Catherine, developed by the folks who were behind Persona 3 and 4 and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. The upcoming action-adventure title is set to cater to a more mature audience.
GenreAction Adventure
Platforms xbox360
DEVELOPER Atlus | PUBLISHER Codemasters | RELEASE DATE
Catherine Reviews xbox360
1up.com review
Catherine surprised me. Plastered with scantily clad ladies and come-hither artwork, Atlus’ marketing materials make it look like yet another sleazy, pandering gal game from Japan. The reality of the game is far different, and considerably more nuanced. It’s sometimes sexy, and it’s often sexual, but it uses its "adults only" tone in a genuinely adult way. The closest thing to explicit content comes in the form of a terrifying abomination ripped straight from Gerald Scarfe’s sketchbook for Pink Floyd’s The Wall. When Vincent isn’t climbing boxes to escape a grisly death, he’s hanging out with his friends at his favorite bar, trying to keep his life together, or contemplating the challenges of love and the responsibilities of adulthood. This isn’t a game about saving the world or even necessarily being a hero; rather, it’s about sorting out the mess one man has made of his life and determining how his own situation fits into the tangled web of his pals’ and fellow bar patrons’ lives. It’s a game about intimacy, and the intimacy of its scale reinforces that theme by focusing on the seemingly trivial concerns of a small cast of normal people. Catherine is a lot less titillating than its packaging wants you to think, and that’s a good thing.
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consolemonster.com review
Overall I found Catherine to be a very fresh and fun game. I’ve replayed the game multiple times to unlock all the endings and the puzzles are still fun. The story itself is strange and interesting, and it’s easy to empathize with Vincent. His situation is specific, but not so alien that the player feels as if they are watching a soap opera. Certain parts being portrayed in anime may worry some people, and I myself was in the same boat. Having never really cared for anime myself, I was afraid it would turn me off of the story, but after playing, I can safely say the games cut scenes are mostly done with in-game graphics, with only a few being actual anime-styled animation. What is done in anime style didn’t bother me, and I found myself actually enjoying them.
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cheatcc.com review
Enter Catherine, a much younger girl who seems to take quite a liking to Vincent. Even though Vincent has been faithful to Katherine for all these years, it only takes a night of drinking and a fevered nightmare for Vincent to end up in bed with Catherine next to him. The rest of the game revolves around how Vincent deals with the fact that he seems to be accidentally cheating on his longtime girlfriend and the life choices Vincent makes as a result of these ordeals.
gamerevolution.com review
The game’s opening quotes Shakespeare: "All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players." But as the game suggests, it’s only the men. Vincent’s daily rest soon becomes haunted by nightmares where he and other men who appear as sheep must climb a towering wall of cubes before it crumbles before them. Chased by time and gargantuan bosses in the shape of their darkest fears, they ascend each cubic level to the chiming of a church bell—is it for a wedding or a funeral?—in the hope that they are not the next victims to plummet to their doom. It’s a wicked and warped deviation of Intelligent Qube, if it were framed by a romantic thriller where falling in a dream means dying in real life and where no one remembers their collective nightmare, apart from dubious rumors and the depths of fatigue.
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xbox360.ign.com review
Once you’re done drinking and conversing for the evening, it’s time to bring Vincent home. When he’s tucked into bed, his nightmares persist, and Catherine’s hardcore puzzle gameplay begins in earnest. Each of the puzzles plays fairly identically to the next in premise, though the difficulty of them increases exponentially the further you manage to get through the game.
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worthplaying.com review
Catherine may not be the Persona 5 that people were hoping for, but it’s a good game in its own right. The puzzle gameplay offers a lot of room for freedom and experimentation. Surprisingly, the story is engrossing and, while it can be too much like a soap opera at times, it keeps the player’s attention the entire way through. Atlus is mostly known for its RPGs, but Catherine shows that it can shine in other genres, too. Catherine is one of the most exciting and interesting puzzle games to come out in years, and there is plenty of replay value for a $60 title, even if you’re just trying to earn high scores and find hidden puzzles. Fans of puzzle games can find a lot to like, and even those who normally don’t enjoy puzzles may like the welcome change of the fast, frantic gameplay.
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escapistmagazine.com review
The puzzles are real brain-twisters, but the true frustration doesn’t come until you encounter one of Catherine’s disturbing bosses, which not only chase you up the tower, but use various powers to make your journey more difficult. Based on Vincent’s personal fears and doubts, some just straight-up shoot at you, others merely change the blocks in your path to something less helpful, but their pursuit forces you up at a breakneck pace that doesn’t leave much time for thoughtful contemplation. Checkpoints along the route prevent you from having to repeat the entire level over and over again, but expect to die a lot during the boss sequences. A lot. The bosses are exponentially more difficult – and therefore more frustrating – than the rest of the game, but the satisfaction of polishing them off is palpable.
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gamerlimit.com review
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joystiq.com review
Catherine, then, isn’t a one night stand. Though it may seem standoffish and esoteric at first, patience and perseverance will reveal the charming eccentricities and personality quirks that make it so special. Like any relationship worth having, Catherine takes effort, but the end result is worth it.
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gamingexcellence.com review
It’s always nice to see a game developer breaking from the mold and Catherine does that in a huge way. Unfortunately the difficulty is going to alienate a very large amount of people. Tacked on with those who were alienated already when they found out this wasn’t an RPG and it’s not looking good. We only hope that this game will find the crowd that enjoys both the aggravation of the challenge and the developing storyline that forms the core of Catherine. There is a hell of an experience here if you only have the patience for it.
