ONCE. TWICE. THREE TIMES A LADY.
Back when demos were still fairly common I played a demo of a game called Catherine. I enjoyed the puzzle gameplay but the anime art style turned me off at the time; I assumed that it was going to be fanservice filled nonsense. How very wrong I was, because Catherine does an amazing job covering adult themes centering around relationships while balancing extremely difficult puzzle gameplay.
When I say difficult, I mean very difficult. I am very bad at this game,which is why it has taken me as long as it has to write this review.
PLATFORMS: PS4
MSRP: $59.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $59.99
The story of Catherine is of a man named Vincent who is struggling with his infidelity after he cheats on his long time girlfriend Katherine with a girl named Catherine. Throughout the game the player will make crucial decisions that will lead to different outcomes in the story. Full Body however complicates the issue more by introducing Rin, a third lady that Vincent can romance who enters his life via an odd experience and who doesn’t remember anything about her past. Meanwhile throughout the city men are dying in their sleep. The main story sections and the decision making is done in the Stray Sheep bar sections, where the player can choose to converse with the other patrons, drink, listen to music, play an arcade game called Rapunzel, as well as a few other odd activities. Occasionally Vincent’s phone will ring and the player can choose to engage or not engage with it, which will also affect the plot.
The other part of the game takes place in Vincent’s nightmare, where he is always climbing towers. The central mechanic is pushing and pulling blocks to ascend the tower and reach the exit. To put on a little more stress however is a monstrous entity that is also ascending the tower that Vincent has to outrun. There are items that Vincent can find and purchase to ease this ascent with the treasure littered throughout the climbing sections. In the nightmare world Vincent meets other sheep who will give advice and subtle hints to the story at large.
New to Full Body is the aforementioned Rin, which introduces new anime cutscenes and dialog which seems to blend in well to the original game. As someone who is not familiar with the original I only knew that Rin was new via previews, so while I assume some changes had to be made to the original story by adding a third character, it feels natural and not like a horribly stitched on addition. Also new is a Safety difficulty, a mode easier than Easy mode which is maybe what I should have played, as I was terrible on Normal. I did however play in Remix mode, which introduces blocks that are oddly shaped. In the original Catherine all blocks were a uniform cube and that is still here under Classic mode, but with Remix blocks can be anything from a rectangle to a twenty faced monstrosity of a geometric object. There are plenty more levels in the main story as well as Rapunzel, Colosseum, and Babel (the latter two modes being available from the beginning in Full Body).
Also returning is the multiplayer, which apparently has new additions, but I am so bad at the story mode I chose not to get flogged online by a block climbing champion. A big part of the delay was that I am not reviewing just the story; I have to review the gameplay of Catherine and a big portion of that is failure at the puzzle segments. I failed a lot and that will turn people off, and at times I find this game very hard to return to. I’m playing on Normal and I am challenged, but then at times I was doing so well that it felt like it was coming naturally to me.
I also chose not to download any of the DLC, but for those interested there’s DLC for the Babel and Colosseum modes, including Persona 5’s Joker as a playable character.
Overall Catherine: Full Body is a great experience built for both new players and veteran players alike. Not settling for a simple remaster, Atlus really pulled out all the stops at making this worth the money. Even as bad as I was, it was still a fun time. With all the different endings I think I’ll return to the game on an easier difficulty to experience it all, because the writing is so good and the gameplay is challenging but when in a good flow it can be highly addictive. Anyone like me who may have skipped over Catherine’s original release should remedy that with Full Body.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
