Catherine – Review
Platform | Release Date
PS3 | July 26, 2011
X360 | July 26, 2011
Developed by Atlus Persona Team
Published by Atlus
The Pitch:
Vincent is a wishy-washy salaryman a little too afraid to be tied down. Facing the appeals of marriage from his long time girlfriend Katherine, all he wanted to do is to escape. And one night, he succeeded – in the arms of the beautiful young Catherine.
Katherine isn’t the type to miss details, and no matter how hard Vincent tries to hide things, he just can’t help but feel that Katherine knows what happened and is holding a grudge. To make matters worse, the young Catherine just won’t let him go.
Every night, Vincent falls into an abyss where he has to climb multiple flights of stairs to escape, and strange sheep-men go after him, seeking to kick him into the hellhole. If he ends there, it’ll be a game over, the C/Katherines will tear him apart. And soon he can’t tell between reality and the nightmare…
Make no mistake, Catherine is mindfully quirky, tragically dark and one of the most difficult games I’ve played in recent memory. It also happens to be wonderfully enthralling and all-together matchless. Trying to explain why I was left with these sensations is another matter, kind of like attempting to describe what a summer day feels like as a kid. It’s not so much about the words, but what’s in between them; the joy of exploration or the possibility that anything could happen. You see, Catherine is a feeling.
From the first few frames of the triadic title screen it becomes clear that for Japanese developer Atlus Persona Team, this game was a labor of love. “What’s that?” I hear you coo telepathically, “Persona Team? You don’t mean…” Oh yes I do. This happens to be the same crack squad that brought you Shin Megami Tensei and its many (many) derivations. With Catherine they’ve once again come out swingin’.
“They say, if you fall in a dream and don’t wake up before you land… you die in real life” lilts the busty redhead with hair like a lollipop as she saunters across an empty bar. With this ominous line we’re introduced to the story of Vincent Brooks, a 32 year old office worker and life long bachelor. Like many young men his age, Vincent spends his time hanging out at a local bar, waxing intellectual with his friends and doing anything he can to avoid serious commitment with his long time girlfriend, Katherine. Well, that is until a pixyish siren named Catherine shows up and pulls the floor out from under him. Literally. Or figuratively. Or… well, both actually.
Thus begins a tragic tale of adultery, deception and lust. The subject matter is certainly not your typical video game fare, but that’s because it’s not meant to be the player’s story. By freeing themselves from this classic video game confine, the writers are able to weave a much more complex parable. As a player, I found this break from the traditional western method of the silent protagonist decidedly refreshing. You take more of an angel-on-the-shoulder role for Vincent, whispering suggestions in his ear. This ghostly interaction forces one to realize how little influence they actually have, mirroring Vincent’s dilemma as his reality spirals out of control.
Which is when the dreams start.
Every night Vincent wakes up with ram’s horns jutting out of his head into a nightmare of geometric proportions. Dressed in nothing but his boxer shorts, he must escape a cascading array of blocks that bar his path. As row after row slowly tumbles away into nothingness, Vincent soon realizes there’s only one way out: straight up. You are tasked with helping to push, pull and cajole these damned blocks into forming a staircase of sorts that Vincent can then climb, preventing what would be a fatal plunge. The rules for block manipulation are simple. You may move them in any of the four directions, provided you have the room to do so. If you pull a block out from the wall, it will stay suspended in the air as long as it’s touching the edge of another block that’s stable. If it doesn’t, it will either fall until contact with the nearest available block is made, or it will simply plummet into the void. After a path has been formed, you use it to help Vincent climb out. Sounds easy right?
Not even close.
This game is hard. Like… really hard. I caught myself on more than one occasion forgetting to breath. Every once in awhile I noticed my hands were gripping the controller so tightly that it was surprising it didn’t crack in two. Normal people may see this as an odd way to spend free time, but for me it was a reminder of why I love video games so much. The sense of accomplishment after completing a level that had been extremely difficult reminded me of challenging games of yore such as Ghosts n’ Goblins and Mega Man. The true excitement comes from realizing your hands begin to work on a preternatural level, almost instinctual. Experience in Catherine is gained through actual experience. Vincent will come upon a complex structure with the floor falling away just a few feet below, and while you don’t know exactly what the right path is, you just start pushing and pulling. As he begins to climb a newly formed staircase a few heart pounding moments later, the recognition that you have no idea how that truly happened sets in. There’s not much time to think about that though, the next challenge awaits.
If it were like that all the time however, my chest would have probably exploded. The developers obviously knew pacing was important in this game, so it’s broken up into stages. Each stage is like a Mario game, with a few levels, and in between each level Vincent is given a short respite. It’s on these landings where more of the story unfolds. The gameplay here is reminiscent of the Persona franchise. Vincent is free to wander around at his leisure, talking to other sheep men caught in the same predicament. Each character has a tale of woe that slowly unfolds during the course of the game. You are given the opportunity to influence Vincent’s interaction from time to time or simply move on to the next area. The last level of each stage contains a boss battle. All of the gameplay elements mentioned before are present, but with a grotesque representation of Vincent’s fears thrown into the mix. If you’re wily enough to help Vincent escape manifestations such as a giant pair of disembodied hands trying to impale him with a fork, the reward is waking up.
In the real world, he’ll end up spending most of his time at the local pub where he’s free to drink cocktails, talk with his friends and see what’s going in the lives of the other patrons. This is very similar to being on the landing between levels, but there’s a little more to do. Besides talking to fellow customers (who may strike you as oddly familiar), Vincent can waste time getting drunk or playing an arcade game called Rapunzel. This game is designed to teach the player the intricacies of the mechanics without the time pressure. He’ll also be interrupted every once in awhile with a text message or two from various characters in the story. Your spectral presence again takes form as you are able to influence Vincent’s decisions on what to text back. I’ve been purposefully ambiguous about the actual goings on in this sordid tale because doing so would be a disservice. The important thing to note is that there are very real themes being addressed in a fantastical manner. The end result left me feeling incredibly fulfilled.
There’s a lot of gushing going on here, but that doesn’t mean the game is without its faults. Camera problems are not an uncommon occurrence when you’re trying to get blocks out from behind other blocks. Vincent is allowed to climb all the way behind the tower, but you can only rotate the camera about 170 degrees, meaning that sometimes he’s completely invisible. Compound this with the fact that when Vincent is facing the opposite direction his controls are reversed, and frustrating moments are bound to occur. I understand the point of this decision seeing that it is Vincent’s story, but it’s also a game. These moments bear mentioning, but they were few enough that they didn’t mar my overall enjoyment.
Catherine is a rare gem in the market today; an absolute joy in almost every facet. I can’t count the number of times I broke out laughing when my hands seemed to be possessed or at wonderfully bizarre moments in the story. There’s no coddling here. Instead, there’s a heavy reliance on the player to unravel the mysteries and themes that tightly bind all the different elements. The difficulty, the level design, the story and the tone are woven together in a beautiful tapestry to relay… well… it’s kind of hard to describe. It’s just a feeling.
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