GameXplain reviews single player and multiplayer separately

A twisted world of relationships and blocks puzzles that's just right.

I'm just going to get this out of the way now, Catherine is amazing. It isn't often when I feel like a game is near perfect for me. In fact, that feeling has only come over me twice before. The first time was when the original Kingdom Hearts came out. The second was my experience with The World Ends With You. Both games were able to capture some intense part of my imagination and hold me rapt with attention until the very end. Catherine is no different. From the beginning the Japanese-chic styling that is so engrained in Atlus's Persona Team draws you into this strange world of relationships, dreams, and block puzzles.

Catherine's story focuses on Vincent, an average 32-year old with a low end job and a tiny apartment. For most of his adult life Vincent has gotten by doing what was the least troublesome, but that seems like it's about to change when his girlfriend of five years, Katherine, begins pressuring him for marriage. Depressed at the prospect of his simple life becoming a lot more complicated, Vincent finds himself having a drunken one night stand with a beautiful young girl named Catherine. It's at this point that he begins having morbid dreams filled with forlorn sheep and towers of blocks. He soon realizes that if he dies in the dream world, he'll die in real life. From that point on, Vincent has to figure out his feelings in his love triangle while trying to survive his dreams.

The story is near perfect and deals with subject matter rarely touched upon in games, the complicated relationships between men and women. While this kind of story may seem like an odd pairing with a block puzzle game, the developers find clever ways to make it one cohesive plot rather than two disparate tales. What really sells the story is the characters and how real they feel. Their personalities don't feel outlandish, unrealistic, or idealistic like so many other anime-inspired games. The choices they make and the reactions they have all feel as natural as if they were your real friends. The only hiccup in the story comes near the end with a revelation that worked but was nowhere near as intriguing as all the buildup to that point. While the story wasn't ruined for me, I can't help think of the possibilities that could have been, especially with the morality system in play. The beauty of Catherine's morality system, though, is that it doesn't behave the way you would expect. It still reacts to questions posed by your friends, by the Nightmare realm's confessional, and by how you respond to texts but not always in the way you would expect. This isn't a world of clear-cut good and evil. A different kind of morality is at play and with eight different endings, your first playthrough is going to feel uniquely your own.

The gameplay itself comes in two flavors: real world interactions and block puzzles in the Nightmare realm. However, much like the story, these two worlds aren't completely separate from each other. In the dream world, Vincent must climb to the top of a wall of blocks before they fall into the nothingness below. The challenge comes from the fact that many blocks are stacked on top on one another and he can only climb one block at a time. Only by pushing and pulling the blocks into staircases can he ascend them to safety. It's a simple concept that quickly grows in difficulty as specialty blocks, such as spikes and ice, are introduced, enemy sheep block your way, and block arrangements become more complicated. Vincent can also find items along the way that will clear enemies, create blocks, or even allow him to climb two blocks at a time. After several stages, Vincent is confronted by a boss that will chase him more fervently, place death traps in his way, change the kind of blocks he's dealing with, or a combination of all of these. Each boss is memorable in its own way and added even more challenge to an already challenging game. I'll be honest, I had to beat Catherine on the easy difficulty. I could make my way through some of the earlier stages on normal, but the challenge ramps up so greatly later on that it would take serious dedication for a player to get through them. Fortunately, the easy mode allows almost anyone to play the game and make progress.

The other half of the gameplay focuses on Vincent's life and decisions in the real world. There isn't a tremendous amount of "game" to these sections, but the story and morality system is so endearing that it never mattered to me. Most of the time players control Vincent in his favorite bar, the Stray Sheep. There he can talk to his friends and other patrons and get a peek into their lives and problems. He will also receive text messages from Katherine and Catherine and can respond to them. I can't express how surprised I was at the cleverness of text messaging. Carefully crafting how you want to reply or choosing to ignore them altogether felt the closest to actual texting I've ever encountered in a game. You can also play an arcade game that mimics the puzzles in the dream world or change the background music at the jukebox. Putting these two halves of gameplay together, I found myself completely satisfied and never bored.

While the graphics in Catherine will never make your jaw drop, the style more than makes up for that. The character designs are varied and appealing, and it's easy to see why Vincent is having such a hard time choosing between Katherine and Catherine. Unfortunately, the backgrounds don't always match that quality and fail to pop in any significant way. That's not to say they look bad, but they never invite you to take a second look. Normally that wouldn't bother me much but when there are so few new areas in a game, it's hard not to notice. Still, the graphical fidelity of Catherine has me downright excited to see what Atlus's Persona Team can do with the inevitable Persona 5. 

Though the graphics failed to leave an impression, the music absolutely blew me away. A mix of smooth jazz and remixed classical music, the soundtrack just works. There was not a single moment where I thought a song didn't belong, and the remixed pieces keep you invested as you work your way through the puzzles. The voice acting is just as strong with Catherine sounding perfectly seductive and Vincent switching effortlessly from nervous wreck to a strong-willed man. The aural package is absolutely flawless.

With a thoroughly enjoyable story, likable characters, and challengingly fun gameplay, Catherine was a blast to play. A single playthough takes about twelve to fifteen hours to complete and with eight different endings and unlockable multiplayer modes available, the game will undoubtedly keep you busy. But will Catherine appeal to everyone? I don't think so, but that's part of what makes it so special for those who do lose themselves in this madcap world.

Fun, but only for one of the players.

There's no doubt that Catherine's multiplayer can be fun. It takes the block puzzles of the main game and presents them in cooperative and competitive game modes. All of the special items and blocks are featured, and it feels mostly fleshed out. The problem is that there's no option to play online. While normally that isn't a big deal to me, I realized that it's the only way to play with someone of the same skill level as you. The multiplayer modes are unlocked in two ways; getting gold trophies on normal difficulty nets you cooperative stages while beating the main game allows you to play the competitive stages. Essentially by the time you unlock the multiplayer, you're invariably good at solving the block puzzles. The problem is that your partner isn't.

Not unless that person has also played and beat Catherine, and that's where an online option would really help the viability of the multiplayer. It's still fun, but in the cooperative mode I was essentially leading the charge while my friend (who was playing for the first time) tried to figure things out and stay out of the way. We made progress, but unless you're able to work together completely in sync it just doesn't work. Fortunately, the competitive mode worked out better though I still won a majority of the time. Out of the two, my friend enjoyed competing more, and it was easy to see why since he was able to do his own thing and try his best to halt my progress while progressing himself. The best thing I can say about the multiplayer is that after we were done, my friend did express an interest in trying out the single player.

Catherine's multiplayer is not bad, it just requires both players to have familiarity with the game in order to get the most out of it. If you do have someone to play it with, you'll be in great shape. Otherwise I can't help but feel an online mode would've solved this barrier of entry problem.