Catherine Review: The story about Vincent and love
Vincent Brooks does not have many ambitions in his life; it makes him comfortable and feels safe. His job is pretty easy. For relationship, there is Katherine who love and loyal to him. But Katherine loyalty is how to make Vincent becomes more advanced in his life, and she keeps doing this matter to Vincent lately.
The progress make Vincent worried, even marriage always become a topic when they talked each other. Basically, Vincent is the man who loyal to Katherine. But one night, Vincent has drunk. When he was drunk, he sleep with Catherine (who made Vincent life become hard).
Not only that, it added with the bad dreams which trapped Vincent inside it. He must choose the important option in his life. He can marry Katherine (his girlfriend), or choose Catherine (sexy girl) who sleep beside him while Vincent awake on that morning. The worst part is, Vincent will die if choose wrong choice (It seems Catherine is really trouble here).
Not only the bad part. Vincent can also meet his friends in Stray Sheep bar while drink alcohol drink (cocktail, sake, bear, whiskey). Sometimes he got some messages from Katherine and Catherine. All parts have displayed in anime graphic and use cell shading CG (HD Quality) for reveal Catherine game story.
Let`s back to the bad part. When Vincent was confused about Katherine and Catherine, there are several strange deaths in his city. People who supposed alive are dead on their bed with strange expression which filled with fear. One thing that can be found by these deaths is, all victims are male.
Some bad rumors appeared in the city. If someone fell into his dreams and cannot wake up before reach mid-ladder, then he will die in his real life. Maybe the spoiler is good enough for the gamers. Not only has the game story attracted us in Catherine. Let`s talk about the game play of this game.
The puzzles seem addictive in Catherine. It challenges the gamer to act before the times running out. We should climb many blocks quickly and not fall which can make Vincent die. This game is not only can be played alone, but we can play with our friends. It is up to us to cooperate or compete each other.
Catherine is the game which got adult rating. We can find many events like drink alcohol in bar. There are also many bad things like violence, blood, sexuality, nudity and bad words. We should know about this from the Catherine box art (which look “challenging”). Of course under the age gamers should not play this game.
When we loaded Catherine in PlayStation 3, this game will install to PS3 hard disk automatically. The size is only 2,5 GB. We can choose the HD quality between 480p and 720p. If you love anime movie, you should choose 720p. The result from 4?C animation studio will be interested to see using the best HD quality. We can enjoy Dolby Digital and DTS Digital Surround 5,1 in Catherine.
We will know Golden Playhouse which is the important part in Catherine game. It makes Vincent start to survive in his dream, and also save him from the bad dreams. When we started to play, Catherine will give three difficulties to us.
In easy mode, this game will not give many punishment if we choose wrong statement, even we can undo last action that we done in Vincent`s dream. In normal mode, we can feel more challenging in the game play, we still can get undo in this difficulty. And the Hard mode is only displayed for those who need great challenges in Catherine.
We can change Catherine game difficulty by entering config menu. Besides these difficulties, we can also choose Very Easy Mode. We should press and hold Select button until we hear a melody, then choose Easy mode to activate Very Easy mode.
The Babel will give more challenges for those who want get more challenges from the blocks in Golden Playhouse. But there are some conditions which needed to be done before we can access The Babel in Catherine. We can play The Babel by single-player or multiplayer.
Now let`s talk about blocks, which found in Vincent bad dreams. Besides climb with some techniques, we can also move these blocks. We can move it by press X button and drag it to another place. Use D-pad or left analog button to push or pull the block, and we can make it become ladder to climb higher.
These blocks cannot fall if one of its edges connected with other block edge (the blue light will appear if you did it). To learn some techniques, we can talk to other sheep on landing ladder. We can do it before move to the next stage.
How about the sheep in Catherine? Every people who trapped in bad dreams will appear as sheep in the dream. As the main character, Vincent will appear in human, but the sheep horn will appear on his head. Other people will appear as sheep, stand with 2 legs. Some people will appear with same attribute both in dream and real life.
