The problem at the core of both this game and the 2 Persona games i've played is that the gameplay feels like purely a mechanism to tell the story. The best games intertwine both; they justify the story being not just a game, but being that specific type of game.
There is no reason Catherine needs to be a block-pushing puzzle game. This wouldn't be that much of a problem if that aspect of the game was fun, but it isn't. Stages range from brain-dead easy to blood-boilingly frustrating with a basically random difficulty curve--I wouldn't call nearly anything in this game "hard" in the sense a puzzle game is normally hard, rather, the difficulty largely comes from navigating the series Random Bullshit the game throws at you: insta-kill blocks, randomly changing geometry, and the like. And when you do die to something, have fun sitting through a 10 second long death screen until you can play again, and then repeating the last 3-5 minutes of menial gameplay to get back to that one section you messed up on. Of course, a game being frustrating and antagonistic isn't a bad thing (the wealth of "troll mario"-esque flash games in the 2000s make that point well enough) but it's just not what I'm looking for in a game, let alone a puzzle game. I don't generally go to games to get more pissed off than I was before starting it, but I know that there are a lot of people who do, so, uh, take that into account, I guess.
Oh, and about the story. As an asexual,
In all seriousness, it's kind of stupid but it's not bad. The ideal situation is just for Vincent to dump both of them since both relationships are clearly abusive towards him, but the game handles this fact with negative tact and forces you to pick one. Which is pretty annoying, but whatever. There's absolutely nothing resonant in this story for me but it's still fun enough to watch Vincent fumble shit over and over again.
There is no reason Catherine needs to be a block-pushing puzzle game. This wouldn't be that much of a problem if that aspect of the game was fun, but it isn't. Stages range from brain-dead easy to blood-boilingly frustrating with a basically random difficulty curve--I wouldn't call nearly anything in this game "hard" in the sense a puzzle game is normally hard, rather, the difficulty largely comes from navigating the series Random Bullshit the game throws at you: insta-kill blocks, randomly changing geometry, and the like. And when you do die to something, have fun sitting through a 10 second long death screen until you can play again, and then repeating the last 3-5 minutes of menial gameplay to get back to that one section you messed up on. Of course, a game being frustrating and antagonistic isn't a bad thing (the wealth of "troll mario"-esque flash games in the 2000s make that point well enough) but it's just not what I'm looking for in a game, let alone a puzzle game. I don't generally go to games to get more pissed off than I was before starting it, but I know that there are a lot of people who do, so, uh, take that into account, I guess.
Oh, and about the story. As an asexual,
In all seriousness, it's kind of stupid but it's not bad. The ideal situation is just for Vincent to dump both of them since both relationships are clearly abusive towards him, but the game handles this fact with negative tact and forces you to pick one. Which is pretty annoying, but whatever. There's absolutely nothing resonant in this story for me but it's still fun enough to watch Vincent fumble shit over and over again.