I've actually been dreading to write this review for a while now, since I feel like Catherine's overall reception is... not so good for the most part (from what I've read atleast). That didn't stop me from having a blast in my time with it though and here's why.

As for the gameplay, the puzzles are fun, controls are simple and responsive. Once you learn a bunch of techniques as you play through the game, you can really feel how your skills improve (like in a fighting game) and this knowledge will carry over to each of the puzzles you do. Getting the hang of the mechanics just feels very satisfying and being able to master dealing with certain blocks you once had problems with is great. Overall it's genuinely some of the most fun and unique gameplay I've experienced (...Final Boss aside, but more about that later).

Catherine doesn't only excel in the gameplay department, it also has a great art direction and a very fitting soundtrack. It's really cool when the main menu reflects the characters' personalities already without actively spelling it out to the player. Katherine is being shown sitting in the shadows with Vincent being chained to the wall by her side, while Catherine herself appears in the foreground in the menu and changes her position depending on your navigation through the menu, presenting her "freedom" and being able to do what she wants. Maybe I'm interpreting too much into this and it wasn't the intention of the developers at all, but the fact that a menu even allows me to make those theories is good enough to me. Main menu aside, the entire game has a gloomy mood overall that's conveyed really well. I don't know if it's the lighting in the bar, the soundtrack, or the characters Vincent meets along the way. It's hard to describe and yet it feels like everything's at the right place somehow.

The story itself is actually pretty simple, but it was also intriguing enough for me to always look forward to what would come next. As a semi-Megaten game, Catherine features a "morality meter", and it basically works just like the alignment system in the Shin Megami Tensei games in a way that your answers to the characters will affect Vincent's morality and the further course of the storyline. However, you shouldn't just worry about how Vincent's doing, because other familiar faces are having the same nightmares as him and if you're not willing to listen to their problems properly, they might meet a sudden end...

Everything I said has been quite positive so far, but I'd also like to address some aspects that bothered me and... could just have been left out entirely. Let's start with the boring complaint first - I didn't like the Final Boss. They were too RNG-based for my likings and the sudden random homing attacks and the move that pauses you mid-movement (really great when you're standing on a trap block!) got somewhat frustrating after a few tries. In defense of the game, I could have just used the provided checkpoints to make it a little easier for me, but I wanted to get the Gold Prize for the level, so I had to do it without any checkpoints at all. This resulted in the final stretch before the last goal being one of the most intense parts in gaming for me (the music really elevated that feeling). Skill issue? Maybe.

My second complaint is the use of absolutely unnescessary transphobia in two scenes. This is an issue many other people are also having with the game, so I think it's really important to address this problem. Erica, one of the characters in Catherine, is a trans woman who has been friends with Vincent's gang since high school and works as a waitress at the bar. I don't even want to go in detail about what exactly is said, since I feel that's rude, but basically one of the scenes in Katherine's True Ending (which is a good ending by the way) has a character suddenly deadname Erica and making a rude remark about her. Got me rolling my eyes and pretend the scene just never happened (since it bears no importance on the story anyways), so I could just blank it out and not let it affect my overall enjoyment of the game I love so much for all the other reasons I mentioned.

Anyways, I just picked up Full Body on an eShop sale yesterday and am really looking forward to experiencing this game again in a new coat of paint (and especially to see how Rin is integrated into the story). Persona 3 Reload is also coming along nicely, almost done with it now. Speaking of Persona, did you know Catherine was originally a tech demo for Persona 5? That would make it the best tech demo I've played since Portal. In any case, thanks for reading.

I mostly played this game for my past self. I remember seeing the game when it came out and watching Let's Plays, however, I was too young to actually buy the game. It wasn't until a year or so ago that I found myself actually being able to play it. It is...an interesting game to say the least. It is definitely something I'd expect from a game developer like Atlus. Those devs are a bunch of horny fools. I enjoyed the game. Can't say I was amazing at it, struggled on some nights. However, I got through and got the true good ending! Was proud of myself with that one.

I know they came out with another version of the game. Catherine: Full Body. However, I probably would never play that. It doesn't sit right with me. I can't trust Atlus with anything concerning trans or gay people.

hardest smt game

change the sound settings to this so you can actually hear what's happening in game without everything being too loud
Master Volume: 10
Sound FX Volume: 7
Music Volume: 9
Dialog Volume: 10
Cinematic Volume: 8
Environment Volume: 8

Horny game that talks about adulthood and relationships. How they can be corrupted, talks about responsability and CHAOS WITH THE SUCCUBUS YES, it can be a Megami Tensei game just for the alligment system alone, right?

