Review – Catherine
Platforms: Xbox360 and PS3
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus and Deep Silver
Rating: “M” for Mature
Platform Reviewed On: Xbox360
Reviewed By: Slam’n
What do you do when a smoking hot chick walks into a bar and sits down next to you? You talk to her of course but how deep do you go into the conversation knowing that you’ve been seeing another girl for a long time? That’s Vincent, Catherine’s protagonist’s problem; he’s stuck in a love triangle and it’s up to you to help him find a way out. At least that’s what I thought…
Ohh baby! Pop a squat next to me!
In each new chapter of the story, the game plays out a lengthy 3 minutes or more of an anime-style cutscene and then renders into a 3D cutscene for another 3 minutes or more. During this Vincent’s responses to the conversation are based on what answers you chose before the conversation in actual gameplay experiences. Vincent’s responses during the 3D cut scenes always depends on your current pro-society or independent scale at the time. In addition, the fact that you don’t have 100% control over Vincent makes answering questions almost pointless because he takes forever to respond to a question and it always makes him look guilty. Having said that, the animations in the game are pretty awesome to the point that you could read any character’s facial expression and determine for yourself how they truly feel. Once the cut scenes are finally over, you have some gameplay in which you interact with NPCs at the “Stray Sheep” bar. At this bar, you can talk to several NPCs that each have a different story to share but the stories are very similar in nature to the one you are experiencing. Most conversations get more in depth in which Vincent gets a choice to answer a question that sways the pro-society or independent scale. These answers are recorded and tracked throughout the game and determine what Vincent says to NPCs during those long cut scenes and the total outcome of your game.
Hello tool-bag friend #2! How are you?
Once you determine that it’s time to leave the “Stray Sheep” bar and get some sleep, you head home and begin the “nightmare” puzzles. The “nightmare” sections of the game are the other type of gameplay in Catherine. These nightmares consist of a puzzle that must be solved by pushing or pulling blocks in order to climb to the very top where a door is located that ends the puzzle and welcomes morning. Finishing a level gives you a great sense of accomplishment but the difficulty of this game will have you dying and restarting often.
There have been a few puzzles where I would be stuck for over an hour because I couldn’t figure out how to solve it. Once I did, I was somewhat satisfied but I was always reluctant to go back into the nightmare to face another daunting puzzle.
Holy Diver! A horny butt monster is trying to eat me!
I wish there was more to the game besides small interactions betweens NPCs and difficult puzzles because the game could have had a lot more potential. Why not have complete control over Vincent every time he speaks to someone else? The current trend of the industry allows players to interact with the entire game, even during cut scenes. Mass Effect allows you to do it and look how awesome that is. Forcing the player to sit and watch a cut scene for several minutes makes you think that you’re not playing a video game anymore; you’re watching an anime, with a predictable plot and tools for main characters.
Overall Score: 5
Music/Sound: 6 – Decent at best. Voice acting was pretty decent for the most part however hearing the same dialog over and over again when you die trying to complete a puzzle or jumping over blocks annoys after a while.
Story: 5 - Predictable and dull. If you’re in a love triangle, you would either pick a mate or be cool about. After guiding Vincent into choosing his long time girlfriend, he still messes up his trust with her because he hesitates when he’s speaking to her during cut scenes. The other characters in the game are mostly tools that you just want to punch in the face.
Gameplay: 4 - Unsatisfied. Choosing one or another dialog option and not getting the result you thought you were going to get for the story is mind bottling and makes the option of picking an answer pointless. When you’re not choosing dialog for Vincent, you’re trying to solve the same type of puzzle with some variations over and over again. That’s it.
Graphics: 7 - Decent. It’s possibly the best feature of the game unfortunately. The details on Vincent’s dramatized stress in the nightmares are pretty crazy looking. The anime and 3D cutscenes are very well animated to the point where you can read all of the character’s faces and tell what they’re all feeling.
Overall Fun Factor: 5 – It wasn’t that fun. I had some fun during the NPC interactions (Stray Sheep Bar) but the story was so predictable and I wish I could interact more. The puzzles really broke the game for me and weren’t fun at all towards the last few nights. At one point, it was so difficult that I didn’t even feel like completing the game. What makes the whole experience even worse is that I’ll always have a sour thought when talking about the game.
Final Thought: There was so much potential in this game and I really wished it was going to be awesome but it stunk. I don’t recommend anyone to buy this game unless you fall for predictable stories, like tools, like weak willed protagonists, and love puzzles.