Quick Hit: Catherine

My impressions of Catherine will be very limited, as I am not capable of reading or understanding Japanese; however, I felt compelled to throw out some quick impressions from my time with the game. For those unaware, Catherine is the newest game from the team most recently responsible for the Persona games and if you know me, you know that I adore the Persona series.

I immediately fell in love with the visuals, which inevitably sent my imagination running towards the idea of Persona 5 in this engine. The game is not a technical masterpiece, but it has a beautiful style that feels closest to a midpoint between traditional cel-shading and the watercolor aesthetic of Valkyria Chronicles. The game sports the usual anime cut-scenes found in the Persona games, but the in-game visuals are, for lack of a more creative word, beautiful. There is no way I am not coming off overly exuberant, but the visuals were a pleasant surprise and screenshots fail to convey the game's beauty.

Sheep; they are kind of a theme in Catherine. Sheep in ties > Plumbers who don't wear ties.

The real surprise, surprisingly, was the actual gameplay. Yes, I know I followed 'surprise' immediately with 'surprisingly,' but that is why it is funny and also why I am stupid. Back on topic, the gameplay -- at least from my time with the game -- was pure puzzle and no action. There was no fighting, no battles, and nothing you would expect from the developers of Persona. Was this a bad surprise? No, I actually found the puzzle aspect enjoyable, but I highly doubt the whole game would rely solely on these puzzles. The puzzles fundamentally involved climbing to the top of a mountain of blocks in order to avoid an impending death. That likely makes little sense, but that is the best I can do without diving into crazy.

The rest of the game -- the story and possible expansion of gameplay -- are aspects I cannot discuss for the previously mentioned lack of linguistic ability and the fact I only played a short demo. If Catherine delivers a story comparable to recent Persona outings, I already know I will love the game. I would be surprised if the gameplay never changed, but I could find it rather fun as a small part of a bigger system. In the end, none of this matters if Atlus decides against localization. Do I believe this will happen? No. Atlus has always been pretty good at localizing their games and I would be surprised if they changed business models with this game; though, I wouldn't mind an excuse to learn Japanese.

P.S. It would seem that I failed quite heavily at being "quick." Feel free to blame this on my inability to stay within the confines of a word count, or because I really enjoyed my time with the game.