Catherine

It's rare that a game tries to tackle questions about love and sex, but Catherine is an exception. It's a game developed by Atlus, and it's essentially a puzzle game and a kind of interactive anime. Regardless of what you try to say the game is, it is something special.

You play as Vincent, a 30-something bloke who has a girlfriend, Katherine, with whom he has been with for a long time. Katherine is talking about settling down, getting married and have kids. Vincent feels as though he's not ready to commit, but that's not something he's telling Katherine. He's young and he has doubts about the future with her. When Vincent meets the stunning young woman Catherine (with a C) things get complicated.

Your job as a player is to take part as Vincent and guide him through his difficult future. After meeting Catherine, he begins having terrifying nightmares. In the nightmares, he has to climb almost endless towers of blocks. This is where the gameplay part of the game steps in. You have to guide Vincent up the towers by using the puzzle-mechanics available to you. You have to drag, push and jump on the blocks to get to the top before all the blocks fall down under you. This can be a difficult and time consuming experience, but if you bear with it, it's very rewarding. I didn't like the puzzle-mechanics in the game at first, but this was because I didn't completely understand them. After some trial and error I started getting good at it. Then it started to get real fun and rewarding.

Most of the game's story is being told through talking with your friends at the bar The Stray Sheep. Your friends have different personalities and as you progress in the game their story continue to change as well. I found myself caring more and more about my virtual friends. The dialogue with them is brilliantly written and quite funny as well. I would say that most of the dialogue in the game is well written, and the voice-actors are very good as well. Most of the cut-scenes in the game have a nerve in them that keeps you on your toes. The cut-scenes have a distinct anime look, as does the rest of the game. But that shouldn't fool anyone, because the games content is pretty mature and also quite dark at times. Atlus explore themes like cheating, fear of committing and growing up. I can closely relate to the game's themes and that is a special thing in an industry where these kinds of themes are being shed like some demon.

Problems with the game are not many, but some might find that the gameplay-experience isn't involving enough. This is a dualistic game; it has to kinds of experiences. One experience is the story and the choices you make. The other experience is the block-puzzles. Some might find this dualistic nature disturbing, but I found it refreshing. After some time talking with my friends and strangers at The Stray Sheep, I found that returning to the block-puzzles was a welcome change of pace. The two experiences of the game came together in a very nice way and at the end of the game I felt as though I hadn't been bored even once. I can't say the same about a lot of other titles out there.

+ The game's style and story

+ The puzzles

- Can be confusing in the beginning

9/10