Catherine is brought to us by Atlus and the fine team behind Persona. Not your traditional game, Catherine avoids the mainstream action, RPG, and FPS elements for the less used puzzle gameplay surrounded in a very adult theme. You’ll find yourself having quite a bit of fun in this twisted puzzler as you try to avoid the bizarre deaths of middle age men plaguing the city; though, you may end up shaking your head quite a bit at the story in the later parts.

Sweet Dreams

You are Vincent Brooks, and you’re about to have one rough week. Vincent is an engineer who goes to the bar to drink with his friends pretty much daily. You could probably describe him as an alcoholic without much of an argument, but he needs all he can drink for his upcoming torment.

You see, Vincent is about to enter the twilight zone. That’s the best way to describe what happens next. His life is complicated when his current girlfriend of five years, Katherine, brings up marriage. Vincent isn’t one for commitment, and has kinda settled in life the way it has been for the past five years.

And so he meets a new woman...

Right after his panic over commitment and a night of heavy drinking, he meets a new woman, Catherine. Next thing you know, he wakes up next to her in bed, and thus begins the trials of Vincent. Falling deeper into an alcoholic depression, each night Vincent sleeps he enters a world populated by sheep and giant staircases of moving blocks.

Right away it is obvious who the other sheep are, and your goals are made clear. Vincent must climb the tower without falling to his death. If you die in this dream, you’ll be found as nothing but a withered husk in the real world.

A Cheater’s Curse

Catherine is split between two times: Daytime and Nightmare. During the daytime, you’ll mostly be spending your time in the Stray Sheep bar where you can talk to the patrons and text your love interests, play a meta arcade game called Rapunzel, and listen to tunes on a jukebox populated with tracks from other Atlus games you unlock during gameplay.

This is the less exciting side of the game, but some aspects are important to the overall game. You’ll need to speak with your fellow men to give them encouragement and learn their stories. If you don’t, you may hear about their deaths on the news! Also, the way you respond during these conversations and texts to the girls determines where you stand on the Freedom and Order bar.

The Freedom and Order bar is the type of moral system utilized throughout Catherine, and will be used to determine the ending you get for the game. While conversations and texts affect it, you’ll see it more often in the Nightmare section of the game.

Vincent goes to sleep, appears in the Nightmare, and transverses the stairway.

The Nightmare is where the meat of the game takes place, and it is a very systematic. Vincent goes to sleep, appears in the Nightmare, and transverses the stairway. You’ll find landings in-between where you can save and speak to you fellow sheep to share climbing techniques as well as encouragement to keep them alive!

Before heading from the landing to the next stairway, you’ll speak to an enigmatic “priest” in a confessional where you’re asked a question. Your answers to each of these questions significantly affect your Freedom and Order bar.

Blocks, Blocks, and Sheep

The stairways are where the real game takes place, and are constructed of equal size square blocks that can be pulled and pushed to create pathways up. Sound a bit simple? Well, it is until you have ice blocks, bomb blocks, trap blocks, and crumbling blocks tossed into the mix! Gameplay is spiced up through each level as different challenging blocks are added to make everything a bit more challenging. You’ll also have to deal with other sheep on the way up. Some are just like you, but they’ll get in your way! Others are a bit more aggressive, and will seek to take you out.

Each night ends with a boss fight, which isn’t so much a “fight” as a high pace chase up the stairway by a horrific monster befitting a true nightmare such as a giant butt monster and a zombie demon baby thing. Lest to say it is pretty bizarre, but exciting as well. The last few boss encounters do seem to get a bit cheap, though.

Outside of the main story, you can also take on the tower of Babel mode. You unlock the levels in the story mode, and then you can hop on and play the puzzle aspect of the game without all the story stuff getting in your way!
Along with the tower, the other non-story modes include a multiplayer cooperation and competitive mode. The Coliseum, the competitive mode, is unlocked after beating the game, and is all about racing your opponent to the top of the stairway. In the cooperation mode, you work together to get to the top, and both players must survive.

How does it all stack up?

Catherine is a great game if you like puzzlers and even more so if you like anime.

Catherine is a great game if you like puzzlers and even more so if you like anime. The story is solid; though, a bit convoluted at times. And some players may become a bit frustrated with lack of control during the daytime sections with their extended cinematic sections. At one point, near the end, I’m pretty sure I was not in control of my character for about half an hour during one of the many cut scenes. Luckily, you can skip these, so if they’re not your thing or it’s a second playthrough, it makes it a bit more bearable.

The characters are pretty unique and memorable even when they’re sheep! I found myself shouting at Vincent on numerous occasions for being stupid. You know a game’s characters are believable when you want to interact with them. But the whole cast of characters are pretty engaging, and fun to chat and connect with.

The actual puzzle gameplay is pretty fantastic and challenging, even on the lower difficulty levels. The boss fights are fun despite being cheap at times, and the multiplayer sections add even more replay value.
And if you’re really into the story, you can play for all the different endings. There are about eight endings overall ranging from good, bad, and true—true being the best for the corresponding side of the freedom/chaos bar you fall on at the end.

A solid story, awesome gameplay, multiplayer, and replay value; what else could you ask for?

8.5 out of 10

Why so high? You don’t find many puzzle games on the big consoles, and Catherine is a shining example of a game that stands out of the normal mold. RPG and FPS games are a dime a dozen, but Catherine brings a unique, bizarre feel to an underrated genre.

Why so low? Boss fights can feel a bit cheap at times, and the story devolves into a convoluted mess near the end. Some gamers may find the extended cut scenes a bit too much, and lack of much to do in the daytime sections other than mundane tasks like text and chat can get a bit old.