It feels mean to compare this to its predecessor but Virtue's Last Reward just doesn't have the sheer joy and thrill that Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors had. Its lore simultaneously wants to develop and exacerbate the insanity that 999 spent slowly unspooling, but it doesn't want to approach that level of multifaceted storytelling with nearly the same drama or heightened sense of panic. When I learned of a new element within the story, I didn't feel as strong of a sense of bewilderment or clairvoyance-level realization, but rather a sense of mild satisfaction. That's the thing that gets me about this game, I suppose: It works, but it doesn't tug at my emotions as much as 999 did. The chaos is ramped up but it just doesn't feel as urgent or interesting.

The character drama in particular is maybe my biggest gripe with the game overall. Every conversation is considerably longer and more quippy at the cost of information density, there's this sense of irreverence that feels extremely out of place. Of course, you could blame this on the advent of the Danganronpa franchise and its mockery in the face of certain death, but that series has its moments to refrain from indulging in its hypersexuality and humor in service of a bigger idea that climbs towards a hostile thriller screenplay. Additionally, the irreverence is used to help build onto the dread—were it not for Monokuma's complete and utter disregard for his subjects' lives, there'd be less panic among them.

The characters in VLR, on the other hand, are poised to joke and shove corny banter in nearly every conversation given enough time, such that it stands to kill a lot of the intensity that the holistic story builds. I would much rather a short, important conversation than a long one that stands to remove any given amount goodwill I have for the main characters. This lack of brevity is also not helped by the gargantuan amount of time that it takes between various novel segments, showcasing a very annoying dot moving across the map for every single possible migration of the characters. At a certain point in my playthrough, I started scheduling for these intermissions and texting friends over actually trying to remain immersed with a medium that ejected me from immersion to begin with.

That's not to say it's a bad game, far from it—once again in no small part to the thoughtful escape room design employed with a similar (but not exact same) grace as its predecessor. The increase in difficulty is something I rather appreciate, even if it comes at the cost of breaking immersion sometimes. I especially appreciate the safe system, though it has its drawbacks with certain room-end puzzles. The broader story itself, divorced from being attached to the game and the individual writing choices I dislike, is excellent scaffolding around the original lore that 999 set up. It's just a shame that this story had to shake out this way, because as a game it fails to excite me beyond its lore and individual chambers.

EDIT, 23-MARCH-2024:

My neglect to mention the very casual misogyny present in this game is starting to bug me greatly, so allow me to comment on the reality that Sigma and the rest of the characters either are victims or enablers of horrific womanizing. In a shocking departure from 999's relatively minute jokes about sexuality that are unimportant, minor facets of individual characters only appearing once or twice, Virtue's Last Reward takes the bold move to make Sigma a sexual harasser. In every possible route, he is poised to interact with at least one of the female characters with a variety of dehumanizing and, frankly, horrible sex pestery. He even remarks that Clover (who in VLR is small and skinny but an adult) is seemingly jailbait.

Misogynist characters are not inherently detrimental to a story if it is done with the tact and angling that it deserves. I hold the idea that depiction is not necessarily endorsement of the depicted. However, VLR's main character being an incessantly horny poon-hound who can be led to do just about anything with the promise of someone's panties getting stripped off is so irritating after 20 hours of playing the game that it ceases to be worthwhile as a facet of a character worth exploring. There is no benefit to it in this story.

"Just focus on tying up all your loose ends - then you and I are leaving this city once and for all." ~ Judy Álvarez

For many, Cyberpunk 2077 will always be remembered as the game with arguably the worst launch next to No Man's Sky. It was a bugfest and the console experience was so bad that refunds were provided from the developers themselves. But I'm not here to talk about the launch - instead I would like to share my personal experience after ~100 hours of playing and getting all available endings, entirely in patch 2.1 and right off the bat with Phantom Liberty (which I reviewed already).