Let me explain. You take the role of this man Vince, Vincent. And he's having trouble with his actual couple, Katherine; with a "K". Thing is, she wants to get married, but our man isn't ready to take the big step forward yet. It's very relatable in that sense.

And then it appears this girl Catherine; with a "C" which wants to be with you too. You met her at the Café Vincent visits regularly with his friends. "Stray Sheep". She, uh gets in love instantly with our alpha male.

And here is the main conflict. Who would you rather choose? Take responsability for your acts and mature? Be alone? Stay with the pretty lady of the cover? It's yours to decide. There are more endings too. But I won't spoil anything.

It's a puzzle game. You'll be moving blocks to climb to the top. I won't say more because that's mostly it about the game. It's simple but it gets the job done.

Went incredibly hard. I've been playing a lot of puzzle games lately, and this is probably the most fun and well-designed one I've played so far. I'd be lying if I said that I was stoked to get on it, because the gameplay just didn't seem fun whatsoever, but surprise surprise it's really REALLY freaking good. Even putting the gameplay aside, this game is just such a vibe dude. All the characters, the bar, everything just oozes so much style, and the nightmare designs were genuinely kinda scary(a few aside). So yeah, love it👌.

Also I'll check out Full Body as soon as I can.

Fiz uma apresentação deste jogo, para uma cadeira da universidade. A cadeira era "Narrativas Multimédia Interativas". A professora mandou o "pensava que vinha uma coisa péssima, mas depois percebi algo a mais. O Japão é realmente um sítio especial do mundo.". Dica para os universitários: Falem de merdas obscuras e acrescentam camadas a elas. A techer pensou que era uma visual novel? Pensou, mas também percebeu a crítica ao homem herbívoro japonês e como o jogo obriga ao jogador a tomar uma decisão de vida, sendo essa uma solução para o problema e que ele é efetivo, pois usufrui de elementos deste público para apresentar a mensagem.

cara de vdd msm, achei q ia ser uma game play suspeita, mas me confundi completamente, o jogo tem sim sua forma de humor mas nada q va prejudicar a sua game play, a historia me fez acreditar, desacreditar e duvidar de muitas coisas, ele tem uma ideia de historia mto foda e cm uma moral q so é explicada no final cm mta sabedoria, na minha opniao, grande parte das pessoas q gostam de uma game play mais complicada no sentido logico, deveriam tentar catherine, o sistema de puzzle foi uma coisa q me fez mto bem, no sentido de raciocinios rapidos e logicos.

Yeah, yeah...I played this game three times. I guess I must like it, right?

Rin may be best girl but I think this is probably the better version of the game. It's very tightly constructed around the original premise and I think a lot moodier overall? I feel like sometimes the Golden version of Atlus games are too into celebrating themselves retrospectively and lose sight of delivering their original thesis; Rin feels a lot like Marie in Persona 4 Golden in that respect.

The Catherine True ending is the best one I think. And it makes the Rin endings later on in Full Body seem less weird, too.

This game has pretty much everything you could want in a game. Having every choice you make matter to your outcome and ending of the game, and on a smaller scale this same principle executed well with the fun and experimental gameplay. Characters that feel real and do a really good job at showing you the toxic aspects of relationships and some of the root causes of these issues. A story that packs a real punch and tackles really hard and difficult questions. A deep atmosphere that is complimented well by the game's incredible soundtrack. And the fact it is all paced exceptionally well for it being a 12 hour game makes Catherine easily one of the best games I've ever played.

Have yet to finish it at the time of writing due to its Baba is You approach to difficulty, but I think it’s safe to call Catherine one of the most unapologetically auteurial video games I’ve played. It’s absurdly unique— pretty much the only piece of media I can think of to cross block pushing with girlfriend cheating, and in that regard it’s extraordinarily well realized. Tense, mind bending escape sequences are so masterfully woven together and juxtaposed with chill, Yakuza style bar crawls. But just as Vincent’s nightmare towers crumble below him during his climbs, so too are his reprieves brief. When hanging out at the Stray Sheep, time passes as you talk to each character, check your texts, even take a hard earned slug of beer. A mantra of Persona 5 (for which Catherine was a tech demo) is “take your time”, but here alas you are afforded very little— it’s keep moving or die gruesome after all. But where our tragic protagonist has to suck this up with a pit in his stomach, his journey is hardly grueling from the player perspective (though it is REALLY fucking hard at times). Gameplay is tight and snappy, challenging but fair, so much so that it even attracted a small yet dedicated corner of the FGC. Combine that with its brilliant excellently paced writing and you’re in for a treat, just keep in mind one with both a high skill ceiling AND floor.

