Catherine "Love Is Over" Deluxe Edition

Are you tired of the games with the same ideas over and over again- Are you looking for a unique game that deals with mature themes that are unheard of in games- If so, then Catherine is a must buy.

Catherine comes from the development team that made the Persona series and if you haven't played a Persona game then you're really missing out on some of the best RPG games ever made.

The game puts the player in control of Vincent, a man in his 30s and his girlfriend Katherine is pressuring him to get married but he is reluctant. Vincent then meets a young beauty at a bar called Catherine and ends up waking up next to her naked and thus Vincent's life is thrown into turmoil.

The gameplay is a puzzle platformer that is very challenging, even on the simplest difficulty. The game was so hard that ATLUS patched the Japanese version of the game to include a super easy mode.

The game also comes with co-operative multiplayer and online leaderboards making this a very appealing game.

So, if you're looking for a change, something unique, something more mature, and a huge challenge, then you should pre-order the game now, I did.

Catherine is one of those games that many people are likely to overlook. It's easy to look at the cover and think this is some weird Japanese dating game with T & A on display for horny teens.

The thing is… It's not. This is a genuinely mature horror game about the very real fear of commitment and living in a mature relationship.

The game is beautifully presented, with a great art style and a genuinely mature storyline that feels realistic and is not interested in childish titillation but more interested in genuinely mature themes of responsibility, parenthood, sex and relationships.

The game splits into two distinct “parts.”

In the real world, Vince wanders around a bar talking to patrons, sending txts to various people and generally is a social interaction game where your decisions and actions effect the progress of the story.

In the Nightmare World, the meat of the “game” aspect, Vince must traverse up puzzle towers as quickly as possible before the tower collapses. Often this is also combined with running from some personification of Vince's fears chasing him up the tower.

While in the Nightmare World, Vince is also able to talk to various characters and influence their fates both in the dream world and the real world. The game has many branches to the story and cleverly avoids being obvious about what decisions will produce “good” or “bad” consequences.

A great game and a great Deluxe Edition. Highly recommended! :)

Catherine is not so much a mix of genres as a strange attempt to put disparate genres in a box and hit the box with sledgehammer until its square. Fans of traditional Japanese gaoga may wonder why they're doing puzzles; the same applies for those looking to focus on problem solving. Somehow though, given a brief introduction, the formula clicks entirely and what you end up with I a unique and interesting experience.

So… Buy-

Not many games have the audacity to ignore the status quo and mainstream of video game storylines. Catherine eschews everything about standard game stories in favour of it's own method of telling this wacky, unusual and rather adult tale. This game is good, beyond what most games can ever dream of being, even though it doesn't really seem like it would be.

A puzzle game interspersed with mild date-sim type elements that help you decide what kind of tale it will be, you would be forgiven for thinking this game lacks a real fun factor. You would be wrong, of course, but forgiven. Quite simply, the puzzling action of Catherine is addictive and hard. Old school hard. There is an easy mode if you aren't quite up to the task, allowing you to experience the story without a bulk of frustration, but playing on normal difficulty can tax even the most avid of puzzlers. Hard mode will frustrate them to no end. And then, there's Babel; this mode will make them cry.
Catherine lets you decide how the story goes, to a degree, letting you make decisions that impact how your character, Vincent, responds to future scenarios.

With a whole slew of endings available, two player competitive and co-op side modes and an in game version of the game's nightmare puzzle sequences, Catherine will keep you busy for dozens of hours. Let yourself get lost in this bizarre world and see something new in the gaming scene.

I love ATLUS for their Persona games so I was keen to get Catherine, was a little reluctant with it being a puzzle game but all doubts were settled when I started playing.

Definitely loving the storyline and the game system is quite fun once you get the hang of it. It does get very difficult and you will die a lot, but you get quite a few retires which balances it. And I do love when games keep you on your feet to avoid it getting boring.