Catherine is more of a sexual tinged adult drama then an ecchi adventure, but since sex is important to the plot and it is a very unique game, I decided I would throw it in the pile for the blog. I like a lot of what the story of Catherine is, and I like parts of the gameplay. The ecchi is good, for what little there is.

So the story is in three parts. You have Vincent’s story, which makes up the A plot of the game(and is technically a TV show). You have the supernatural B plot stuff, which is mostly the final reveals and the actual game itself. Then you have the C plot, which is Ishtar wanting a boy toy that doesn’t cheat on her, and the player is what she wants. The C plot is the one you need to read into the most to even see it, and I generally don’t care for it. The A plot is really what makes Catherine special, since a story about a grown man dealing with commitment and a desire to not move forward is both relatable and incredibly rare in gaming.

Let me start by stating that while I don’t care for Vincent for a majority of the story, I do feel bad for him. The majority of his non supernatural issues come because of his belief that he cheated when technically, he was date raped. He was hung over to the point of memory loss, with a honey trap that was exactly the kind of girl he would find appealing. The most you can accuse him of on the first real day is drinking to much, the rest was a setup and as far as Vincent can remember, he didn’t sleep with Catherine.

That’s jumping ahead though. The general story of Catherine is as follows- Vincent Brook is down on his luck. He just switched jobs and his girlfriend is starting to pressure him into marriage. After a night of drinking with friends, he meets a blonde bombshell who he wakes up the next morning next to. He freaks but manages to get to work and starts regretting everything about the previous night, that he can’t remember. Over the next few days he gets more pressure from Katherine(his actual girlfriend who may or not be pregnant) and Catherine showing up in his life without warning, until he mans up after his last get out of jail card proves worthless. Then everything goes belly up again and he faces the supernatural truth of what’s been happening. As Vincent’s been a part of something bigger then just marriage and infidelity. His life’s been on the line every night.

When Vincent goes to sleep, he arrives at a door with human shaped sheep passing through. Going through that door leads Vincent to tonight’s tower, a wall of blocks he must overcome or otherwise he won’t be waking the next morning. A lot here is strange, with the sheep and voices booming. Then the giants appear, symbolizing that days greatest issue for Vincent. Succeeding the climb symbolizes a lot, and a lot of clues are dropped about what the tower really is. A curse for cheaters? A divine test to grant a wish to one who is worthy? Or something a bit more… stupid. Honestly the real reason for the tower and what the game tells you it’s for aren’t actually the same thing. Basically the meaning changes depending on the mode and who Vincent is talking to. One of the meanings connects to the C plot and Babel mode, the randomized mode for coop play. For Vincent though, it’s a test of a couple of things, mainly his worth as a person and his ability to move forward finally.

So the last thing about the story I want to mention spoils a bit of the ending, but the game is pretty old and honestly the A plot is more interesting then the B plot anyway… So the dream is a way to kill men who aren’t in commit-ed relationships or having kids. That’s not it’s intended use, but it is how the main villain uses it as part of his divine job. Catherine is another part of it, and this is the part that’s just silly. Basically, the bad guy finds a man who is dating but is not serious or commited to the relationship(aka marriage. The girl could have five children but he would still kill them for not getting married). He then sends them the dream to kill them, and a succubus to make the couple breakup. I think this is so the girl can move on easier when her boyfriend randomly dies, but the villain makes it sound like a breakup would also be good for the guy. Like, if all he wants is to breakup them up so the women can find a good partner, then why does he need to kill the guy and honey trap him? Wouldn’t the second one work by itself? And why give the player a chance to win? The antagonist intends to kill the guy, so giving them a win condition feels silly. Of course that’s because killing isn’t the intended purpose of the trial, but it seems like that’s all the villain wants. Basically the two step nature of his plan feels silly, not to mention the goal of increasing the number of humans by killing some of them. Though it is only two step when it comes to Vincent and one other characters situations. Everyone else just gets the trial.

