So this news isn't coming from Sacramento folk/rock/country band CAKE? Alright I'm not interested.

Other than the 24,000 sold for Shadows of the Damned, do we have an updated number for that?

@Mesoian said:

Well yes, the question is what GAME is similar to Catherine. Catherine is, inherently, a block puzzle game, so other block puzzle games will be brought up in comparison. I really don't know if I would go about calling it a platformer either; it's a platformer in the same way that intelligent cube is a platformer. Replace the main character with a cursor and it completely returns to being a straight puzzle game.The story beats the game has factor in very little to how the game actually plays, which seems to be the biggest complain people have about the game. Everyone universally keeps saying how the puzzle elements get in the way of what they're really interested in, the story.

Huh, what? No, intelligent qube is a straight puzzle game.   In Catherine, you are Dodging spikes,navigating your way around ice blocks, use jump blocks to get to different segments(etc. etc.)-- Replace Vincent with a cursor, and it would still be a puzzle-platformer. Did you play it?

@Mesoian: So I have to ask because well I am quite curious actually, I haven't played either  Q-Bert or Snake Rattle n Roll but I have played Catherine. By the sounds of it you have at least played one of the games that you mentioned. Now aside from blocks, moving over said blocks, and possibly the perspective. What similarities do the games share? The biggest part of Catherine is using techniques to push and pull blocks and ultimately create a path for yourself. In Catherine the blocks fall continuously beneath you. Catherine doesn't have much of any enemies on blocks (Other people in your way aren't much) and the biggest enemies can either be the boss of a stage or the blocks themselves. While navigating the level( Similarly to the games you mentioned) is important, creating a path for yourself to navigate in the first place is arguably just as or more important. Catherine also has items that you can use to say, create a block, or get rid of other people in your way. Again I haven't played the games you mentioned and I have only seen clips so I just want to know what exactly it is that the games really share. It is just curiosity, I am not trying to start an argument.

To dismiss roughly half the game (the character interaction and story beats) and boil it down to such a simplistic level as to only call it a "block puzzle game, like all those others!" is selling the game short. Catherine is a block puzzle game blended with, basically, the social link system of the Persona games, and (sometimes quite dark) themes of adult relationships and infidelity. It's easy to pick apart disparate elements of a game and find where they're rooted in, but it's the final product of what all those elements come together to create that is what matters. 
 
Also I find it a bit amusing that you point to games like Qbert and Snake Rattle & Roll as examples of why Catherine is incredibly derivative. Q*bert, a game that originally came out in the early 80s, and Snake Rattle & Roll, a NES game. So what you're basically standing here telling us is that there hasn't been anything like Catherine in multiple video game generations and that it's actually fair in any way to compare a modern video game to a NES game when video game development has reached such a more complex state that such a comparison is outright laughable.  

@iAmJohn said:

@avidwriter

I assume 200K is good for a game like this. However I don't see it breaking 500K, or possibly even 300K. This kinda game seems like Atlus fans boys only, and 200K sounds about all of them, :P

Atlus is a company that can sell 25k copies of a game and still be in the black. Even if you're right (and there's nothing that proves that), hey're gonna do just fine.

Also, Atlus notoriously only prints as many as they need to for any game. Demon's Souls had to be reprinted twice in its first six months because it was way more popular than they were anticipating.

@ryanwho said:

People with anime avatars love this game.

I previously didn't have an anime avatar before playing the game, and the game was so good that it made me switch to an anime avatar.

BOOM.

Whether you like their games or not, how can you anyone not root for Atlus?. Unless they are cheating customers or committing some kind of a crime why would gamers wish anything but success for a game company?, especially smaller ones.

@Rolyatkcinmai: So I was the only one who caught the error in the original post?

Cool. 
 
I'm not a fan of the game but I still love to see it doing so well for Atlus. 

@DonutFever said:

@I_smell said:

Obv Persona needs more sex.

What doesn't?

... Soul Calibur.

The key to Japanese game success is women, ladies, and a moe. 

HEY GUYS DID YOU PLAY PORTAL

@Napalm said:

Or I can just read the fucking wiki and save my hard-earned twenty hours on something far more compelling.

That's right, reading about a game and playing it are pretty much the same.

@BenderUnit22 said:

Some of you people are retarded, this game isn't about tits at all.

^ What this person said.  I'm proud to have been one of the people that bought it. Supporting unusual games is one of the most important things people can do in today's video game market, which is consistently dominated by the same old FPS hits and safe brands. Catherine is a great game, and Atlus deserves the success.

@DonutFever said:

@Napalm said:

Or I can just read the fucking wiki and save my hard-earned twenty hours on something far more compelling.

That's right, reading about a game and playing it are pretty much the same.

Giant straw man. He didn't say reading the game and playing it are the same. "  

Awesome to hear, I'm glad to see a game like this do well. Of course not everyone is going to like it, as noted by this thread, but that's more a matter of taste (everyone's is different) than actual quality of the game. There are games you don't like because they are bad, and there are games you may not like because they don't fit your specific taste. This is most certainly the latter category.

The only thing I have to say to the people who seem opposed to it, is to look past the box art before you judge at least. The game isn't exceptionally sexualized, and isn't using 'zomg anime jerks boobs!' argument to sell games. Yes, it touches on the topic of sex. It handles it maturely. You can have sex as a theme without something being porn. Making that argument off the box art kinda sounds like the Fox Mass Effect 'oh my god, sex with aliens!' snafu.