Although this game seems addictive, the puzzle which appeared in Catherine is hard. Atlus give the retry button if Vincent was died because fail in some stages. We should find checkpoint to prevent start the level from the beginning. The retry button will be counted from the amounts of Mystic Pillows item that we collected from the stages.
If we tired, we can choose Return to title. After we choose it, we will face Vincent die in his real life. We can find the checkpoint in the beginning of the stage, and in the landing podium. We can also save our data in that place. We can also save our data in the real life. We can access that menu from Vincent`s cellphone when in Stray Sheep bar.
Besides talk to the sheep and save the data in landing, we can buy an item from the fat sheep. The landing (mid-ladder) also has a strange room, named as Confessional room. Maybe it similar to confession room in church. In this place, we will take personal test and decide Vincent personality.
The answer from the personal test will affect the meter bar changes to the red or blue place. The meter bar will decide the character mental condition. If we are connected to PSN, we will see the graph of the answers which answered by other players for the first time.
If we are not connected to PSN, we will also look the graph from the survey (done by Atlus). Atlus has done a survey from several persons (both male and female) who tested Catherine game. Sometimes we will find that our answers will same with other players, or maybe it is different. Some questions will be related with relationship questions.
Do not only think Catherine and Katherine is the relationship that must be done. We can also talk with Vincent friends in Stray Sheep bar. Vincent can talk to his friends, the bar owner, waitress, and also other people. Some conversation will affect the bar meter. We can also send SMS to other people (Catherine and Katherine also included) which can be accessed while Vincent in Stray Sheep bar.
If you love puzzle game, you can play arcade machine on the corner of the bar. The name of the game is Rapunzel, it same like the puzzle in Vincent`s dream. It was not difficult to play that arcade machine, but we cannot use many moves like in Vincent`s dream. Besides that, there are other features that not too significant affect Vincent life but maybe interesting.
Jukebox can play some music, and there will be more music depends from our achievement in the game. We can also play drink alcohol mini-game in Catherine. Some SMS (from Catherine) might have nudity picture from her, and it makes Vincent must go to the restroom to look that picture.
Catherine Review: The Verdict
Catherine is not for all gamers. If we look the Catherine cover, this game will show different things which not found in another games. If we want to try this game, we will act like an adult and refresh our mind (like Catherine main target to the gamers). It was pretty fun to know and play this game, because this game is unique and different with other games.
Catherine game is directed by Katsuro Hashino. The characters are designed by Shigenori Soejima. Shoji Meguro will arrange the sound. If you already play Persona 3 and Persona 4, you will know their quality. Not only have that, 4?C animation studio also helped a lot. This studio has worked on some anime movies like Memories, Mind Game and Tekkon Kinkreet Black & White.
The combination between the animation, graphic, sound, design, and great focus make Catherine becomes the game which recommended to try. Great game play, high replay value and adult themes make Atlus can try to make more games using these themes into their next games (Persona maybe?).
Of course Catherine is different with Persona. The puzzle is addictive, but the control seems not too easy. Maybe some gamers getting ‘Love is Over’ because fail on some stages. The game story (especially for anime lover) might want to play this game until the end. There are some endings depend on the player itself.
The marketing strategy of this game might said that Catherine is the adult game (You can check Catherine adult statement wiki). Do not judge the book by its cover, this game will offer more than that thing. Although the game name is Catherine, this game will be focused on the boy problem (especially for 17 years old or more). We can lead Vincent to the real man in the future. Maybe we can take a mental advantage by playing this game.
SMS feature maybe will be unique feature. Love simulation gamers might like this feature. Some SMS maybe will affect the meter to blue or red. We will know what is the bar meter after we reach the ending. That makes we should patient to play this game. Many relationship quotes also give more rating to Catherine and do not forget to play it right now!