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gamespot.com review
There’s more to Catherine than its single-player campaign. If you earn enough gold medals (not an easy task), you unlock randomly created trial levels for one or two players. And if you finish the campaign, you unlock a short-lived but hysterical competitive mode. It’s a shame the barrier to unlock this mode is so high because it’s a blast to find ways to hinder your opponent while racing to the top of your shared tower. And to make the proceedings even more absurd, the announcer offers bizarre suggestions. ("Players must now refrain from using the word ‘the’ while playing this round.") But such silliness is the exception in Catherine, rather than the rule. This story-heavy puzzler is mature and occasionally profound, exploring themes like sexual fidelity, personal responsibility, and trust. Catherine doesn’t just challenge your hand/eye coordination: It challenges your intellect and your emotions.
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gamechronicles.com review
The final stage of each evening’s nightmare ends with a boss challenge – not so much a fight, but merely an added incentive for busting your ass up those blocks to reach the final exit, otherwise you might find yourself at the mercy of a killer bride with a fork, a killer baby with a pacifier, or a killer…well, you get the idea. It’s bad enough the levels are slowly crumbling out from below you, but these hideous monsters will really have you scrambling for the quickest route to the top.
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gameshark.com review
Vincent’s story, regardless of the eight possible outcomes that dialogue choices and subtle, interactive branches create, is one that I believe many young men can relate to. Despite its anime styling, JRPG trappings and Persona team pedigree, it’s far more tangible and resonant than the typical video game narratives of pulp genre and macho fantasy. It’s rare to see a game that not only connects with very real-world concerns about becoming an adult man, but also one that examines rather non-judgmentally the kinds of decisions and changes that men of this age find themselves struggling with and through.
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gamesradar.com review
A puzzle game at its core, Catherine is Atlus’ first in-house HD title, and is an odd mix of a narrative-driven dating sim and a complex puzzler that explores the often not-so-simple relationships between men and women. Things start out innocently enough: we are introduced to Vincent, the 32-year-old dude who can’t seem to find his groove. Between a job that feels like prison and a relationship that feels like a job, his ambitions are… lacking. You see, he’s been dating his girlfriend, Katherine, for more than five years, and now she’s pressuring him to pop the question.
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gamepro.com review
The nightmares are a series of action-puzzle stage where you’re tasked with pushing and pulling big blocks to get Vincent up to the next tier (he can only climb up one block at a time) in a giant, transmogrifying tower. And it’s imperative to keep that vertical momentum, because the rows beneath you crumble away every so often — the exact speed depends on the stage, but it averages less than a minute — and that’s where the stress comes in. You know you’re on the fast track to being screwed when a stage gets to a particularly nasty section, like a wall of blocks with many holes in between them, and mild panic sets in as you frantically try and figure it out before you’re killed.
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thunderboltgames.com review
Catherine is the first current-gen console game from Atlus R&D1, the team that developed Persona 3 & 4. It’s a puzzle game about a 32-year-old man named Vincent who is cheating on his steady girlfriend, Katherine, with a waifish seductress named Catherine. A lot of noise has been made over how these two concepts connect – a puzzle game about infidelity? What? – but considering Catherine has all of the goofiness of Persona 4, it’s not a hard sell at all. Players control Vincent as he wallows in a bar with his friends at night, and then again during repeating nightmares. Nightmares that are block puzzles. It all comes together, trust me.
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videogametalk.com review
Once players have tackled a night’s perilous challenges (whether it’s a normal block pyramid, boss or challenge filled with themed ice, bomb or bouncing blocks,) they find their way back to the trusty bar. Vincent is usually there with friends, though he’s free to walk around and talk to the other patrons – including Catherine, who sometimes makes her presence known. Patrons will come and go, so it’s important to talk to them before it’s too late. Other distrations are there such as drink trivia and an arcade game, so you must manage your time accordingly in order to help everyone.
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gamernode.com review
Vincent’s story, regardless of the eight possible outcomes that dialogue choices and subtle, interactive branches create, is one that I believe many young men can relate to. Despite its anime styling, JRPG trappings and Persona team pedigree, it’s far more tangible and resonant than the typical video game narratives of pulp genre and macho fantasy. It’s rare to see a game that not only connects with very real-world concerns about becoming an adult man, but also one that examines rather non-judgmentally the kinds of decisions and changes that men of this age find themselves struggling with and through.
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planetxbox360.com review
The game is split up into two portions. The first has to deal with anime sequences, which you’ll watch in order to get an idea which way the story goes. Occasionally, you’ll have to make some choices as your story proceeds, either guiding you down a path of total bliss or the opposite way, depending on how things go. This is probably the most fascinating half of the game, and we’ll get into why in a second. The second half leans more towards traditional puzzle fare. See, Vincent dreams every night that he’s stuck on this tower, and he actually has to climb his way up in order to make it to the next day. If he fails or somehow gets screwed up ascending the blocks, “Love Is Over,†and Vincent never really realizes his dream of love. It’s awkward, especially considering that he could just snap out of the dream, but hey, then we wouldn’t have a game, now would we?
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giantbomb.com review
It’s certainly not awful, but too many aspects of Catherine felt like they were actively trying to push me away. More variety in the gameplay would have helped, as would more meaningful interactions with the game’s cast. As it stands, the coolest thing about Catherine is that there really isn’t anything else out there like it. If that’s enough for you, you’ll probably have a better time with the game than I did.
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