Matt vs Catherine

Catherine(2011) made by Atlus, specifically their Persona team.

For whatever reason I decided I needed an out there game to play. One that wasn't the usual AAA affair. I scoured the Xbone library(that is the only thing I play on currently) and figured why not try Catherine. I have never really partook in the Atlus archive despite being interested and I'm not much of a puzzle gamer. I wanted to step outside my comfort zone and try something new. This was a game I skipped over when it first came out, so why not give it a try now that it is backwards compatible for xbone? Also, why not talk about my experience with the game here? I just started this today and will be updating the thread as I go on. My goal is to get to an ending, but we shall see how good I am at the puzzles. SPOILER I am not that good.

Back when it first came out I was intrigued by the story aspects and the non puzzle game segments, but because it was a puzzle game I never tried it out. I'm kinda glad I didn't. I was only 20 at the time, I hadn't had much relationship experience and I was not as mature as I am now. I feel like the themes will resonate with me more.

For those of you who don't know much about the game, Catherine is primarily a puzzle game mixed in with some RPG elements. The main bulk of the gameplay will be the puzzles. The RPG elements come in with how you control the main characters thoughts on love and relationships. Why love and relationships you ask? Because the story is about a mid to late 20s guy named Vincent. 

Vincent is a guy who is in a relationship with Katherine. They have been together for a couple of years now and both are getting older. Katherine is wanting to settle down, maybe take the next step. Vincent is apprehensive about this and ends up having a drunken one night stand with the younger Catherine. You will help Vincent try to navigate his love life and whether he truly wants to stay with Katherine and build a life or keep having flighy fun with Catherine. All the while the stresses of life is leaving Vincent having these strange nightmares where he and a bunch of sheep are trying to traverse this hellish tower by moving blocks and figuring out the way to climb, these are the puzzles that players are trying to best.

I'm both excited and dreading what is in store for me. I'm 26, I'm not getting any younger and I feel like I'm kinda stuck in the same predicament as Vincent. Do I really want to start looking for that relationship to settle into or do I want to keep having more casual fun that a person in my age range has? But also, I'm pretty shit at puzzles and this is a notoriously hard game, even easy mode is challenging for most. Anyway, I played about an hour and a half of it today, so let's see what I think about it so far.

Right now I'm still learning the mechanics of the game and getting introduced to the Characters. I haven't even really met the Catherine that the game is named after. So far the story is that Vincent had a dinner with Katherine and she is trying to start the marriage conversation. Vincent then went to a bar with some friends to start contemplating the situation, all the while on the news there is a report about a mysterious death of a young man, one who turns out to be an acquaintance of Vincent and his friends. Vincent's friends then leave but Vincent decides to stay and has a text conversation with Katherine while he drinks. 

This is where the game gives me some control of what Vincent feels and says. I lean more towards agreeing with Katherine that we need to talk about settling down, but at the same time I'm a bit hesitant, because Katherine did seem to be a little dismissive in the dinner earlier. After Vincent says goodnight a mysterious blonde shows up and then it cuts to later in the night and into a nightmare. The second of the game so far, the first came up the night previously.

While in the first nightmare you were just thrown into one block puzzle not knowing what is going on and just waking up, the second nightmare has a lot more to it. There is more than one puzzle and you end up realizing Vincent is stuck in a hellish world. One where what appear to be sheep are in the same situation you are, not really knowing what is going on, but trying to climb blocks to avoid death and escape. 

Vincent is figuring out that these sheep are also other guys as well, when it is revealed the other sheep see him as one but not themselves. There is one sorta helpful sheep in a necktie that Vincent finds something oddly familiar about but he can't quite put his finger on it.....

And as Vincent traverses through each floor of this weird block tower he also ends up in a confessional where he is grilled on his thoughts about relationships.

So far it is all about staying sane and just trying to learn as you go, thankfully there are some sheeps who aren't having panic attacks and you can talk to them to learn about techniques to use for the puzzles.

I have played three puzzles so far. The puzzle at the very beginning, and two during the second nightmare, which I'm still in. The first puzzle I thought I did pretty decent in, didn't really struggle, maybe took it a bit slow, but I didn't die. I immediately got stuck on the the beginning of the second puzzle though. To be fair, you are still learning the mechanics to the game and it is very easy to not realize some of the ways in which you can traverse the blocks. Once I figured it out the rest of the puzzle wasn't too bad. The puzzle after that I only had to restart twice compared to my like 20 or so times on the previous puzzle.

Overall I am intrigued. I wouldnt say enjoying the game because that 2nd puzzle was super frustrating, but I really like the set up and the little touches here and there. The art style is also phenomenal and it has animated cut scenes by a pretty decently known animation studio in japan. It feels like I'm playing an anime and I really dig that. The voice acting is also so far really good and I'm glad they got the budget to properly dub it, since this seems like a very niche game. 

Well, that's about all I have to say for right now, stayed tune for more posts!