Catherine (PS3 - 11)
Keeping in spirit with the most recent holiday, The Honest Gamer Blog is going to get a little romantic with this game on the PS3, so come along, and won't you be my valentine?
The Story
Catherine follows the life of Vincent Brooks, a systems engineer in his early-thirties. Vincent is currently in a relationship with a woman named Katherine, but begins to get stressed and weary when she randomly springs on him the idea of marriage and a lifelong commitment. That same night, after she breaches the subject with him, Vincent is at the local bar with some of his friends when, after they leave, a blonde woman named Catherine (yes, same name different spelling) approaches and sits with him. One thing leads to another and they end up going back to his place for what Vincent assumes the next day was a one night stand. However, Catherine misreads his intentions and takes them to be ones of commitment, which turns things into a full blown affair. Tormented by the position he's put himself in, Vincent finds himself being thrust into a nightmare world, where he must climb a staircase tower to survive, and if he falls or dies at all in the dreams, they will lead to his death in the real world too. Can he survive is constant visits to the nightmare world, as well as resolve the perdicament that he got himself sucked into?
The Controls
This game gets broken down into two phases, and each has it's own control scheme. There are puzzle platforming sections, and some semi-free roaming sections.
In the platforming sections, your movement is controlled with the D-Pad to climb up or down the blocks. You can also use the X button and pull it to move it in a direction with the D-Pad. There's also a few different items you can pick up while you're climbing the tower which you can use with □ to help you get along your way faster.
In the "free roam" sections, these take place in the local bar. Here, you can wander around with the left joystick, interact with other patrons in the bar with X, and you can also save and send text messages from Vincent's phone, using X and O to write and rewrite the messages before you send them.
The controls in this game are quite limited as you can tell, but it doesn't take away from the game at all, but I'll get more into what I mean by that later.
The Gameplay
As I just mentioned, Catherine is broken down into two sections of gameplay : daytime (the free roam bar sections) and nighttime (the steps-tower), and these two areas are about as different as night and day (pun only slightly intended...).
The nighttime platforming sections is where the main core of the gameplay resides. Every time Vincent falls asleep, he "wakes up" in this nightmare world where he is forced to climb sections of a giant staircase-shaped tower. Each "step" is made up of a number of giant blocks that he can only climb up one at a time. However the challenge he faces is that they don't always create a perfect staircase. Some of the blocks must be moved around and he must make his own path upwards, all the while the steps behind him will drop away completely periodically.
While traversing the steps, you'll come across different items that you can use along the way. There are pillows which gain you an extra retry if you are to fall off or die, a bell which changes the blocks around you into normal blocks, and even extra blocks themselves that you can just drop in front of you to make things a little easier.
After you complete each section of steps, you'll come to a small landing area. This acts as a slight "hub" between climbing stages. Here you can save your game, buy items, and talk to the sheep people that inhabit the same nightmare realm that you are in. (Each sheep person claims that they are the only normal ones there and everybody else is a sheep).
The last thing you'll do before leaving the landing is walk into a confessional and you'll be asked a simple question, the answer of which effects Vincent's morality meter, which I'll explain in a little bit.
During the daytime sections, this is where most of the progression for the narrative of the game takes place. You can wander around the bar, talking to the other patrons there, drink alcohol, and interact with Vincent's cell phone.
Talking to the other patrons, you'll begin to notice some parallels between them and some of the sheep you encounter and the nightmare realm. Doing so begins to paint a picture for you about what exactly the nightmare realm is, as well as how and why it's a shared environment between you and it's other inhabitants (it's relevant to the story, and I don't want to spoil any of the details).
You'll also receive texts intermittently, mostly from either K/Catherine, and you can actually decide what you get to write back to them. Now, you can't just free type your messages, but what happens is each time you press X, a line of text will appear. If you want to change the tone of that line, you can simply erase it with O and press X to enter a different one. There's a few variations you can cycle through, and once you find the line you would like to use, just repeat the process until the text is completed and you have the option to send it.
The last thing you're able to do during the daytime segments is drink alcohol. You can choose how much you drink, and it does have an effect on the nightmare sections, because the more you drink, the higher your intoxication level rises, and the higher that is the faster you can move up the steps.
How you respond in your texts, and how you answer your confessional questions, will effect the games morality meter. This pops up anytime Vincent does something that plays out on the kind of person he is. The questions you're asked are more direct representations at this, as you can see the parallels between what's being asked and how it relates to Vincent and his affair. Questions like would you rather live a short life that is full of excitement, or a long one that is dull and boring? Do you see the idea of marriage as the moment life begins, or when life comes to a screeching halt?
The texts can also slide the morality meter in one direction or the other, depending on what tone of voice you use to respond to K/Catherine. For instance at one point, Katherine texts you mentioning she had gone through your stuff to find something, and you can either brush off the subject as something that doesn't matter, or ream her out and tell her to leave your things alone.
