I want to love this game more than I do, but it just isn't as good as it could be. I love the music, I love the concept, I love the gameplay. However, this feels like a rushed project. The story is my favorite part, but as I played, it felt like these characters were never going to be fleshed out. It doesn't feel like the choice between the two Catherines is much of a challenge at all, because you spend a significantly larger amount of time with one of them more than the other. And associating one Catherine with "good" decisions and the other with "bad" decisions is a weird way to make the player figure out which one Vincent should end up with. And as much as I love the tower mechanics for the puzzles, it feels like the difficulty spikes are completely random, and after spending half an hour on a floor, you'll just end up watching a walkthrough on Youtube. I really love parts of this game, but it became an increasingly frustrating experience the longer I played it.

I always thought this game was overrated, but it's honestly great. I guess it's the cool thing to do nowadays to hate on this game due to its massive popularity in the late 90's and its resurgence among gaming Youtubers in the early 2010's, but there are some phenomenal design choices in the levels and music of this game. There are certainly moments where it is unfair, and the controls can be questionable until you get used to them in a dual stick format, but I overall enjoyed it quite a bit and better understand its cultural and gaming impact on shooters.