Catherine Classic

catherine is one of my favourite games of all time, it has beautiful symbolism and carries an strong message about marriage. i have finished it on PS3 but unfortunately for me it keeps crashing during the final stage so i have been unable to complete it on steam... be careful :(

I loved the puzzles and the story is cool

PLEASE BEFORE BUYING IT NOTE THAT YOU WILL MOST LIKELY NOT BE ABLE TO PLAY THE GAME! DUE TO GAME PERFORMANCE OR SETTINGS ISSUES! ( I tried for almost an hour running different settings, installing different software
updating anything I could in my pc to play the game and it just crashed every single time, would've loved to play the game but I'm not paying for a game that can't even be run.

Specs: (for those curious}
CPU: INTEL i9
GPU: Nvidia 4070 Super
OS: Windows 11
RAM: 32 GB Ram

I really enjoyed the puzzles and the story too. It is a different game.

Gameplay is the only redeeming aspect of this game, and it's eh.

The adult themes aren't for everyone but the Story is gripping and the puzzle platforming gameplay is lowkey addicting.

Catherine is hard but it is so satisfying. I am admittedly not great with puzzle games, but I feel like that was actually a contributing factor to my enjoyment - every time I figured something out, especially in those moments where I kept failing over and over, it was super gratifying, almost... addictive? The puzzles are fast paced and involve climbing up a falling tower of blocks. A lot of pushing and pulling, much like the main plot device where you are following a man named Vincent Brooks and his girlfriend Katherine who are going through a rough patch in their relationship. The gameplay is super fun, but what really did it in for me was the story. I hung onto every piece of dialogue and was absolutely invested in their relationship as well as the connections with those around them. The roleplaying aspects of this game involve hanging out at the bar with your friends and getting absurdly drunk. The detail in these scenes are quite impressive - the more Vincent drinks, the more he wobbles around as his face becomes bright pink and the more he watches people come and go, providing new interactions. The choices you make will impact the story and there are multiple endings. There is a great balance of romance, horror, and comedy that really shines through in the animated cutscenes, which provides a moment of relief between the tense and increasingly difficult stages.

one of the most unique and engaging games I've ever played. Replaying it after so many years on this (not perfect) port was still a great experience, and it holds up extremely well.

Catherine is a very unique and entertaining puzzle game set within a world that seems rather mundane, at first, but, as the game progesses, you find yourself wrapped up in a fairly odd series of events, people are dying in their sleep from nightmares.

Will you conquer your nightmares and find out the cause of these deaths? Or will you be the next victim?

That sounds awesome, right? I bet you're hovering over the buy button right now, right?

DO NOT BUY THIS PORT OF THE GAME! IT IS SOOOOOOOOOO BAD!

The port of this game is so botched that you don't even have working resolution options. Changing the resolution to anything other than the default display resolution will cause the game to crash and text to break.

The game feels like it's held together by scotch tape and feign hope that it will stay put together until the credits. It does not.

Don't EVEN get me started on how this game just REFUSES to work on Steam Deck. Jesus Christ. Trying to brute force the game to run on Steam Deck is an EVEN worse experience than playing on my Windows PC.

Hope you like broken cutscenes and unstable frame rate if you're gonna go that route.

Either emulate it with RPCS3 if you want to play Catherine (Classic Version) or Yuzu if you want to play Catherine Full Body.

This port is embarrassing - I'm genuinely surprised Persona 4 and 5 works at all given how god awful this port is.

Do NOT buy this turd of a port. I have no fucking idea where the hell the positivity for this port comes from.

It runs like shit, crashes, and throws a fit if you change graphics options, lazy shit port.

Actually one of the best games I've ever played. Super unique, and I was having a blast the entire time. My first time booting it up I just wanted to try it out, make sure it worked, but I ended up playing for 5 hours straight.

AMAZING

It's an upwards anime puzzler with a really stylish vibe and an interesting story. I do recommend.

great game but doesn't open 9 times out of 10, get full body on the switch or something. even if you get it to open it crashes if you share your screen or record it. also runs at like 15 fps in gameplay, cutscenes are fine

Is Catherine worth it? Absolutely ദ്ദി(• ˕ •マ.ᐟ
Do I regret anything? Not a single secondddddd
Yeah, the nightmares are brutal. Yeah, the puzzles had me contemplating my existence
But if suffering means one step closer to Catherine then sign me up for eternal torment ᓚ₍⑅^..^₎♡

ㅤ♡ྀི ₊This game isn’t just worth playing it’s worth obsessing over ♡ྀི ₊

Кусок дерьма. Ты терпишь абсолютно просто ублюдские уровни пазлы, чтобы увидеть свою концовку игры. Даже на самом легком уровне игры можно сойти с ума их проходить. Две соски-нереалки бьются за тюфяка. Чтобы увидеть чем закончится игра, нужно буквально мучатся(даже с гайдами на ютабе)проходя этот АД буквально. Чем ближе к финалу, тем больше решает БОГ Рандома. Я дропаю это, не пройдя stage 9-6

Good puzzles . Good story . Already finished it ages ago but decided to buy again on steam cause this the only atlus title without denubo crapware .

