Catherine (PS3) – a flawed curio
Some great ideas, executed not so well. That summarises Catherine in a nutshell for me. It’s a pity because I admire Atlas and their willingness to go off the tried and true path. Like other Atlas titles (notably the Persona series), Catherine is divided into two distinct styles of gameplay. We mostly watch, visual novel style, the protagonist’s intense social challenges in the day, and then take full control of him during his dreams at night in a series of puzzle challenges.
Welcome to the nightmare.
These puzzle stages in the nightmare realm consist of the protagonist climbing a large tower in sections. Each section might see you encounter 10 to 20 puzzles of varying difficulty, with one or two checkpoints per section. The most annoying of these stages by far are the “boss” encounters – essentially chase sequences where you are pushed to climb the tower more quickly than usual. These stages showcase the game’s best feature – its visual design – while also introducing random elements that make things more challenging, not to mention frustrating.
The puzzler half of the game is a fairly well executed, original concept. Any puzzle game that doesn’t resemble Tetris or Bejeweled automatically deserves some credit in my books, and this is a good effort (albeit not one that holds a candle to ChuChu Rocket or, my personal fave, Bombastic). It can be extremely satisfying to overcome Catherine’s unique brand of brain teasing, and especially towards the end of the game I got a solid feel for how to handle most challenges. There are two issues with this side of the game that hold it back from being excellent for me. First, the difficulty level is quite staggering on normal difficulty, so I felt the need to resort to a walkthrough in a few later levels to avoid frustration. Secondly, there are a few elements of Catherine’s puzzle rules that even now I don’t fully grasp and feel rather unintuitive.
Despite some frustrations, I think the puzzle side of Catherine is mostly a success. It’s definitely solid enough that it would work well in tandem with a fun and engaging story… and unfortunately that’s where the Catherine’s main faults lie.
“Acting weird” is basically Catherine’s MO
The story’s weaknesses really shows when compared with another Atlas series, Trauma Center. Both games/series riff on TV genres: Trauma Center has a medical drama/soap vibe, while Catherine adopts a horror anthology format. The Trauma Center games are entertaining thanks to a brisk pace and the continual introduction of new characters/plot elements. Catherine gets off to an intriguing start but the plot slows down in the second half, and the ending I found utterly underwhelming (at least the ending I got, ‘Katherine – Good’ – there are eight possible endings).
The image of a healthy relationship.
The problem for me is that the game’s story is built around choosing between two women, Katherine and Catherine, both of whom are varying shades of creepy and unpleasant. While you can make choices in such a way as to reject both of them, I believe this only affects the ending. We’re supposed to empathise with the main character in his struggles to either: a) have a fling with a woman who makes threats on his life, or b) marry a frigid and passive aggressive woman. What sort of a choice is that? The blend of horror and romance in Catherine just doesn’t sit right when we are continually made to feel afraid or suspicious of the romantic interests.
Ultimately I respect Catherine’s attempt to do something different, but I don’t think it delivers on its promise.
I only wish Catherine had taken some cues from the film Audition, another Japanese horror/romance blend. Anyone who has watched Audition will know what I mean when I say that the horror in that film is effective precisely because the romance is convincing.
One final post-script observation; there are several references to the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series in Catherine. In nightmares, the protagonist Vincent wears boxer shorts just like Arthur. Before each new puzzle stage a map appears showing Vincent’s overall progress, exactly like in Ghosts ‘n Goblins. Finally there’s a nifty 8-bit arcade game in the bar Vincent frequents; the game is titled Rapunzel and retells the classic fairytale from the prince’s perspective. The damsel in distress trope, a cartoony horror aesthetic and the vaguely medieval setting feel like another Ghosts ‘n Goblins callback. What does it all mean? I have no idea, but I like it.
Very Very Gaming 
I have not played this game. This game seems very unusual, with the use of two different gameplay methods. I like that the different ways of playing the game were incorporated into the game itself, with one gameplay method used during the night and the parts of the game set during the day played another way. It also seems interesting that this game is based on a horror anthology format as it does not resemble the more usual horror games, with the bright colours, cartoonlike aesthetic and the hero in his underwear. It is a shame that the novel way of storytelling seems to be hindered by a bad story. It is strange that the game seems to reference Ghosts ‘n Goblins.
What are the puzzles used in the game? How does the nightmare sequence relate to the story during the day? How is the visual novel part of the game played?
The puzzles in the game are hard to explain. It’s a matter of pushing and pulling blocks in the tower to make steps to climp – your main guy Vincent can only jump up one block at a time, so the blocks have to be positioned just so. The nightmare sequences reference events in the day usually by having a boss themed on something that occurred during the day. So the giant baby boss happens the same day as Vincent is contemplating having a child of his own. There isn’t much gameplay in the day to be honest. You watch some story and then take control of Vincent in the evening in a bar. You reply to texts and make some choices about what you send, talk to the bar patrons, and (optionally) play an arcade game. Then you decide when Vincent goes home and he goes to sleep for the next nightmare!