of the hub, so you'll be able to do the Jellyvators anyway.

After leaving the hub, there's two effective ways to go through the tight gap in the alternate path:

• Stand on the edge of the left platform while holding a jelly, immediately jump while holding right to jump right into the entrance, and once you go past the tight obstacle, throw the jelly and immediately do a down-right dash. The window for the dash is lenient, so if you get used to the timing, the risk of dying is very low.
• Once you reach the entrance to the alternate path, grab onto the right wall, slowly move down to the previous room so Madeline stays at the top of the previous room, and then jump as close as possible to the end of the screen. The room transition causes Madeline to do a small jump which sets you up very well for a diagonal dash.

The rest of the alternate path is very straightforward.

Sawmill room skip

The 4th room of Remembered (often referred as "Sawmill room") can be done in an alternate way by taking the jellyfish from the previous room. It allows you to entirely skip the tricky walljumps by bouncing off of the springs and using the refills for your advantage to float with the jelly through the room. Be aware of the killboxes which appear after passing through one of the falling pillars, they can kill you if unaware. Due to the floatiness of the item, using a spring will bounce you pretty far so be prepared to hold towards the pillar or else it will bounce you right into spikes.

The strategy is not very intuitive due to the killboxes and the jellyfish momentum, but it gives more freedom and more room for error instead of the intended way.

Wavedash.ppt wallbounces

Both wallbounces in wavedash.ppt have strategies that make the rooms more manageable and the wallbounces less likely to be missed. For the first one, grab onto the wall on top of the spring, wait for the floating block to move down, fall directly on top of the spring and it will make the wallbounce a bit easier and more consistent to do.

For the second one, you don't need to do chain the Wavedashes. Get to the small platform, stand on the left side of it and do an Extended Hyper to the right, and if you jump from the edge of the platform, you'll not fall into the pit, and instead you'll grab the bottom side of the giant wall. After that, jump away to the left and you'll be able to reach the wallbounce from there, and it's much more forgiving than the intended way.

"Haircut" strategy

The coins in the first Event Horizon autoscroller can be skipped entirely by grabbing the two bottom pixels of the moving platform, allowing Madeline to move past the wall of spikes without getting hurt. The correct pixels can be noticed with an easy visual cue which is Madeline's hand animation. If the hand is only two pixels big, you're not low enough to avoid the spikes, but if it's 3-4 pixels, you're safe.

After dodging the spike wall, you don't even have to collect the coins. Because you'll still have the double dash, you can just quickly climb back up, and then drop and dash towards the green refill, and reach safe ground.

Comb room Superdash

It's possible to reach the distance for the infamous comb room (second autoscroller in Event Horizon) by performing an Extended Superdash instead of a Wavedash. Because it gives Madeline less momentum, you'll have slightly more time to react to the wallbounce. However, in order to not hit your head against the large spike comb, try to jump off of the gray block at the edge of the platform. If you jump too early, you'll most likely hit the hanging spinner wall. Due to the fact a Superdash gives you less momentum, you'll have to perform it slightly earlier than a Wavedash.

DT-5 Superdash

Normally the "intended" strategy to get the coin in the 5th room of Determination is to do a Wavedash and hold back to not let momentum fling you into spikes, however the distance sets you up perfectly for an Extended Super. It's much safer and more intuitive.

An alternate way to get it is to grab on the lowest tile of the top gate which is not covered by spinners. If you're low enough, you can jump away to the right and collect the coin.

Core block room cycle

The easiest way to be completely sure the stars won't get in your way, is to enter the room and immediately do an Extended Hyper to the Core Block. The stars are set up to work with an entry cycle.

For the stamina puzzle, the main strategy is to avoid as many climb jumps as possible, and to jump away from walls if you can. If you jump to the wall with the pink crystal, avoid climbing up immediately, as with bad luck, you can activate the dust obstacles before you get to grab onto the wall. Jumping to the right platform is much safer.