I've seen gameplay of Catherine once before, wanted to play it years later when I was 18, but never got the chance. Now, years later, I finally get to play this version.

I really enjoy this game, since I do like a good challenge. Plus, I did get the one ending I always wanted, and I'm proud to have this achievement.

this is one of the best puzzle games i've ever played, too bad i am way too dumb to play this properly so i gotta undo my actions 948129478 times until i get them right from the night 5 onward
still was a blast to play, the gameplay is rock solid and the story is really good with some insane twists right near the end, got me hooked the entire time, highly recommend it to any fan of atlus's games, puzzle games or just a really good and solid story in general

A very hard game to recommend and a very hard game to not recommend. The dilemma of the century!
On the one side, this game's art and uniqueness is top notch. The voice acting is very good and the protagonist sounds amazing actually, totally nailed it. The music is excellent, every piece fits perfectly here. All this is to be expected of Atlus, they don't disappoint.

Now, on the other hand, this game is simply very very very frustrating to play, on normal difficulty. Many of the deaths weren't even my fault due to the horrible controls and sometimes also the camera when I tried to reach a block from behind. There is one button that does way too many things and majority of my deaths were because I accidentally let go and fell to my doom. Add to this, Vincent moves way too fast (I discovered after finishing the game that you can reduce the sensitivity in settings but didn't test it) and this is actually good, but also bad. Which takes me to the next problem. You need to be fast but also slow but also make sure you pay attention to every little block's surface, where to move it, traps, boss attacks, the dropping floor beneath you and make sure you don't accidentally drop yourself while trying to climb. All this leads to severe head pain. Like, literally, my head hurt while playing. So I really recommend taking breaks while playing.

One other point to mention, this is not really a puzzle game but more like a chess game. You need strategy, but fast, but also slow, but fast! In the end, I felt like I am indeed in a nightmare, just like Vincent. So if that's what the devs were after, they definitely accomplished it.

Also, the game overstays its welcome imo. You'll think the game is done or almost done, only for it to go for a few more hours and it felt unnecessary to me. I couldn't be happier when it did indeed finish, although weirdly enough, I'll miss it. I guess we humans do love torment.

TLDR : A brutally hard game that is very unique and artistic but has severe problems with controls that leads to a lot of frustration. Don't expect to breeze past it with your puzzle solving knowledge, but rather, with strategy, speed control, super high focus and determination.

P.S. Please make sure you take breaks while playing because this game will put you under a lot of stress and it might give you headaches.

Final score : 8/10

Final words : Go for it if you like extreme challenges, multiple choices with multiple endings and interesting story. If the game is too hard, you can set it to easy and enjoy the story.

good story, but the gameplay is ass.

An amazing game I love the puzzles and the story omg its amazing I come back to this game every year 10/10 would recommend

Look, maybe I'm just a gaming boomer, but aside from the hot love interest, there's not much here in terms of fun gameplay. The story had a fun tone and the vibe was good, but the controls on PC are really awkward to use. I would recommend getting it on console or at least using a controller.

I rather be turned into a sheep and sent to the tower in real life then to see a another goddamn ice block or bomb block!

I wish they released a full body version feature with Rin

Still good after 12 years.

Good lord. I remember first hearing about this game around ten years ago, watching the cutscenes on YouTube, and going "wow, that sure was wacky!" Now that I've actually played it, though, I can say with 100% certainty that the game has not aged well. Not at all.

The biggest gripe I have with the game is its characters and story. Vincent is such a spineless tool that I only empathized with him once the entire game (more on that later). I know he's on some level supposed to be an unsympathetic character, but when paired with the horrible themes of gender the game pushes, he really becomes insufferable. The game frames all men as immature, chauvinistic pigs that can't help but cheat on their girlfriends or otherwise be horrible boyfriends. It's to the point where one of the characters even says that 80% of all men cheat (not true!). This is an issue because Vincent really isn't a cheater by any stretch of the imagination. He's a rape victim.