Why do tech demos always hit so hard?

So let's break my thoughts up into a few sections. Firstly let's get the "game" aspect out of the way. Satisfying when it goes right, but incredibly punishing too, I had to switch to easy not too long afterwards. Maybe it comes with practice, but right now it's the only thing stopping me from playing the game over and over again.

The story, and the moral interactions. On closer inspection it does seem to follow the Hashino persona mechanic of having a couple of timeslots to interact with people in, however I think it's done in a very natural way that makes you want to play the game naturally. The texting mechanic is also a great way to allow you to really shape Vincent's actions, as indicated by the mysterious meter.

I think the one issue I have is that morality and feelings are muddied a bit.
I answered mostly because I felt Vincent was the dick here by not fessing up sooner, and I think it was entirely fair he got the Katherine ending. But a lot of why I ended up leaning towards her ending were just the good dialogue choices- like trying to stop people losing hope during the nightmares- it doesn't necessarily correlate with the character Katherine especially, but the game decides that hopeful dialogue corresponds to stability, when I don't think it does.

I do like the idea of Catherine representing hedonism, Katherine representing stability, and Vincent representing freedom, just a tad disappointed that some of the options didn't always correspond to that. In my opinion it might have been better to only have the mysterious meter be affected by decisions directly correlated to law/chaos. Of course, I might just be missing the nuance to some interactions.

That aside, I think this game was extremely successful in exploring love, lust and freedom, and if it weren't for how tough I found it, I'd be going back for more.

Going hard through my Persona-Adjacent backlog and decided to start with Catherine, I like puzzle games and have been wanting to play it since the release of the original. Glad I finally did! only got 2 of the endings because the last stages are really annoying even on easy but I'll get back and get the rest eventually, or I'll just play Full Body not sure yet.

Great game! I would love to see Atlus do more like this. Some more ~10 hour games with their music and art direction combined with unique gameplay would be great while still having a connection to some themes from a bigger franchise of theirs.

Gameplay is a rollercoaster of feeling like a genius and feeling like the dumbest person in the world. Ignoring a few absurd annoying difficulty spikes (1st playthrough was on normal) you do feel like you're getting better at understanding how to approach and solve new situations of each tower and when you're able to speed through a section you feel like a god. My only real gripe is the boss fights. I'm fine with the bosses having weird effects and attacks to look out for but the speed at which you have to climb the tower on these stages gets really frustrating and I ended up making bullshit moves just to undo them to give myself more time to climb. It reaches its worst point when you have to climb the tower while also worrying about Katherine and her slow ass climbing up for her so half the techniques you've learned don't apply to the stage with the boss speeding its way up. The final boss being the most annoying because he'll just change a block you're climbing onto into a spike killing you before you can react. Fuck those levels.

The story is great too! I first met Vincent in my play through of Persona 3 Portable which is a fun easter egg/ad for Catherine, shame he's not in Reload from what I've seen, and guy who beat the game on his 30th birthday voice hey he's a pretty relatable guy. Going in I knew it was about Vincent dealing with his guilt of cheating on his girlfriend with another woman with the same name but I didn't expect it to turn into managing getting older and moving on into the next steps of your life. Vincent is stressed out about his girlfriend Katherine's talk about getting married when he thinks things are perfectly fine as they are, leading to him cheating on her with the younger Catherine after his friends leave him alone at the bar. The constant, and comedic amounts of, piling on of stressful moments afterwards is really effective. From Katherine visiting unnanounced while Catherine is still at his apartment, to Katherine telling him that she's pregnant you feel the tension that Vincent is feeling especially paired with the art in the game which just makes him out to be the most distraught man in existence. The sound cues when you read text messages from the two girls are really funny too with Katherine being the most bitchy Sigh anyone could come up with. The story is mostly linear except for text messages and the final chapter where your choices for texts and confessionals will impact your ending. (they also impact Vincent's dialogue in some cutscenes but doing two different playthroughs they don't change enough for it to be of note.) My first run I got the regular Katherine ending and in my second run I got the True Catherine ending. The tertiary cast is cool, feels like the kind of people you hang out with when you're 30 and the kind of people you'd see at this kind of bar. Most of the people you encounter there you also find as sheep in the nightmare segments as they're all dealing with their own personal issues that you can help them throughout your playthrough (though I fucked up and only was able to save the cop). The stuff with Erica feels weird though.

Music is great, Art is great, Voice Direction is Fine. It's a little distracting having so many of the same voice actors from Persona that I just associate with those characters instead and also I'm a hater and don't like Troy Baker.

good game, play it sometime.