Cyberpunk really shines in terms of presentation. The vibes are incredible, Night City nails the feeling of a dystopian and futuristic metropolis perfectly. You know, flashy neon lights and advertisements are plastered all over the city and the streets are always busy. Another thing that really helps the immersion here is the lighting. An often overlooked aspect, but it's probably the best ambient lighting I've ever seen in a game alongside Red Dead Redemption 2. Do yourself a favor and cruise through Night City on a rainy night, you'll see what I'm talking about. By the way, this is without Raytracing. RTX enabled is a whole different beast, but I didn't keep it on for long, because it was taking a serious toll on my frames and I'm a person who likes to enjoy games with a smooth framerate over graphical fidelity all day.

The main story is solid, albeit not very long. You could probably finish it under 20 hours in total if you're beelining the main quests and ignore the side content. Despite the short runtime, you'll find yourself in a lot of cool setpieces and get acquainted to many great characters, each with their own individual questline. I would definitely recommend playing those quests, since they're a lot more personal than the overarching narrative and really help understanding the struggles and personalities of V's friends better. Speaking of those friends, I think the fluff text messages you get every now and then are a great feature. Makes the world feel more alive and it's always nice to see characters being relevant outside of their own contained substories. Romance is also a neat little mechanic - I really like how CDPR provides extra text messages for your partner, so they ask about V's life every now and then. There's an unique quest where you can also hang out with them at your apartment and talk about stuff, this is repeatable, but unfortunately the dialogue repeats after the first time. Just use your imagination here and you're golden.

Cyberpunk's side content is mainly divided into two different mission types - gigs and side jobs. Gigs are one-time missions where you do a quick job for a fixer of choice, like breaking into an apartment to retrieve some data for a client. How you handle those missions is entirely up to you (unless there's an optional objective you'd like to complete), so you could opt for a stealthy approach or just shoot your way through the enemies. Combat in general is very diverse, you can have Mantis Blade implants inside your arms or blind enemies with hacks - there are so many possible builds. I went with a Netrunner/Gunslinger build, since not many games offer you the opportunity to weaken your opponents by just hacking them! And pistols just feel like the most comfy ranged option to me - a silenced one for stealth and another unsilenced one for loud combat. If you're still unsure on a build, I'd recommend testing some of the iconic weapons (basically the "legendary" weapons of this game), since they come with unique perks. There's a lot of them, so I'm sure some of them will appeal to you. Now, I didn't go in detail about the side jobs, but that's because they're more narrative-driven quests. Some of them feel like the Stranger quests in RDR2, while others have more complex tales to tell. So basically they are a great pastime if you're looking for more worldbuilding in Night City.

If you found yourself asking the whole time "But what about the bugs?", while reading this, then I'll gladly answer that for you. In my 97 hours of playtime I only had a single crash happen (right before writing this review ironically), but since the game autosaves often enough, it was a loss of like 3 minutes only. I haven't encountered a single game-breaking bug, just some small immersion-breakers every now and then, alongside two "real" bugs. This includes various items clipping into the hands of NPCs when they were supposed to put them away and NPCs in general teleporting on rooftops where they aren't supposed to be. The "real" bugs were my V glitching through a wall after a character crashed my car into that wall in a scripted cutscene (had to reload my save) and I've also had enemies walk through a closed garage door once - but that one was rather funny, despite being unfair. There's another problem I'd like to address, but I'm not entirely sure if it's a bug, so I'm not going to label it as one. It's related to quests starting through calls of certain characters. The game explicitly tells you "Wait a day until this character calls you back." and then sometime they just don't call at all, despite 24 hours having passed in-game. Worst offender was when I tried to start the follow-up mission to the companion mission "Off the Leash", the quest giver was supposed to call after one in-game day but it took me two real-time hours (after several virtual days passed already) for that character to call. For your own sanity I recommend doing other gigs or side jobs inbetween, because I'm very sure the calls will come on time if you don't just try to exploit the waiting feature to skip to those quests instantly. Try to let it play out naturally.

