Catherine is a game about a man who cannot make a decision, and the worst part is that if he makes the wrong choice, he could end up dead. Atlus developed and published it for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011. Deep Silver handled PAL regions in 2012. Sega brought it to Windows in 2019. The studio behind Persona built it, with producer and director Katsura Hashino, character designer Shigenori Soejima and composer Shoji Meguro. It scores 8 of 10.
Trailer, via cj iwakura.
Vincent Brooks and the Stray Sheep
Vincent is 32, a systems engineer, unambitious and unenthusiastic. He avoids his uninspiring job, his rundown apartment and his unwillingness to marry his girlfriend, Katherine McBride. Then he meets Catherine at the Stray Sheep bar, seemingly by accident, and spends the night with her. She is 22, playful and seductive. She is also a succubus demon who tempts men for her own ends.
The bar is where the game lives between nightmares. Vincent drinks, sends texts, talks to the regulars. Drinks help his navigation of Nightmare stages, but too many impede his movement. He can play a minigame called “Rapunzel” that mimics the nightmare gameplay, or listen to a jukebox of tracks from other Atlus games. Leaving the Stray Sheep triggers the next Nightmare.
Climbing Towers That Collapse Beneath You
The main gameplay is the Nightmare. Vincent climbs towers of blocks and must arrange them into a stairway to reach the exit. The tower collapses beneath him as he climbs. Fail to arrange the blocks before the collapse reaches him and Vincent falls; the game ends. A pillow item restarts him from the last checkpoint on the tower. Without one, the player restarts from their last save.
Blocks push and pull freely. The game is split into three modes: the single-player campaign “Golden Playhouse,” “Babel,” and multiplayer “Colosseum” challenge levels unlocked after finishing the story.
A Story Inside a Television Program
Catherine is set in the American space colony of Neo-Brooklyn, a detail revealed in Full Body. The plot is presented as a story within a story on Golden Playhouse, a television program described as “like a Saturday morning theatre, with a bit of a Twilight Zone vibe.” The game’s ending is affected by choices Vincent makes over the course of the story.
The cast is small and sharp. Koichi Yamadera voices Vincent in Japanese; Troy Baker in English. Miyuki Sawashiro and Laura Bailey voice Catherine. Kotono Mitsuishi and Michelle Ruff voice Katherine. Rin, short for Qatherine, is exclusive to Full Body — an amnesiac who plays piano at the Stray Sheep.
Full Body, and What Came After
Catherine: Full Body added content and released in 2019 for PlayStation 4 worldwide and PlayStation Vita only in Japan, then Nintendo Switch worldwide in 2020. Studio Zero, a then-newly formed division within Atlus led by Hashino, developed it. The team aimed to expand on the original and brought back the initial cast.
What Catherine Gets Right
The daytime and nightmare halves should not fit together. They do, because both are about the same thing: a man stalling while something collapses under him. The social simulation is talk, text and drink. The Nightmare is the bill for it. The game began production near the end of Persona 4’s development in 2008, with the aim of reaching a more adult audience, and that aim shows in the subject matter rather than in shock value.
Where It Stumbles
The block puzzles are the whole spine of the game, and they are unforgiving in a way the story is not. A pillow item softens a fall. Without one, the punishment is a restart from the last save, which turns a tense climb into a chore. The three-mode split also buries “Colosseum” behind the campaign, so the multiplayer arrives late for anyone who wanted it first.
Why the Score Holds
Catherine earns its 8 of 10 on the strength of its structure. Atlus took a romance story and a puzzle game and made them argue with each other, then let the player’s choices decide how it ends. The English localization by Atlus USA holds the tone. Full Body’s additions are real, but the 2011 original is the version that matters historically. Fifteen years on, it still holds up.
KEY FACTS
– Score: 8 of 10
– Developer: Atlus
– Publishers: Atlus, Deep Silver (PAL), Sega (Windows)
– Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (2011); Windows (2019)
– PAL release: 2012
– Catherine: Full Body: 2019, PlayStation 4 worldwide, PlayStation Vita in Japan only
– Nintendo Switch version: 2020
– Modes: Single player, co-operative; “Golden Playhouse,” “Babel,” “Colosseum”
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