Catherine Review


PROS
- Great story
- Many endings
- Good social interaction
- Interesting art style
- Not limited to a "good" or "bad" side
CONS
- Repetitive and hard puzzles
- Not much replay value
Catherine is a story based puzzle game with an anime art style which would appeal most to people with cube fetishes. At least, that’s the general gist of the game, but believe it or not there is much more to it than you may first think. The story centers around a guy named Vincent who is a good definition of normal, he has a job, a small group of friends, and his girlfriend Katherine who he has been with for over a year, but because he doesn’t want “change” he doesn’t like the idea of marriage.
Though it seems change shall be forced upon him, for good or bad, as one night he may have had a little too much to drink, and wakes up with a sexier Catherine in bed with him, and that is where the story begins, you must then lead him through the game, with your choices affecting a meter, much like the one in Infamous, which then determines the outcome of the game. One thing I really liked was how you don’t have to try and stick to one side or the other, as being in the middle is also a perfectly find choice with its own endings.
Now you must be thinking “Hey Love! Wow, your internet alias can be abbreviated love, that sorta sounds sexual…how bout assassin? Yea that works….Hey Assassin, so far this game sounds like a dating sim!” Well, you’re absolutely wrong! The game actually centers around cube based puzzles in which you need to get to the top of a cube pyramid, before falling hundreds of feet you your death! The closest thing I can compare this to is Super Meat Boy, because these puzzles are hard, really hard, and you’ll probably find yourself cussing out some invisible force as you die over, and over, and over…
The mechanics for the puzzles are actually pretty straight forward, you need to move the blocks forwards, backwards, left, and right to create pathways to advance higher and higher up. Though the puzzles get mixed up a bit because every new set of levels has new challenges, including Ice Blocks which you slide across, Spike Blocks which send giant pointed spikes your way if you walk on top of one, and Monster Bocks which move on their own, it does add some variety, but overall the puzzles start getting really repetitive after a while and ultimately become tedious as you stop caring about the puzzles and focusing on the story.
The boss levels bring little twists, because each boss plays on some part of Vincent’s subconscious and fears, though overall it is still the same puzzle, there just might be a monster shooting some fireballs at you while you climb, though I do like how it at least mixes up the atmosphere, because being chased by a baby with a chainsaw is a little bit different than calmly climbing up some blocks, but it doesn’t’ help the repetitive feel of the puzzles.
The way the puzzles are actually implemented into the story, is that every night Vincent has these nightmares in which he needs to climb higher and higher, and if he falls, he dies in real life. This surprisingly works because as you play you uncover a conspiracy behind the dreams, though there is still a feeling in the back of my mind that this is just a gameplay aspect thrown into the game to make it more than a dating sim.
The other part of the dreams is a “resting spot” between levels in which you can talk with random sheep, and then before going onto the next level you must answer a simple two answer question, which not only affects your meter, but you also get to see how everyone else answers, and these questions are pretty random, covering topics such as cheating, dating, and the lot of it. I was pretty surprised to find that around 75% of people who have played the game thought of themselves as perverts….
Outside of your messed up dreams, you simply play Vincent as he goes through ~10 days of his life, in which he slowly turns crazy. There are two main aspects in the real world you see; cut scenes with Katherine and Catherine in which he needs to try and hide the fact that he is cheating instead of becoming a man and breaking it off with one of them immediately, while having that meter with one side focusing on Catherine, and the other on Katherine (confused yet?) change some dialog options. Though the main aspect is controlling Vincent in a bar as he hangs with friends, chat with other people at the bar, and use his phone. The way social interaction is done in this game is actually very good, at the bar you can send and receive text messages with Katherine and Catherine (the one with the “K” is the girl he has been going out with for over a year, in case you forgot) while sending custom replies in which you change each line, and once sent affects the Catherine-Meter as I call it.
Outside of that you can get drunk, talk with your friends, talk with other people about their problems (which does affect the game by the way), watching the news, playing a game which is similar to your nightmares, and sit on the toilet while looking at dirty pictures Catherine sent you while making some very perverted laughing noises.
So just to recap, Catherine is a story based game with an anime style with some very challenging puzzles thrown in that reminds me of Super Meat Boy. There are multiple endings as well as a pretty unexpected conspiracy, and overall the story is great. The puzzle gameplay on the other hand is hard, repetitive, and seemingly unnecessary, and you will probably need to use YouTube guides as I did. This game is a great rent, but due to the lack of replay value, not worth $60.