Catherine - Archived Review
Originally published March, 2012.From the makers of Persona 4 comes Catherine, a wild and crazy tale of a tormented man tangled in an affair while dealing with nightmares and something of a midlife crisis. Oh and there are block puzzles. Catherine is a strange game that is very culturally removed from what is familiar to most gamers of the United States; if you do not know much of the Japanese culture, the experience can be fairly jarring. Which makes it surprising that it was Atlus’s best selling game of last year and even in company history in terms of its revenue at launch time. But was it deserving of such attention, especially considering the other cult heavyweights Atlus has published like Demon’s Souls and the Shin Megami Tensei games? Or is this a cultural looking glass that spins an intriguing tale worth visiting?
Story
The story of Catherine is a predictable if not an entertaining one. You play as Vincent, a man in his early thirties who lives alone in a very small apartment and is employed at some non-disclosed company doing something that is never fully shared with the player. In fact, not a whole lot about Vincent is shared. His personality certainly comes through in cinemas and action sequences during the game as a man who is just sleeping through life, afraid of commitment, but when it comes down to making a simple list of things he does, there is very little to note as habitual beyond drink at a pizza parlor with his friends. However, the one part of Vincent’s life that stands out is the main plot of the game: his love life.
Vincent is dating a girl named Katherine. He’s apparently been dating her for “a while,” though players aren’t actually told the length of time till the final act of the game, which could be considered the writers’ method of indicating that he took his relationship for granted. But I digress. Culturally, Katherine is the shining example of order and normality when it comes to her personality and presence in Vincent’s life. She’s easy-going at times, but frequently worries about Vincent and nags him a bit to be healthier. She also passively mentions her parents asking about marriage, as a very subtle wink to him to maybe get on with his life and their relationship. While many might be put off by her nagging, worrying, and passive-aggressive control tendencies, she is the “normal” girlfriend.
Marriage is obviously something Vincent is not overly excited about, but he doesn’t falter in his loyalty; at least, not at first. It isn’t long before his loyalty is questioned when he becomes entangled with a girl named Catherine. Significantly younger than his current girlfriend, she is the polar opposite of Katherine. Catherine is all about freedom, fun, and doing what you want to do. She is seemingly obsessed with Vincent from the start and quickly becomes the escape he desperately wants but can’t decide to take.
From there, it’s up to players to build his character by interacting with other characters and sub-plots to find out what type of person, deep down, Vincent really is. These choices eventually determine how much he wants to escape from his life that is being propelled further into adulthood/monogamy. These are good themes to work with, considering that they’re very relatable, and using them in a mystery thriller type of setting can make it a very interesting one. However, many of the themes and philosophies explored in Catherine come out feeling rather superficial. It’s unlike any other game on the market in how it employs interesting storytelling techniques and ideas, but none of the plot points, design choices, or even philosophies evolved in the game beyond an elementary level. Even though there is a multitude of endings for you to obtain, based on your behavior, it still ends up being very opaquely black and white in terms of your choices. The fact that not more of the game’s story is changed along the way, due to your decisions, makes the endings themselves seem shallow.
It’s a very predictable story with a lot of opportunities for it to take tangents and go down a crazy, more interesting path. These opportunities are skipped, unfortunately, in favor of a more straight-forward story about trust, betrayal, and the supernatural. Again, great themes at Catherine’sdisposal, but the developers chose to use all the elements in very cliché fashion. There is even a chapter toward the end that is flat out explains everything that has transpired for 20 minutes straight. While an explanation is nice for some things—namely the meter that continues to pop up during cut-scenes—it’d be better to leave questions un answered for the sake of keeping the story interesting. This doesn’t prevent the story from being entertaining, just disappointing that not more grew out of it.
Gameplay
As players, we don’t get to see what Vincent does while the sun is up. Instead we are restricted to his nightlife. Every evening, he goes to the Stray Sheep pizzeria and bar. Here, players are able to make him tend to his alcoholism as well as interact with NPCs that visit the bar. The NPCs can have interesting things to say with some intriguing backgrounds, while still falling in line with the cliché archetypes. Nonetheless, this is easily the most interesting part of Catherine.
Talking to the characters, getting a background, and making decisions in the conversations that change Vincent’s mental alignment are what make this part of the game most interesting. Sometimes the stories start out truly intriguing and even send a few really good red herrings (aka missed opportunities) to trip players up in their predictions in the story.