Starshaft safe cycle

The falling star room (commonly referred as "Starshaft") in Determination can be passed fairly safely with two strategies that have relatively safe cycles:

• The first strategy is to do a Wavedash or Hyper from the very end of the previous room, which will transition Madeline and she will jump right into the tunnel entrance. This strategy has an awkward start and it might require a little more dodging, but because you do the move from the previous screen, the cycle will always be the same.
• The second strategy is to enter the room normally, wait for the stars to move right and perform an Extended Superdash when the stars are about to move left. The cycle on this is often very lenient, however it's also a bit relient on your timing, so it's not recommended if you don't have a cue for this jump.

Conveyor room neutrals/ending

If you're consistent with Neutral Jumping, it's usually safe to use them to jump away from the icy walls as a Wallbounce can be missed, or the dash can be used to recorrect your position if needed.

The end of the room looks scary, but the moving gate sets it up very well. Do not enter the top-right entrance, where the sneak peek of the next room is, as it will despawn the gate and it will move back to the initial position. Grab onto the gate, fall on it, and when close to the entrance, you can just press right for a little bit and then dash right. With the setup, the dash, while still fairly stressful, it's not as tight as without the setup.

Final DT room cycle

A common cycle setup for the star flight is to either slowly walk towards the feather and dash into it when in the dash range, or to Ultradash from the previous room:

• If you walk slowly, you have to watch out for your movement. If you move fairly confidently and quickly, the cycles will be relatively easy to dodge by just wiggling up and down a little bit during the fast wind. The rest gives you a lot of reaction time.
• The Ultra strategy can make the cycle very easy, allowing the player to move through most of the stars with barely moving at all, however the Ultra needs to be fairly quick in order for the cycle to work.

At the end of the room, it's recommended to grab the Badeline Orb from the bottom. It often delays the cycle a tiny bit, making it less likely to get hit by the stars. If you think you're way off cycle, you can slow the feather down and dash into the orb if needed, however that strategy is fairly risky. Use it only if you get way too offcycle.

ST-2 spring

The blue spring block has a rather tight window which can be a common choke point. There's two cues for the spring timing:

• Grab onto the top of the green block and jump right after the middle tick. You'll bounce on the spring and the block should disappear shortly after hitting the spring again.
• Hold onto the green block and jump to the left wall of the small blue block. You can either slowly climb towards the spring or do a max height jump to reach the spring. For the jump, try to do it as the last tick is ending, however for the climb you might want to do it a little earlier.

ST-7 ending

The end of ST-7 can be done without the need of the double dash, however it's a bit harder and somewhat risky. It's however recommended to have it as an alternate strategy in case if you miss grabbing the pink block back, or if you tried to save yourself in any other way. Since Cassette Blocks don't appear when Madeline is inside them, you can hold onto the yellow block and jump, then dash up-right through the tall blue block right after the second tick. You'll be able to reach the small spring block at the end without the need of a double dash.

RC-1 cycle

The first obstacle can be done by doing an Extended Hyper or Wavedash at the second tick. For the second obstacle it's safer to do an Extended Super instead, as it's slightly slower, allowing you to reach the bird with less risk of hitting the spikes.

Windfeather setup

In RC-15 (also known as "Windfeather") you can crouch to stop getting pushed by wind, and do a Reverse Hyper into a right dash to set up your height perfectly. Be sure that you managed to do a full Hyperdash in order to set up the positioning well.

Chokefish save

If you accidentally explode the first Pufferfish after being tossed by the bird in RC-16 (commonly referred as "Chokefish"), you can move back to the left and wait for them to respawn. A Wavedash or Extended Hyper reaches far enough to do this room without the need of the bird.

Extra strategies

Smaller strategies for easier rooms that can be used to reduce the risk of dying, or to make passing through them quicker.

Farewell & Gold Berry Room

The most important thing to do in this room is to calm down. You might be freaking out because of how close you are but just breathe; calm your nerves; you can do this.