Catherine Review

“It’s unlike anything else available, which explains much of its hype” Wow. What snooty snobs we were back when we reviewed Catherine on import and spanked its bum to the tune of 5.0.

While having our noses in the air and spouting piffle about whether or not you understand Japanese doesn’t help anyone, Catherine does hugely benefit from being in English.

The themes are more universal than we gave it credit for – fear of commitment, adultery, empty nights drinking with friends – and the voice-acting is outstanding throughout.

It’s stunning to look at, soaked with rich colour and gorgeous animation, and the morality system is far more interesting than the black and white equivalents in Mass Effect 2, inFamous et al.

Catherine is a game where you decide how to answer your girlfriend’s paranoid texts and how drunk you get at a bar. It’s weird, it’s unique and above all, it’s weirdly interesting.

But there’s one thing the English language can’t change and that’s the frustrating puzzles at the heart of Catherine. You have to climb, push and pull blocks to get to the top of a structure that’s slowly being eaten away from below.

Yet it’s frustrating and needlessly difficult and designed in a way that you can condemn yourself to failure by ruining the tower without realising until it’s too late.

Something was needed to space out the eccentric design of Catherine’s frivolous sections but the puzzles almost completely ruin it. Yet it remains memorable for what it does well and is different enough that the curious should give it a try.