Are you a fan of the Edgerunners anime? Well, good news for you! The world of Cyberpunk 2077 also includes small nods to the series, like the graves of the deceased characters at the cemetery. There's also a side job where you can get David's iconic jacket and you can find Rebecca's famous shotgun out in the world too (if you remember the spot she left it in the anime).

The final point I'd like to address in this review is the soundtrack. (Yeah, there are other songs besides I Really Want To Stay At Your House.) While the OST in The Witcher 3 had a calmer, more comforting vibe, Cyberpunk's music fits the high octane combat accordingly, but some of the best tracks come from the sad and serious moments in the game. For car rides, the different radio stations allow you to listen to your music genre of choice. Speaking of the cars, I find it a lot more satisfying to drive to quest locations than to just quick travel there (which I regrettably did a lot in like the first 20 hours of my playthrough). It's just a lot more immersive and driving feels great if you have a car you like. (My personal favorite ride is the Outlaw, great speed and handles well.)

I have talked a lot about this game now. That's because I love it. So if you would ask me if Cyberpunk is worth it, I would definitely recommend you to pick up the base game on sale sometime and go for Phantom Liberty if you want to spend more time in this fantastic world. It's pretty much in a fixed state now and if what I described in this review seems interesting to you, why not give it a go? There were very few moments where I was actually bored, even the beginning is great and brings you pretty fast into the action (unlike a certain cowboy game I have named several times in this review already).

That's all I wanted to share - thanks for reading.

I really loved Catherine Classic, which is why I decided to grab Full Body on an eShop sale that was just about to end, so I could compare the two releases back-to-back (and since I was eager to see how Rin fits into the story). After beating the game's new route, I'm glad Full Body lived up to my expectations. But now the real question: Is this version the definitive release of Catherine? Probably.

I'll try to not repeat myself on the things I already established in my Catherine Classic review and will be going over the additions in Full Body instead, starting with the rerelease's poster girl - Rin. Since she's advertised as a third possible love interest, I expected her to be a lot more involved into the original storyline than she actually is, but I ended up liking the role they gave her there. Rin never actually interferes with the story events of Classic, the major beats still play out all the same. She's a pretty passive character if you don't actively pursue her route and serves more of a supporting character if you're heading down the Classic Routes. Even as such a supporting character, I believe Rin plays a pretty big role in shifting the tone of the game compared to Catherine Classic. The original game was quite gloomy and Full Body contrasts this by adding her to balance it out, resulting in the game feeling more laid-back overall. This is accomplished with the lighting changes in the bar and a new jazzy rendition of the bar soundtrack. Speaking of the bar soundtrack, many of the Shin Megami Tensei songs on the jukebox were replaced with modern Persona tracks, including some really great ones like Beneath the Mask from Persona 5 or Snowflakes from Persona 4.

As far as gameplay changes go, Full Body doubles the amount of puzzles and adds a mode to skip those entirely (if you're only in for the story). The new Remix mode is a great change of pace (especially if you're coming from Classic), since it adds various kinds of Tetris blocks to the puzzles, changing their solutions from the original game. Some of the smaller gameplay tweaks like the backwards camera or outlines for ledges just make the game more enjoyable to play overall. The undo and retry system has been completely overhauled, the collectable pillows no longer give you a set amount of retries, instead you'll get a singular undo action added to the "undo queue". Like in normal mode you start with 3 undos at the beginning, but if you collect a pillow during a level you can actually undo your actions 4 times in a row until you reach the pedestal. I think it's a pretty good incentive to collect pillows now, since I basically had 99 lives all the time by the end of Classic and there was no real reason to go out of my way to get them anymore. However, the lives system has been removed entirely in Full Body and you can no longer die unless you run out of undos. While this sounds like it entirely trivializes the game, it really doesn't and just lessens your frustration of having to restart a level for a single misinput. I had multiple cases where I had to retry from the start of a level, since I tried some strategy that didn't work out in the end and I had no undos left to return the blocks to their initial state. It's also worth mentioning that the undos can no longer be abused to reset the combo timer, so you'll actually have to watch out for that if you're going for a Golden rating. Overall, I believe those balance changes alone make Full Body better in the gameplay department than Classic (despite Classic feeling so great already) and I could actually enjoy the final boss in this version, since I didn't have keep worrying about some random homing attack, just to die with the pedestal in sight already (yeah that actually happened to me in Classic). Although I must admit that the tension is definitely not on the same heights as the original here, the dread of having to restart the entire level if you took a wrong turn was really something special...

