Catherine (Or is it spelled with a K?)

[TitanAura]

Ok.... so I haven't played Catherine for a couple of days and I've allowed myself to recover from my gaming marathon.

As it stands, I still really love this game. As a puzzle game it does EVERYTHING right. It has been developed with a few very simple, very understandable rules in mind, that result in infinitely more applications. It's a product that is greater than the sum of it's parts. Looking back on my experience, I can understand why it is so difficult. Go play Tetris on a higher speed and it will KICK YOUR ASS. When the game gives you space and lets you think, the solutions are plain as day but the moment you lose the leisure of time, how much you understand of the basic mechanics comes to light. I figured out that the reason Babel was kicking my ass so hard was because I was abusing the same solutions over and over and that simply didn't work in an ever-changing environment. Somehow I get the feeling my parents would be better at Catherine than I am because Catherine is pretty much the newest incarnation of the most beloved puzzle game known to man (seriously my mom is a Tetris expert, I don't know how she does it....).

As for the STORY.... my opinion has become much less positive. Honestly, it just doesn't make any sense. OH, don't get me wrong, I love the aesthetic of the game and I do *mostly* enjoy the characters, but here's what really bothers me: Your choices only affect the ending, almost NONE of the dialogue changes as a result aside from immediate one sentence responses. These are not CHOICES, they are calculations. You are CALCULATING which answer to say so that you achieve reaching the position on the "mystery meter" you want. On my first playthrough, I began answering honestly but as the game progressed I noticed I was leaning slightly towards the right. I figured I might as well max it out since games NEVER let you get the best ends with only half-assed attempts, only later did I realize that my initial inclination to remain as neutral as possible would have given me a unique ending (shitty though it may have been). The main reason for my neutrality was actual the combination of being a mostly Chaotic Good kinda guy.... and wanting some hot sexting action.

The "mystery meter" could only have been made better IF IT DID NOT EXIST. You want an honest answer? DON'T QUANTIFY IT. Oh, you can give our answers a value in the code, but don't let us see it. At all.

One thing about the narrative I liked was how the characters were given very subtle development through internal dialogue made manifest in the nightmare, however, I never quite understood the connection between the nightmare and their internal dilemmas and NO, claiming to be "masterful creators" and outright TELLING us what the nightmare symbolizes doesn't fucking count.

 

I get that the bosses are manifestations of their own personal demons but defeating these demons ends up being entirely pointless since they immediately lose their memory when they wake up. To me, this seems like cheating just so they can put a stopper on the plot advancing in any meaningful way until the contrived and utterly unexplained "ZOMG I REMEMBERZ" moment happens.

I seems every Persona Team game has this problem where the plot just drags along for 90% of the game time and then the remaining 10% is where all of the major twists happen.

If you analyze the plot of Catherine for even a minute, it falls apart. What IS the big bad's plan? I doesn't make any sense. Aren't the guys who are cheating ultimately the men who are more likely to HAVE more children? I mean, more partners often leads to more children, secret families and whatnot. And besides, if knocking off guys who don't want to have any kids makes a difference, what about Vincent? If his girlfriend is pregnant, doesn't that mean killing him is the OPPOSITE of what you want to do? OH WAIT THE GAME THROWS THAT PLOT POINT UNDER THE BUS AT THE LAST MINUTE BY MAKING HER NOT PREGNANT. NICE JOB RESOLVING THAT CONVOLUTED MESS. AND WHAT'S THIS? CATHERINE WAS ACTUALLY A SUCCUBUS SENT FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF BREAKING THEM UP AND IT WAS ALL AN ILLUSION?! THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?! Relationships are fucking complicated and this game did precisely what I did NOT want it to do: It made one romantic option clearly good and the other clearly evil (Lawful Order vs Chaotic Freedom my ass). What a fucking letdown.

For the next part, do not read if you have not seen the True Lover Ending.

 

Now it's time to talk about one character in particular: Erica. Erica is a transgendered, post-op female (as in she USED to be a man). However, despite having the opportunity to give its audience some insight into sexual deviancy, much like how Persona 4 tastefully discussed Kanji's struggles with being gay, Catherine couldn't have missed the point more if it had been blindfolded, was facing the wrong way, and the point was on the far side of the moon. The True Lover Ending confirms your suspicions that Erica was a transsexual when Toby outright declares that Vincent and co knew her as "Eric" back in high school. What really BUGS me is how this sequence plays the reveal for laughs as if to say, "Ha ha, he had sex with a tranny, ewwwww. lol" in the same sort of close minded bullshit Hangover 2 pulled on audiences. I suppose the only difference here is that Hangover 2 pulled that stunt simply for the "ew" factor and the transsexual was simply an object to be gawked at.

If nothing else, Catherine understands that Erica is a person and is not something to be objectified and/or reviled. I'll take that over the alternative, I suppose. I wanted a deeper understanding over her as a character and perhaps even learn something that I, as a white heterosexual male, could otherwise have never found out on my own. Unfortunately, that never happened. This is a game about sex and sexual deviancy. If there was ever an opportunity to discuss this sort of topic, this was their opportunity. I guess I'm just a little disappointed they didn't make the most of it.

[Headlessfangirl]

It has a pretty interesting concept, I quite like the gameplay itself.