Catherine

Catherine is one of those video games that I always love getting the chance to talk about. I played the hell out of this on the Xbox 360 back in the day and even the remastered version that was released a year or two back. This is a game that at the time was truly groundbreaking and unlike anything I had experienced in a video game before. These days we have a ton of slice of life and visual novel-style games, but then, this was truly something new.

One Man, Two Ladies

The story of Catherine is by far the highlight for me. There will be spoilers going forward so please if you have not played this, but are interested, maybe play the game then come back here. Anyway, you play as a guy in his early 30s called, Vincent. Vincent has a loving (if slightly nagging) girlfriend called Katherine (with a K) and she has kind of talked him into getting engaged. Vincent is not sure of this and talks about it with his buddies in the bar.

One night, Vincent meets another girl, a much younger super-hot blonde girl called Catherine (with a C) and he hits it off with her and in his drunken state then end up back at his place. He now has two girls on the go and it is tearing him up inside so much that he is having very graphic nightmares. There are different endings and dialogue choices in the game so it is the kind of thing you will play more than once.

Slice Of Life

Back in the day when I played Catherine, I had never really experienced anything like this before. Part of the game has you in the bar where you can talk to your friends and the two girls. You get to make various dialogue choices and there is a morality system at play here. I loved this stuff and I got very invested in the story that was being told and what was going to happen to Vincent as well as figuring out what the real deal with Catherine was.

A Tale Of Sheep And Boxes

The other potion of the gameplay is the nightmare sections. These are hard, like really hard and some people are put off at just how difficult these sections are. Basically, you need to guide Vincent to the top of this area that is made up of boxes. You can pull boxes, push boxes, shimmy along them, and so on. You need to move them so you can get to the top and it is much easier said than done.

Making things tougher is the fact that there are creepy enemies that can get in your way as well as a boss at the end of each section. As you progress some boxes may have traps to cause you to slip up, others may have a spring that can let you leap up ahead. You have to think fast and there is a lot of trial and error here. You will fail, fail some more and then fail again. I can see why some people would get frustrated, to be honest with you.

Style, But A Ton Of Substance Too

I have to say that Catherine is a fantastic-looking game. The cut scenes and the stuff in the bar is so good-looking that you would think it was based on an anime. At the time I was floored by the visuals and even now I feel they hold up very well. The nightmare sections in the game are dark and grotesque and the stuff of “nightmares” and it is done very, very well. A fantastic soundtrack and amazing voice acting just tie it all together.

Pros:

• It has a truly engrossing story
• Vincent is a very complex character
• Plenty of replay value
• It does have a couple of multiplayer modes

Cons:

• It may be too frustrating for some
• The Full Body version pretty much makes this one obsolete