Full Body's narrative is pretty much the same as in Classic (unless you go for Rin's Route), but with new cutscenes and pictures to help the characterization of the original girls. Personally I think it helped Katherine's characterization especially and I found myself looking forward to the flashbacks involving her and Vincent each time. Sure, that's pretty neat, but Rin's Route is the part that actually impacts how the story plays out. Contrary to popular belief I found the handling of the themes in this route fairly good executed and had a great time with it! There are some really good messages in here. A common complaint is that this route goes a little off the rails in the end and I can see how that's offputting for some, but I found her finale to be some pretty cool stuff, especially in regards to the scenery and stakes there. Not everyone's cup of coffee, but a nice bonus after doing the 'ordinary' routes with Katherine and Catherine.

My main complaint about Classic were the transphobic remarks at times, so I'm glad to see Atlus addressed this in Full Body. Most of the transphobic dialogue has been replaced entirely, except that one exchange in Katherine's True Ending for some reason. But considering Full Body feels more modern and progressive in terms of writing, I'd say Atlus is on the right track with those changes, maybe they just forgot to remove that very specific conversation in that ending. You know the meme that goes "He's a little confused, but he got the spirit"? That's Atlus with this game.

Unfortunately my time with Catherine in general has come to an end (unless I decide to tackle the Babel levels sometime). I wish people were less negative about it online and embraced the positive aspects more - there's so much to love here. Personally I can only recommend Catherine to fans of puzzle games or Atlus games in general, especially the Full Body version (but you can't go wrong with Classic either if you want the vibes™). This review was particularly fun to write, so thanks for reading!

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.

" What if I made a fantasy world where all fantasy races lived in peace "
Me: 🙂🙂🙂

" And then you had a comfy coffee shop with a diverse cast of costumers "
Me: 😄😄😄

" But the world was filled with prejudice and xenophobia "
Me: 😓😓😓

" And they used memes to describe structural racism "
Me: 😞😞😞

" And orcs are like... black people! "
Me: 😔😔😔

i'm in the middle of my seven route run as of writing this so this isnt a complete log BUTTT i enjoy this game. obligatory mention about all the paywalls; i bought a couple hourglasses just to top me off so i could do deep story but i really dont like the fact you either have to spend a bunch of time grinding for hourglasses OR pay money to get the hourglasses just so you can play the other routes. other little annoyances are the chat speed being too slow even on its fastest speed (you CAN buy the ability to use max speed for like $3 but id like to go through the chats quickly without immediately skipping to the dialogue choices) and having to replay through the entire first few days if you dont want to spend hourglasses skipping to where the game branches off. either one of these on their own is like.... whatever. but both of them just makes for a really grueling replay experience, even when im going for a different route.

while not an explicit romance, i felt like jaehee's route was the most enjoyable. it felt like a connection formed from actually getting to know a person compared to a lot of the guys who focus more on mc being cute. do i enjoy the other routes / characters ? of course. seven is a close second fave; his behavior and way of speaking are very reminiscent of someone i would be friends with, so its easy to like him. zens route... was something. i like zen ill admit, but responses that typically appeal to him put me off so bad LOL. while i havent done their routes yet, i only like jumin when hes talking about his cat and i find it hard to like yoosung. i remember liking yoosung when i first played the game, so i suppose ive just grown out of that character type.

what else to mention about a game i havent finished... i do enjoy the phone calls / text messages outside of the chats. its funny finishing a chat, immediately getting a phone call, and then getting a text message while in the middle of said call. I LOVE TEXTING AND COMMUNICATING THROUGH PHONES IN GAMES !!!!