@DonutFever said:

@I_smell said:

Obv Persona needs more sex.

What doesn't?

... Soul Calibur.

Now Atlus needs to funnel all of that profit into Persona 5!

Now Atlus needs to funnel all of that profit into Persona 5!

It would've sold more if CoD didn't become famous.

@Axelhander said:

@DonutFever said:

@Napalm said:

Or I can just read the fucking wiki and save my hard-earned twenty hours on something far more compelling.

That's right, reading about a game and playing it are pretty much the same.

Giant straw man. He didn't say reading the game and playing it are the same. "  

He was judging the game without playing it, and said that his argument is just as valid as someone who has played the game because he read the wiki.

@Neonie said:

The key to Japanese game success is women, ladies, and a moe.

But what good is a moe without a larry and curly?

@Neonie said:

The key to Japanese game success is women, ladies, and a moe.

But what good is a moe without a larry and curly?

@DonutFever said:

@Napalm said:

Or I can just read the fucking wiki and save my hard-earned twenty hours on something far more compelling.

That's right, reading about a game and playing it are pretty much the same.

Giant straw man. He didn't say reading the game and playing it are the same. 

@DonutFever said:

@Axelhander said:

@DonutFever said:

@Napalm said:

Or I can just read the fucking wiki and save my hard-earned twenty hours on something far more compelling.

That's right, reading about a game and playing it are pretty much the same.

Giant straw man. He didn't say reading the game and playing it are the same. "  

He was judging the game without playing it, and said that his argument is just as valid as someone who has played the game because he read the wiki.

No I didn't.  The discussion was in regards to the crazy and weirdness of Catherine, comparatively to that as seen in Shadows Of The Damned. Nothing in what was quoted previously mentioned the mechanics. Go take a look. Stop putting words in my mouth.

I think it's hilarious that Atlus is celebrating 200k copies when stuff like Blops sells millions in one day. 
 
Kinda sad too. Oh well, good for Atlus. 

Glad to hear this game is doing well for them, Atlus is a great publisher.

So much hate in this thread. I mean we're all mature adults here. Let's all be mature and go play a mature game like Catherine with its mature themes.
GOD DAMN MATURITY IS AWESOME.

@Axelhander: Personally, I enjoy when great games that aren't the typical run and guns succeed. So this news is great.

I liked Catherine well enough, but there was a huge chunk of time where I wasn't good enough at the puzzles to not be frustrated at them that started me thinking of how much I would enjoy an Atlus RPG using that style of animation. Maybe not even Persona 5 and maybe not even Shin Megami Tensei. In the end, I think Jeff was right about the balance between puzzle and story. Personally, I didn't spend as much time on the puzzles, but I did think the story segments were teasingly short to the point that the game felt like it was moving too fast. Then again, I am the kind of layabout who has the time to finish 40 hour games.

Good news everyone! I found where they hid the cake!

Good news everyone! I found where they hid the cake!

@FluxWaveZ said:

@mewarmo990 said:

Good news everyone! I found where they hid the cake!

No one's even taken a piece of it yet?

We are cutting it RIGHT NOW as I type this!

@Axelhander: Personally, I enjoy when great games that aren't the typical run and guns succeed. So this news is great.

@MooseyMcMan said:

I think it's hilarious that Atlus is celebrating 200k copies when stuff like Blops sells millions in one day. Kinda sad too. Oh well, good for Atlus.

If you think that's sad, compare the sales of Blops to the amount an oil company makes every day.

@Landon said:

@FluxWaveZ said:

According to Nich Maragos over at Atlus, the game actually didn't sell 200k copies in retail but shipped 200k copies.

Are you saying THE CAKE IS A LIE?!?!?!?!?!?.....I'm sorry...

You should be. :)

@Axelhander: what does that bother you?

I finished Catherine on the weekend and enjoyed it quite a bit. 200,000 is pretty awesome for Atlus. That is three times the number of copies that Demon's Souls sold in the first week and that went on to sell 700,000 copies in North America, 1.2 million worldwide which was enough to garner it PS3 Greatest Hits status. Catherine has also sold about 180,000 in Japan so far, so to exceed that in the first week is North America sales is pretty cool. Nintendo needs to take note of this.

"Animumblecore" was the thing that made me go "oh, Patrick clearly didn't write this story...Alex?"

Catherine has also sold about 180,000 in Japan so far, so to exceed that in the first week is North America sales is pretty cool.

I finished Catherine on the weekend and enjoyed it quite a bit. 200,000 is pretty awesome for Atlus. That is three times the number of copies that Demon's Souls sold in the first week and that went on to sell 700,000 copies in North America, 1.2 million worldwide which was enough to garner it PS3 Greatest Hits status. Catherine has also sold about 180,000 in Japan so far, so to exceed that in the first week is North America sales is pretty cool. Nintendo needs to take note of this.

So much hate in this thread. I mean we're all mature adults here. Let's all be mature and go play a mature game like Catherine with its mature themes. GOD DAMN MATURITY IS AWESOME.

Well hell, people liked Portal & Portal 2.  The market is just crying for 
good puzzlers & thus Catherine's hole was filled.

*Reading through the thread* 

@Axelhander said:

Bothers me when games like this do well.

Why does it bother you?

I have something to say: Europe.

Wow, is that cake accurate?

Variety is the spice of life. Congrats to Atlus and the Persona team for finding commercial success with a risky game. Even if you don't enjoy Catherine, you would be a fool to think this is anything but good for the industry.