The entire game is completely linear, and all roads lead to a number of different endings. How you play and what you do will determine which K/Catherine Vincent tries to end up with in the end, whether or not they share his feelings in return, or if Vincent tries to lead a life of bachelorhood.
Catherine is a different game, but it's a good one too. So let's see how challenging it can be.
The Challenge (or lack thereof?)
Since there's such a small area of actual gameplay in this one, there aren't a lot of areas that will put you to the test. You'll be dealing with the towers of steps, and your paths to the various endings.
The platforming sections are definitely challenging, easily placing them in a moderate-to-hard challenge. At first they seem like they'll be easy, but once you get to the second nightmare level, the difficulty curve gets cranked up. Once you progress upwards to the next step, the previous one doesn't fall away immediately, so if you find yourself needing to create a new path, you will have some wiggle room with time, but with everything going on around you it certainly won't feel like it.
As for obtaining the different endings, or at least a specific one, it all comes down to trial and error. There are three groupings of endings, one where Vincent ends up with Katherine, one where he ends up with the other Catherine, and one where he ends up going at life on his own. Additionally, each of these has both a good and a bad version, leaving you with at least half a dozen to go after. Which ending you get is determined, like I mentioned earlier, by your answers in the confessional and how you treat each of Vincent's love interests. Getting all of the endings will be pretty challenging, at least at a moderate difficulty, especially since it will take one playthrough of the entire game for each one. But, if you don't care and want to just get to the end no matter where Vincent ends up, then this part is pretty easy as it won't really matter what choices you make throughout the game.
So despite having very limited amounts of actual gameplay in this one, Catherine can still be a pretty tough challenge. Now let's see what was good and bad about it and slap a label on it.
PROS
- Full Game Feeling. Despite the variety of gameplay elements in Catherine, it doesn't make it feel like any less of a game. I've played indie titles and even some mobile titles that are more in depth with their gameplay, but this is no way a fault for Catherine. The daytime sections are a little lacking in involvement, but the platforming sections more than make up for it with the amount of stuff you can do as well as the intense fast pace with whats going on behind you.
- Morality Meter. This is the main driving force of the game as it dictates what ending you'll get, and it's really well done. I've seen a handful of games with these sliding-meter scales, where your actions determine where you are on the scale (the first that comes to mind is Splinter Cell : Double Agent where you have to toe the line between the US Government and the terrorist organization in which Sam Fisher is undercover). The best part about this one (in my personal opinion) is that it isn't blunt in your face. For instance, with the first confessional question, you are asked to choose between a long life that is dull, or a short one that is exciting, and which you would prefer. It's obvious that the question alludes to Vincent and his dilemma between the two women. But the game doesn't just flat out ask you do you want to be with with Katherine and married (long, dull) or hooking up with Catherine (short, exciting) and I really liked how they semi-hid those allusions.
CONS
- Heavy On Cutscenes. This is the only downfall of this game's limited gameplay. The majority of it takes place in cutscenes. It wasn't a personal bad note for me, but I know it's something that a lot of gamers tend to consider, how much they'll actually be playing the game. It isn't a horrible ratio between actual gameplay and cutscenes, so it's not like it's a 20 hour game and you only get to play for 2 of those hours, but it does definitely lean more towards cutscenes (I'd say its probably a 65-35 split in cutscene-gameplay).
Final Verdict
At a first glance, Catherine appears to be an overly sexualized game (as evidenced by the cover art). However, while it is a theme of the game, it isn't thrown in your face. Catherine is more about a moral struggle of a man who could very well be approaching a mid-life crisis. He's in his 30's, in a job that won't really get him anywhere, in a relationship with a woman who wants to lock in a full lifetime commitment, who is then approached by a more wild younger and equally (if not more so) attractive woman. So there is the mention of sex in the form of Vincent's affair, but nothing is ever shown. The few bits that do appear, are actually comically hidden by items in the foreground (think Austin Powers opening credits). Catherine is definitely a fun experience, the platforming is definitely a challenge and the story is gripping and entertaining, paralleling Vincent's nightmare visits with a string of dead bodies in the real world that just might share some similarities.
Whether you play on PS3 or Xbox 360, you can find a copy of this game for no more than $15, and it is definitely worth the purchase. It is an anime styled game, but honestly even if you're not a fan of the genre you'll still enjoy playing this one.
I haven't finished this one yet, but I want to. The reason I haven't? It's the damn platforming levels...they are really that difficult. The first section of these serves as a sort of training level where you learn what you can do. When you get to the second section, they don't try to ease you into anything, they just rip off the training wheels and send you into the wild. Definitely a challenge, but what fun game doesn't come with some difficulty?
