So I just finished an awesome puzzle game named Catherine, made by Atlus on the PS3 (available too for xbox360)
A good load of pictures incoming! (not really but more than I usually do!)
By the way “Kyasurin” is the japanese pronounciation of “Catherine”
You play as the protagonist, Vincent Brooks, who finds himself facing his girlfriend named Katherine who pressures him to get married. This is actually a big decision to take for Vincent, he never really thought before about his future and I think he doesn’t really want to. After all getting married is a step not many of us are ready to take too early and more and more people are starting to question the advantages of getting married. With all this confusion, Vincent can’t just come to a conclusion right now and tells Katherine he has to think about it, Katherine reminds him that they’re been dating for five years now and even her parents are starting to talk about this whole marriage thing. After closing the discussion with his girlfriend, Vincent thinks it over at the bar with his friends while drinking some cocktail when a young and attractive girl arrives and decides to sit right next to Vincent.
Too bad for anyone who would care but she’s quite Vincent’s type (and mine too, while we’re at it) with her drill-like hair and her flirty looks almost makes you uneasy to look her in the eyes. She also, for some obscure reason, wears a pretty provocative dress, borderline lingerie while being at the bar, she was probably just here to get a drink, no intentions to flirt around or anything. Anyways, Vincent gets easily drawn into her deep blue eyes and gets charmed by her angelic voice, Catherine is a professional fisherman.
Next thing you know, when you wake up she’s naked under your blankets in your bed, sharing your pillow. This is bad and you know it. What’re you gonna do, you cheated on your girlfriend who’s asking you for marriage with a beautiful and gorgeous girl and the worst part is you don’t remember anything about it (I mean…. if you’re gonna do things with another girl, you should at least remember it, you can’t even say “it doesn’t count as cheating since I don’t remember doing it”, so it’s a lose-lose situation). As the days go by, you keep meeting Catherine at the bar and having strange nightmares at night.
The game is designed as a “dating simulator” during the day, while you speak to others and make decisions, the plot bends to what you do and a little “meter” tells you how you’re doing (a bit like in Fable, either you’re “lawful” or “evil”, this time you’re going for the “red” or the “blue”, making stuff with Catherine goes towards the red while empathizing with Katherine makes you go to the blue).
During the night, the game becomes a puzzle game where you have to climb at giant tower made of blocks of different types, you have to push and pull them in order to climb them. It’s a bit confusing at the start but as you climb, you start to meet other people but they’re all sheeps. They talk your language though, they all seem as lost as you in this and further on you can notice that people you meet in your nightmares are people from the real world too that all have a connection with you. At the end of each night you have to encounter the “boss” of the stage, that is actually an horrific mashup of someone you know with the feelings that the character has for it, creating all kinds of monsters that chase you with demon-like abilities (some are really annoying too!). The master of the place tells you that there are 8 floors to this block structure, and due to the fact that you climb one floor per night you can guess that the game will have about 8 days and 8 nights.
I really liked the story but since I’ve decided to play of the “hard” difficulty on my first playthrough (I do this all the time, it’s a bit like a religion for me, I’m a masochist… I guess) I spent more time doing the puzzles than actually following the story, a lot of reloads and life-farming were included. The puzzles were actually really challenging on hard mode and I liked this part (almost gave up one time, on the last levels but still did everything on hard *proud proud*). I somehow found myself really involved in the plot, making all sort of comments on the characters to my friend that was watching me go through that crazy spiral of feelings and mind-boggling experience (thank you for your support Mr.32) and I must say that I was really happy when I got the ending I wanted!
I don’t want to spoil anybody that haven’t played yet or didn’t get this ending but I found myself getting the “Catherine True Ending”(a.k.a. Master of the Underworld), Youtube it if you’re curious but that was one hilarious and awesome ending, I bet I wouldn’t have gotten such a good ending if I went on another route so I’m pretty much satisfied.
I recommend this game to anyone who likes to challenge their mind, emotionally or to solve puzzles, this game is really great.
So did you play this game? What did you think of it? What ending did you get?
If not, do you plan on trying it? Not your type of game? It’s fine, there wouldn’t be so many different types of game if everyone liked the same things!
Oh by the way!! The music in this game is really good too, the OST CD came with the game so I can listen to it! Here’s one of my favorites!
Edit : Typos… again!
NotePad Frenzy 