I hate Catherine, the blonde girl, and her interactions with Vincent made me want to drop kick both of them into the sun. Every night, she basically waits until Vincent is blackout drunk then goes and sleeps with him. Vincent barely even remembers her the next morning, let alone what they did. Everyone in the game from Vincent to Vincent's friends to the main antagonist treat this as cheating, but it really isn't. Catherine is raping him, plain and simple. Sure, the game implies later on that they might have never actually had sex, but the game also follows this up by saying "well, if you thought you were cheating, you were still cheating, right?" Replace "cheating" with "rape," and this is an apt descriptor. Granted, Catherine is an antagonist and a succubus, making it her job to to do this, but the game doesn't handle it with tact. In the endings where you can get with Catherine, it's revealed that she actually did fall for Vincent and the two get together in a way that feels very "marrying the mistress" kind of a way. Catherine, despite supposedly falling in love with Vincent, never once addresses how she used and manipulated him, even if it was just for a job. Terrible character, I hate her! From what I've heard, Fullbody handles this romanticization of their relationship even worse than the original.

Katherine doesn't fare much better. I think I would care more about her if we ever saw her and Vincent have more natural interactions with each other. You definitely get the sense that they've been together for a while, and both of them are on edge after Katherine reveals she's pregnant, but every scene with her just gives off "hnng, my bitch wife" energy. Once again, I get that's partially intentional, but she and Vincent feel more like obligations to each other rather than an actual couple. It gets even worse when the third act kicks in. This is the one part of the game I was rooting for Vincent, when the two CKatherines finally meet each other, leading Catherine to attack Vincent and Katherine. This triggers an escort mission where you need to escort Katherine through the level (with all the standard escort mission trappings). The cutscenes preceding and following this level made me actually believe in Vincent and make me want him to patch things up with Katherine. But then it turns out this was all a dream, and Katherine actually shows up later to break up with him and reveals that she was lying about the pregnancy just to see how Vincent would react. Especially given the fact that the player just spent a long ass time escorting her and her stupid AI through the last level, what a bitch!

Gameplay wise, it's not much better. The "overworld" stuff mostly feels like a watered down Persona game (which does have its appeal, if you want something like that without sinking 80+ hours into it), and the main gameplay with the blocks is brutal. I don't mind hard games, but the puzzles never felt intuitive to me. With very few exceptions, I mostly felt like I was just doing random bullshit until I found something that worked. I rarely had a true "aha!' moment that other puzzle games thrive on. I also felt discouraged to experiment most of the time, knowing that if I accidentally moved one block I shouldn't have, that the whole structure would get fucked up. The game does have a rewind function, but your errors are not always instantly recognizable, meaning you'll often end up getting lost in your moves. Don't even get me started on getting gold ranks on these things.

Overall, not a great time. Bad story with bad messages, and hard yet unsatisfying gameplay. Even the OST didn't really land with me. The game also consistently crashed while I was streaming it over Discord whenever it had to load in a pre-rendered cutscene. The voice acting was good, but you can find other infinitely better projects with these actors in them. I'll probably still play through some more of the game just to farm out a few more achievements, but I don't see myself 100%ing it simply because I cannot be bothered to.

Absolutely incredible and memorable storytelling!!! This game has so much replay value, it's insane. It's so immersive, I literally couldn't stop playing for hours until I reached at least one ending. Really makes you think about every action and its concequences. A small con is that it doesn't have autosave :( I had to replay a few sections because I kept forgetting to save, and the game rarely prompts you to do so. Other than that, I was immediately hooked on the symbolism and incredible attention to detail. If you like art history, especially 17th century gothic style architecture, the game's ambient will definitely be up your alley. Definitely would recommend it to anyone who's a fan of choose your own adventure style games, especially considering the relatable theme in "Catherine"!!!

This has definitely earned it's reputation for being a weird game! In saying that, if the anime cut-scenes and original game-play grabs you, there's a bit of fun to be had here.

The game-play itself is a bit of puzzle platforming with some nice progression. Not super hard at first and gradually becomes more and more challenging without massive difficulty spikes. The art style and visuals fit the theme with some pretty solid animated cut-scenes. All woven together with a bizarre but interesting story that is shrouded in mystery. The big plus is that you get to select some choices that do effect how your character reacts to the story along the way.

I've played a fair bit of this on other platforms and must say this is a solid port. If you are a fan of puzzle type games with an original story, this is well worth the $24.95AUD at the time of writing.

