Catherine is the latest release from the creators of the Persona series, Atlus games. It's best described as an Erotic Horror Platform Adventure Puzzle Game which may sound like a mouthful but honestly it's too varied to pigeon hole with one genre.
Vincent has been in a relationship with his girlfriend Katherine for five years but is scared by the idea of marriage. He's been hearing about the deaths of young men in the area, all were found in bed with a look of anguish cast across their faces. One night he meets a woman named Catherine in the Stray Sheep bar, instantly falling for the charms of his ideal woman he spends the night with her and is immediately plagued by strange nightmares. In these dreams Vincent as well as other men who appear to him as sheep must escape from different horrifying deaths by climbing a mountain of boxes. Can Vincent figure out what's happening? Which Katherine/Catherine will he choose? Will he even survive the night?
The game is split into two discernible parts when you play the Golden Theatre mode (story mode for those of us who like things made obvious). During the day time you juggle your relationship with two women, talk to friends and other patrons of the Stray Sheep, order a drink, listen to music on the jukebox (which happens to feature a multitude of songs from previous Atlus titles including Persona), and send and receive text messages on your phone (Catherine is fond of sending the odd saucy photo).
The main meat of the game though, is the nightmare world which is set out like a puzzle. You climb a slowly collapsing staircase made of movable blocks, you can push, pull and slide the blocks to navigate your way to the top, and safety. Score multipliers are gained for climbing the boxes quickly but there are multiple traps and sheep in the way to block your progress. You can collect items along the way such as pillows which represent extra lives. Falling off the bottom of the staircase costs you a pillow and when you run out of pillows it's game over. I between stages you can talk to the sheep or learn new techniques that should help you on your way through the nightmare you're enduring.
It's a really smart puzzle design that does what all the best ones do, it keeps the basic concept simple but allows it to become infinitely complicated at the same time.
The game itself is stunning and gives us a fair indication of how the next Persona will look. Animated cut scenes blend seamlessly with the cell shaded graphics of the in game engine while the character animations are smooth and realistic, well, as realistic as they get when you're a Boxer shorts wearing guy with a pair of sheep horns climbing up a pile of boxes to escape a giant fork.
Based on your Decisions Vincent will take a differing route through the story, you can affect small things like the way you compose a text, or how you talk to somebody. Catherine uses a subtle kind of morality system whereby small choices in conversation are taken into account as well as larger choices to give a more rounded summation of your characters personality. The end of the game is also affected by your choices, with multiple endings possible, it's very much like Heavy Rain with it's branching story lines.
Catherine also features two player Babel Mode and a PVP mode called Vs Colosseum.
Catherine is a game unlike anything els you've played on Xbox 360 or PS3, it has intense gameplay, slick presentation and huge potential for multiple replays. The only downside is that unfortunately there's no release scheduled for the UK, although Germany is due to get the game on December 31st. Having said that of course most PS3 games are region free, so you can pick up an imported copy of the US version from July 16th if you so wish.
I'm definitely getting my hands on a copy.
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