Every day is the "End of the Week"

Publisher: Atlus
Systems: Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Release Date: 7/26/11


     Catherine is an adult themed, survival horror, puzzle game. Yeah, I was kinda baffled myself when I found this out. I had heard and seen a little bit of stuff for Catherine and I loved the look of the game and knew it was survival horror at least.  When I found out it was a puzzle game too, I was surprised, but also intrigued. "This is either gonna rock, or suck", I thought. And BOY did it rock.

     Catherine follows the story of Vincent Brooks, a 32 year old dude who's been going out with his girlfriend, Katherine McBride, for five years. Vincent is feeling pressured into marriage and at this crucial time, he ends up cheating on Katherine with a cute and seductive girl he meets at the local bar, named Catherine. Everything goes downhill from there as he has nightmares every night of climbing a tower made of blocks with fellow sheep. Yeah that's right, sheep.  Men are also being found dead in their beds every morning, with looks of terror on their faces and word of a curse on cheating men is spreading around. Thinks just aren't looking good for Vincent.

     That's all I want to say about the story, because the game tells it better than I ever could and including more would be spoiling it. This story is an absolute blast, with plot twists and surprises at every corner. A great part of the story is that the player controls what happens. Depending on how you make Vincent act with other people, what you text your girlfriends, and based on questions you answer in Sheep Hell (as I like to call the nightmares), your alignment changes. There is a bar with a blue angel on the right and a red devil on the left that pops up whenever your alignments changes or when it affects the story directly. Your alignment changes what Vincent thinks and what happens in the plot. Your choices REALLY matter in this game. While at the bar you go to every night, you can talk to fellow patrons to help them with their life problems. Or not. But if you don't then they stop coming to the bar, and WHOOPS, they die.This game also has multiple endings based on your alignment and actions. Eight in total! You also can get drunk. Three beer bottles signify how drunk you are, and the more drunk you are the faster you move in your nightmares.

     Although this game is a puzzle game, it is very story centric, with the puzzles acting as small breaks in the story. This doesn't mean the puzzles are just filler. There is still plot while in Sheep Hell and the puzzles are challenging and fun enough to keep you entertained. The difficulty curve for the game is a bit funky though. It started off a little hard since you had to learn how to maneuver the levels and how to solve these types of puzzles (since I have never seen a puzzle like this). Once I got the hand of it the puzzles started getting harder by a little bit. Then about halfway through the difficulty jumps. After a little bit though I got the hand of the deeper puzzle solving techniques and the game became really easy. This was all on normal difficulty though, when the game recommends that you start on easy for your first time. The game does help you by showing you techniques if you talk to other sheep, although most of the time you needed to think of these techniques in order to pass the prior level. They are still REALLY helpful and learning these techniques is critical to beating the game.


     The puzzles are all block based. You need to push and pull blocks in order to climb the tower while blocks fall out from the bottom of the tower. (thus providing a time limit) It's pretty fun, with a variety of blocks (Like Ice Blocks or Trap Blocks) and other sheep who are also climbing. Some sheep are even crazy and will try to push you off! There are multiple levels, each with multiple stages, different themes, and usually a new type of block. You go through one level per night and on the last stage of each level your are chased by a giant embodiment of your fears. These are the bosses and they're pretty freaking creepy.

     This game is very anime like. My brother and I were always eager to see what would happen next. There are animated cutscenes, which are VERY nice, but were scarce and spread out. The games style/models try very much to be as close to the anime style as possible. This makes the figures look weird and slightly unnatural at some points. But this game isn't going for a realistic style. It goes for an over the top representation of these anime characters and it succeeds. Every time Vincent's jaw dropped (by about a foot) or his eyes widened to the size of lemons, I felt for the poor guy.


     The atmosphere for this game is wonderful and is definitely a good horror setting. It's not over the top in being scary, but is a more psychological horror, which I love. The music in this game is also amazing. It's all classical music, redone by Shoji Meguro. The music complements the game perfectly. The voice actors are also wonderful, with many familiar voices from animes.

     Along with the story mode, titled Golden Theater, there is also a challenge mode (called Babel) with four stages that you unlock by getting the gold prizes (on Normal difficulty or higher) on Golden Theater levels. These challenge stages don't end and they test how far you can climb before dying. To keep them from getting dull they also dandomize every thime you play them. They also allow you to have a second player join you in your climbing quest, which makes them a lot more enjoyable. There is also a VS mode (called Colosseum) that you unlock by beating Golden Theater. You can play through the Golden Theater levels with a friend and whoever is the last one standing, or reaches the goal first wins a point. Two points and you win the game. This was a blast since you can either concentrate on climbing the tower or attacking your enemy by pushing blocks out from under them or just pushing them off. In the bar in Golden Theater, there is an arcade game called "Rapunzel". This game features the same type of block puzzles you see in the nightmares, except there is no time limit and you have a limited number of moves, along with only three "credits" a night. This mode is significantly harder than the main puzzles, but has it's own story.

     With the multiple endings and plot happenings, this game has a good amount of replayability and will last for quite a while. I spent roughly 30 hours on my first playthrough, because I was talking to everyone and helping them out with their problems, so subsequent playthroughs are shorter since I've already done that. That and once you get a gold prize on a level (on normal or higher), you can skip that level on further playthroughs.


My Verdict:

     This game is an absolute rollercoaster of thrills and excitement. From the adult themes to the plot twist to the awesome puzzles and the ridiculous characters, I enjoyed every moment of this game. The fact that it's a lot like an anime might push some away, and I have no idea how girls would feel about this game, but as a guy who likes anime, puzzles, survival-horror, and a sexy game, this was right up my alley. And with how long this game has and will last me, it was definitely worth my money. This game treats itself like it is a show and believe me, it is one well worth watching.

Buy It: If you love psychological horror stories, unique puzzles, fun alignment systems, and stories with multiple endings.

Rent It: If you're intrigued by what I've said because you like some parts of this game, but not others. This game is a lot of different things at once, and that means it won't be right for everyone.

Skip It: If you dislike puzzle games, anime, horror (although it's not too heavy on this), or if what I've mentioned just doesn't interest you at all. Or if your a kid. This game IS NOT for kids.



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