Game is great, but don't screenshare the final boss or the cutscenes will crash your game. Had to redo it 4 times after completion :/

bug crashes still not settle

ts too hard, logging off to cheat on my girlfriend

unforgivable that there's no fullbody on steam and no erica route
that aside 10/10

Catherine has a fantastic story mixed in with great gameplay.

Unironically played it for the puzzles

I really like the social simulation-y stuff at the bar every night, I think the gameplay itself is really solid and addicting, I finished the game yesterday and every time I close my eyes all I can see is these stupid block puzzles or a giant baby with a chainsaw that shoots chainsaws. I will say however, that while I really liked the character drama aspect of the main story (which was what it mostly was) throughout, the plot itself *really* started to lose me in the last 2 or so in-game days.

Firstly, I like almost all of the main characters, they have chemistry and you feel like the actually did grow up together, Vincent, however, constantly just feels like an epic loser throughout, and I know that the point of the game is sort of him getting over this, but, like GODDAMN he is a loser. And I'm not just saying this because he exhibits traits that *I* personally don't like, It seems that the story genuinely makes no effort to present any positive aspects of Vincent, or how he used to be when he first got into a relationship with Katherine which makes the relationship drama aspect of the plot feel a little forced.

I think the worst part of Vincent being a loser is that it never felt to me like he genuinely changed over the course of the narrative, it's funny because the narrator woman with the comically large afro explains to us that the stairs are a metaphor for Vincent taking steps towards maturity or genuine adulthood or whatever, but this never actually happens, it always felt like he was just doing it to survive. It sort of unintentionally vindicates the villain because if he hadn't been forced to run for his life every night, he would not have changed, and don't get me wrong, I think it's totally immoral what Thomas Mutton was doing, but it does seems like an accidental implication of the events of the game.

The story as a whole is generally just very muddled, and at times nonsensical. Like why does some guy who climbed the tower a thousand years ago or whatever care about population growth so much? Why does he act scared when Vincent threatens him? You're a fucking demon thing, just beat him up lmao. Also, why does Katherine believe that Vincent was seduced by a succubus and that the bartender is actually a thousand year old demon thingy at the end? Also, why do they act like Thomas Mutton didn't murder like hundreds of people? They just brush him off like he's just a funny little guy who hits on Erica at the end but like, this guy murdered TONS of people, literally, and was trying to do the same to all of you, maybe like, I dunno, kill him!

In summary, I would say the gameplay is solid throughout, and the plot/character drama is really fun to follow up until the last couple of days and the ending I got (True Lover) was pretty unsatisfying, If I play this again I might try to go for the True Freedom/Neutral ending instead, as that seems like the better choice for Vincent and Katherine, frankly.

This is the best game ever made it is made for me a gooner!

I love this game to death, it just sucks that I can't even get it to open. For reference, I own this game on both Xbox and Play Station as well. it's an experience tbh. Vincent is literally me and Catherine is the only woman I'd EVER be loyal to, in game of course.

Love this game to death, but DAMN bro. I can't even play it without it crashing 💀

Needs a practice mode or something dooms bride is some bs, or let me skip the puzzles.

This game was a roller coaster, I recorded myself playing expecting it to take awhile, what I didn’t expect was the story becoming so incredibly addictive that I couldn’t put my controller down! And that’s saying something cause I don’t normally like playing puzzle games, but the story is just that good!

I love getting drunk and pushing blocks, very cool!

Wonderful!

Great story with deep characters combined with fun yet frustrating puzzle game play. Loved the animated bits and the bar sequences were unique. Only complains would be that I felt like the final boss was weak compared to other stages.

The story is thrilling and it ties in with the gameplay itself wonderfully. Wish there were more games like this

fun puzzle game with alot of branching endings. pretty fun, and sometimes annoying lol

Couldn't make it through the intro cut scene without the game crashing 5 different times

I give this 5 big booms
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM

Buy the game when its on sell because it goes on sale often, it is a masterpiece. (ps its not a porn game)

Very good puzzle game with fun writing, likely good replay value also although I've just done 1 run of the campaign

Utter garbage. I've been playing video games for multiple decades and I love puzzle games, so the fact that I can't get past the tutorial level leaves me to believe that it's not a fault with myself, but with this game.

Does not run on Windows 11.

Incompatible with Steam Deck.

Devs haven’t updated the game in almost 5 years so no point expecting any future patches.

Lowkey one of the best games I've played in a long ass time. Really fucking good story, short and sweet, would recommend.