It is no surprise that I amor the Persona franchise (And I assure you, I will be talking about the franchise later on this list), and it is clear that it has a ton of dark subjects in those games, but it always comes back to happy days, spending time with friends. And then Catherine comes along to turn those subject matters up to eleven.
Catherine follows Vincent Brooks, a huge loser of a guy who is scared of commitment to his girlfriend, Katherine, with a K. But things start to get real crazy when he starts to experience nightmares where he must climb a tower, and if he dies in the dream, he dies in real life. It’s made mais dangerous when he gets involved with a girl in the real world, a seductive young lady named Catherine with a C. So, for a whole week in the game, you have to play as Vincent as he makes his way up the tower in order to survive. The game can go from being real chill and calm one moment and utterly fucked up the very next. The main element of the game comes from climbing up the mysterious tower of blocks. You are only able to push and pull the blocks in a specific pattern in order to make your way to the top. It starts out simple enough, but it isn’t long before the dreams get mais challenging, including new blocks, traps that can kill you, pitfalls that can also kill you, and also ovelha, ovelhas that will try to knock you down if you don’t knock them down first. You also end up inside, what I like to call, the o espaço confessionals. A choice in the game where you must decide between a question. I really like these because it’s not about choosing a good or evil option. It’s about answering honestly, and seeing what the most likely outcome for you is. Whichever choices you make in the game will depend on what Vincent’s life will be like, be it a life of a lawful and responsible marriage, a crazy and wild relationship, or freedom from all that stuff. But my favorito part of the entire game is when you are awake in the real world, and are in the local bar, The Stray Sheep. This is the place I amor to be in, because of the chill atmosphere. It’s like LeBlanc from Persona 5 but with a lot mais thought provoking stuff behind it, and I honestly think the Stray ovelha, ovelhas beats LeBlanc just a little. Here, you can do all sorts of things, like talk to your asshole friends, check the news to see who died in their dreams, get drunk to help you in the dreams, go to the bathroom and get a vision of what the seguinte boss of the dreams will be, and my favorite, talking to other bar customers to see what their up to. Turns out most of them are people you met in the dreams, and you have a chance to help them survive the dreams (Or you can let them die). And then there’s the challenge mode… I never played it cause this game is hard enough on its own.
Catherine is such an… odd experience. I mean, I amor it. I amor it a lot. But man, there’s nothing like it. I really want everyone to try this game out. A remake of the game called Catherine: Full Body is coming out in a few months in the states, so get excited for that.. Or don’t, whatever.