Catherine (PS3) Review

 Catherine (PS3) 8/10

Hello everyone and welcome to a very odd game. Catherine was released on February 17, 2011 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. The game was developed by Atlus and published by Sega. I am aware of the Full Body version that came out for PS4 sometime later, but for this review I’ll be going over the original PS3 version. According to Atlus, Catherine was only created as a test for their new engine that they’ll use for Persona 5 and future games. This game is a very strange game, as it’s a mixture of dating simulator and nightmarish block puzzles. Let's get into this.

Our story follows Vincent Brooks as he tries to survive a string of nightmares where he has to keep climbing a tower of blocks. After a night of drinking with his friends Jonny, Orlando, and Toby, Vincent wakes up with a girl in his bed. After realizing that he had cheated on his girlfriend Katherine, he starts freaking out. Turns out the girl that he had a one night stand with is named Catherine. Katherine (Vincent's girlfriend) is an intelligent, mature, sophisticated, stubborn lady that Vincent has been dating for 5 years. Catherine is a young, stunning, devilish, free spirited lady that claims to love Vincent, despite only knowing him for a day. Caught between the two girls, Vincent has to choose to either stay loyal to his girlfriend or choose to dump her in favor of a more free relationship with Catherine.

Before I go any further, here's a little something about me. I first played this game back in 2017 when I had just graduated high school the previous year. I first heard about this game from a friend and I was curious about it. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I didn't really enjoy it. I thought the gameplay was weird and the story was too mature for my tastes. The thing is, the more I played Catherine, the more depressed I became. Here we have Vincent in a loving relationship turned into a love triangle and I had never had a girlfriend. I took the game too personally and I dropped the game after I beat the third boss. Looking back on it now, I can see that I was too immature to play and appreciate this game and I'm so glad I decided to start this up game again.

Back to the story. The first third is setting up the game, introducing everyone, and letting the player get used to the game mechanics. The second third is when the plot starts to thicken with the nightmares and Vincent's relationship disaster. The final third is the climax and you find out everyone's secrets. I thoroughly enjoyed the game's story. It's a wild, emotional roller coaster that left me at the edge of my seat at the end of every cinematic.

The game has multiple endings. The ending I got is that I dumped Catherine and Katherine dumped me, leaving Vincent a bachelor. Despite this being one of the bad endings, I felt like it had closure and was a solid ending. The fact that I got an ending like this and it still made me feel good made me realize that there's so much more to discover and uncover about this game. I'll definitely be going back to this game and trying to get the different endings.

Visually, the game looks amazing. It may not be on the same level as some of Atlus’ future projects, but the game still looks damn good and I'd say it's on par with games today, despite being from the PS3 generation. I love the art direction. The nightmare levels look fantastically haunting and the character designs are all top notch.

Music is as good as ever. Shoji Meguro is back for the soundtrack and it sounds as good as the Persona titles. I love the music that plays during the nightmare stages as it adds the perfect amount of intensity to the climbing. When in the bar, you can switch the music up to play songs from other Atlus games. I was honestly surprised to see “Moon is Reaching Out Stars” from P3. I believe you also have tracks from P2 as well as some of the SMT games.

So the game is separated into 2 modes: daytime and nightmare. Daytime stages consist of Vincent going on dates with Katherine/Catherine and drinking at the Stray Sheep bar. While at the bar, you can talk with your friends and other bar patrons. The more you talk to them, the more they'll open up to you about their problems. At the bar you can also get drunk. If your drunk meter is filled up completely, you'll move faster at the nightmare stages, so make sure to drink up. Also if you finish your drink, the game will give you some trivia on whatever you drank (Beer, Whiskey, Cocktail, or Sake). At the bar, you can view your progress within the nightmare stages, send texts to Katherine/Catherine, and save your game. There's also a jukebox where you can listen to the OST while you explore the bar and talk to everyone. There is also an arcade game called Rapunzel where it's the nightmare stages but you have limited moves. This is supposedly harder than the main game, but I never tried it myself. This is one of the best aspects about the game. It's a fantastic way to get you into this world without too much exposition.

The nightmare stages are the best, and hardest parts, of this game. This mode is a puzzle platformer where you have to move around blocks to climb a tower. The faster you climb the higher your score will be. There's 9 stages and each stage varies from 1 floor to 4 or 5 floors, so there's plenty of puzzles to play here. The more you play the game, the harder these puzzles will get and my God did they get difficult. I had to use a walkthrough at certain points. Despite the difficulty for some of these puzzles, I had a blast playing through them. I'm not really a fan of block puzzles (especially after playing Ittle Dew 2 lol), but these puzzles are handled with a lot of care that I can firmly say that these were good, challenging puzzles.

So the way you get different cutscenes/endings is through the little meter that pops up at the bottom left corner. On the right side of the meter is blue, which stands for order. The left side of the meter is red, which stands for chaos/excitement. After you finish a floor, you'll have to go into a confession booth and answer a question. Depending on your answer will make the meter lean more left or right. Also at the bar, depending on how you respond to text messages determines where Vincent is on this meter. Depending on where you are on the meter will determine how cutscenes will play out. It's a very interesting karma meter, but it does seem flawed. For someone like myself, I never lean too far into excitement or order. Throughout my entire playthrough I kept flip flopping between the 2 sides and it made my story really weird. Like one cutscene will have Vincent try to console Catherine and comfort her, saying "no I'm not cheating on you" but then the literal next cutscene will have Vincent on a date with Katherine and then he reassures her that everything is fine. Due to my mindset, I made Vincent very awkward and during a certain cutscene Vincent had no idea what to say because he was playing both sides. Or like I originally wanted Vincent to be with Catherine, but due to me flip flopping between both sides of the meter (literally staying in the middle) the game forced Vincent to be with Katherine and it felt really weird and made me kinda angry.

There's other modes too. The main story is called Golden Playhouse. Babel mode is just more puzzles you play. Coliseum mode is multiplayer mode where you can face off against a buddy in a race against each other to see who can get to the top of a tower the fastest.

The game does have its flaws, but it's a very enjoyable game. If you're a fan of Atlus and their works, puzzle games, and love triangles, then this is definitely your game. By the end of my playthrough, I was able to clock in around 12-13 hours, so it should keep any player busy for a little bit. I will be tackling Catherine: Full Body later down the line, so until then, stay safe out there.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.