Which is another thing I like about the story. It basically shows 8 or so different midlife crises(involving women) from a male perspective without focusing on treating the man as trash. They regret things, but they are coping and thanks to a pep talk in the dream and in the bar, a couple of them even find some resolution to move on and deal with their issues. While some of the issues are a bit… unique, some are pretty basic like wanting to get your Dad’s respect when that Dad is a piece of trash. You can’t help but emulate that even though you know you shouldn’t, since that respect is something you crave and it’s not until you get help(in this game that comes from dealing with the trials and some pep talk from Vincent) for the person to actively try and move on from their issues. It doesn’t exactly provide good answers to the issues it poses(one week is usually not enough to get through that kind of stuff long term, and that’s how long the game is), but it at least shows and highlights some things you don’t see anywhere else in gaming while showing that taking about that kind of stuff can help.

The gameplay is considered puzzle, and that is right. You solve a tower of themed block puzzles. You are ranked on a point system and the main way to get points is through a combo system. Basically you have a soft time limit to get up another a new level to keep scoring more points, while the hard time limit of the level literally falling one floor at a time is also there. The only thing ranks do is achievements and unlocking the randomized challenge maps, though getting full gold also lets you skip levels for replays which is honestly the most important unlock.

Actual gameplay is hard to describe. The main goal is to build a staircase up to the next proper landing until you make it to the top. Of course, the actual levels give you some interesting setups to make said staircases. Blocks connect at edges, so you end up with blocks floating because of a connection to a diagonal other block. It takes a bit to get the right mindset but once you do its fun enough, if frustrating at times. I’m not good with 3D puzzle stuff so I suffer on hard where the puzzles presented are the most involved. I like the final boss and the bonus levels where the challenge is more based on reflexes and quick thinking rather then solving 3D logic puzzles constantly. Rapunzel, a set of mini puzzles to help you learn the mechanics, is the worst for me since its focused solely on the puzzles and a single song that never stops and I hate it.

Other then the puzzle, you have the Stray Sheep, the bar Vincent goes to every night which also holds the other half of the game, the social stuff. It’s mostly for getting drunk(which speeds you up in the dream), learning the stories of the other guys and responding to texts from the two Catherines, which moves your morality meter which decides your ending. It’s kinda like an affection gauge, and for texting that’s exactly how it works. Chaos/red is Catherine, and Blue/Law is Katherine. Every night also asks a question of you yourself that moves the gauge as well in a survey kinda fashion, and I honestly couldn’t tell you which answers were for which side of the gauge. Some are obvious, like marriage= good is law. Some are not so obvious like fetish play related questions. How far you are on the gauge adds sway to the ending you get, along with the final 3 questions the game asks you in the final levels.

Then finally, the sexy stuff. The most obvious is that Catherine is naked a decent amount in Vincent’s room in the mornings, with only camera angles keeping her decent. Katherine also gets a shot like that in her normal ending instead of her big day in the true, though its a lot less sexy with her. Anyway, the other main thing is the sexts Catherine sends you if you play nice. If you respond positively to her via the texts she sends she then responds with sexts. There’s 5-6 of them and they are good shots, if you could zoom in or have them fullscreen instead of just on the side on Vincent’s phone. There’s also also the Babel modes endings with Trish, the afro women in the opening who kind of tries to seduce the player with the camera. That’s it though. You spend most of the game with the blocks so what sexy there is doesn’t have a lot of screen time compared to the tower. What is there is nice and works well with the plot, which is rare in games. Not that I mind when it doesn’t, its just nice to see once in a while.

Of course, I wouldn’t actually recommend this version of the game anymore. From what I understand, Full Body is better in basically every way. Classic isn’t bad, it’s just that Full Body is just extra or better in basically everything. Really don’t get why the Switch got a port but PC still doesn’t have the upgraded game. It’ll happen eventually, specially with Atlus porting more and more games to PC recently.

PC save for Catherine Classic

Save has a save to every ending, a save in every difficulty so you can jump in and play any stage via the stage select, gold trophies on every stage so you can skip what you don’t want to play, one save has all of Catherine’s sexts and is set up to look at them, and I got all the unlockable achievement songs on the jukebox. Which I’m not sure are tied to your actual save so those might not work, the but the rest should. Enjoy!

Gameplay: 7/10 Eroticness: 3/10 Story: 8/10

Completion: What it took-

For completion here, you basically just need to fill the jukebox. That gets everything played out and done, but I wanted to do a bit more. So saves to each ending, every level skippable, and Catherine’s phone images available to be looked at.

This takes a minimum of three playthroughs. One for each difficulty that each go for a different morality for the endings. Every levels need a gold rank, though honestly that’s not that hard outside of a few hard mode levels. The rest is just saving at the right spots.