But that doesn’t really make for much of a game, does it? If anything it sounds like a dating simulator without the intention on sleeping with any of the suitors. No, unfortunately the main gameplay part of Catherine is a nightmarish block puzzle tower-climbing gauntlet. The puzzle part of the gameplay isn’t broken, it’s just not that much fun.
Part Q*bert and part Jenga, the puzzle-solving gameplay of Catherine consists of Vincent climbing a seemingly endless tower made up of millions of individual square blocks that match Vincent in stature. It’s up to the player to guide Vincent in his endeavor and therefore pull the correct blocks out for him to traverse the perilous tower and avoid the various dangers that meet him as he climbs. Sometimes there are actual enemies standing on the blocks waiting to strike, while sometimes it can be the block itself that can kill Vincent in an instant.
There are a multitude of techniques that several NPCs dispense throughout most of the game to give players an opportunity to rethink their strategies as they climb, which certainly prove helpful in certain situations. But even with those techniques at your disposal, it really all comes down to building a ladder and climbing it. The game tries to keep it interesting by introducing new properties and dangers to the blocks that you climb. But it becomes tiring, especially considering how long each level is. It turns into an endurance test of solving puzzle after puzzle and ladder after ladder till finally making an escape to the next area. The little mini-game, located in the bar, that employs the same mechanics as the nightmare puzzles, comes out a little more satisfying than the main game simply because the puzzles are restricted to short and basic layouts with infinite time to ponder.
The team in marketing for this game certainly seemed to be aware that it was the less interesting part of Catherine. Prior to the game’s release, it took an extremely long time before any footage of puzzle towers came out. Most of the marketing was restricted to the in-game cinemas and scenes at the bar to spin the tale and make the story seem like a dark psychological thriller with a man who just couldn’t figure out what to do with his life. It certainly made many people question and wonder what type of game it would be. “Surprised” would be understating the reaction most players and those in the gaming press had when they first saw what the gameplay involved.
Presentation
The presentation in Catherine is relatively strong. The developers of Catherine and Persona have their distinct anime style in all their other games, and it is definitely carried over here well. In many respects, it seems like this game was something of a side project to show off and profit from their new engine before putting a new Shin Megami Tensei game on the current generation of consoles. Nonetheless the game still looks good.
A fair amount of the game, while not moving block puzzles, is spent in conversation with other characters. Occasionally it will snap to some high definition hand-drawn anime, but even when it isn’t in that form, the engine is able to render the characters in the artistic style that allows for the exaggerated expressions common in anime. It’s still not a spectacle of a game, considering so much of the detail goes into just big blocks that you’re pushing around, but it’s still a good looking engine for the style the developers want.
As for sound, most turns out pretty well. Voice acting is pretty solid all around, despite the translation being slightly cheesy or over the top, at times. The music is done by the Persona composer Shoji Meguro, who turns in another solid soundtrack with personal twists on familiar classical symphonies by the likes of Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin. Perhaps the more desirable music, though, is located in the jukebox in-game. The somber and subtle piano that plays while in the bar makes for brilliant ambience.
Even the sound effects are worth noting. With the distinct style of this game and how it presents itself, the analytic voice that chimes “Edge” every time Vincent locks a block in place is a hilarious sound that would be perfect as a phone alert sound. Unfortunately, not all the sounds are as charming to hear over and over again. Having to hear Vincent say “I got it!” every time he picks up some money on his climb can get a bit annoying. However, nothing compares to the annoyance of hearing the church bells ring over and over.
As players climb the tower, they get closer and closer to checkpoints. Each checkpoint has a small confessional booth with church bells ringing overhead. It wouldn’t be as much of an issue if they were quieter or rang less frequently. But since the ringing starts upon approaching the end of a level, continues while you converse with your fellow climbers to get more of the story, and doesn’t stop till you get in the booth and continue to the next area, it is a dreadfully annoying blemish on a otherwise solid presentation.
Conclusion
Catherine is far from perfect. In fact, it’s a rather disappointing game considering the exceptional pedigree of the developer known for crafting characters and a deep story with layers upon layers of symbolism. That being said, it is still a relatively satisfying game so long as you’re willing to follow along with some typical clichés common in Japanese anime. Much of the charm may be lost on the average gamer, but they likely wouldn’t be interested in a game about a guy who climbs towers of blocks during his nightmares that are based on his fears about taking responsibility as an adult and choosing a path for his life. If this intrigues you in any way and you’ve been looking to pick up a mystery-horror/dating simulation game, Catherine should at least serve as some valid entertainment for about 8 hours or so.