Catherine Review
In the game Catherine you get to act out a very dark and twisted soap opera of sorts. You will be playing the part of Vincent a man scared of commitment and yet in a long term relationship with a girl named Katherine. It isn't until Katherine starts pushing that the story begins, along with the nightmares. Soon after the discussion of marriage starts to heavily weigh into the conversation Vincent meets a beautiful blond at his favorite watering hole, the Stray Sheep. This is where the real fun begins. You'll have to deal with two combating relationships, as well as survive each nightmare filled night.
Graphically this game doesn't have ot pump out all that much as the majority of the game takes place in only a couple of places, and most time is spent trying to get through another nightmare. That basically includes a lot of different types of blocks you'll have to work with to try to climb out of each stage. I do have to say I did appreciate the mixture of animation and in game graphics in parts, it definitely helped get the story along, and the characters all had a very unique feel to them and allowed me to relate to each of them as separate people.
Music outside of the nightmare goes from your average background bar sounds, to some stressful music to help punctuate the moment. I'm a huge fan of voice acting, and there is going to be plenty to listen to in the game. The best part is that almost all is unique dialog so there's not a whole lot of rinse and repeat that you have to go through. You'll want to actually talk to as many people as you can in the bar to help get you further into the story.
The controls are REALLY simple. You're going to have the d-pad, you could use the left analog stick, but believe me you're going to be making way too many mistakes that way. You'll also be utilizing the X button to use items that you either picked up or purchased, and then there's the A button, which is what really causes all the magic to happen. You'll be using that button to hold on to block to move them in the direction you specify.
The true meat of the game is in the puzzle levels where you'll need to move blocks around so that you can accend up the level to the exit. Most of the time it is not a straight shot and you'll find that you'll have to backtrack in order to truly reach your goal. As you go through the levels you'll notice that more blocks are introduced, which will definitely spice things up. In most levels there's just a time limit that you'll have to combat with, but from time to time you might find enemies trying to stop you, or kill you, and then there are also those rare cases where there will not only be that but something coming up from below to try to take you out and make you really think on your feet. Overall this game had me from start to finish. Sure there were some more than frustrating deaths that happened because I screwed up somewhere or the thing(s) from below got me when I wasn't ready. My one issue with the game, though, was that there were times where you're hanging on to an edge of a block and you accidentally get behind the block and trying to get you to come back out, or perhaps pop out the side gets a little confusing with the controls as you get disoriented with the left and right directions.
This game is definitely not for everyone, but for those willing to give it a try, you might find that this is just the type of game that has something so strange, being a romantic horror puzzle game, for one, that it latches on to you and the only thing you can do is continue to play it. I fully recommend this game to all who wish to play it, and with that being said I have to say that this game gets a 9.4 out of 10.
