Review for Catherine: Full Body. Game for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 03/09/2019 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 07/07/2020
Years ago, on TV, it was not complicated to come across a famous show: Blessed among women. What man wouldn't want to be, after all? Vincent Brooks, at first glance, might seem so, far more so than he was in the first incarnation of Catherine, released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC in 2012. ATLUS after 7 years returns to make us relive the adventures, or rather the nightmares of one of the most traumatized penniless employees ever. Catherine: Full Body is proposed as a cross between a remake and a remastered: the title in fact offers both new game modes and new interesting implications in the plot. ATLUS has therefore enriched its creation properly, before proposing it again on the current gen.
Golden Playhouse Special strikes again!
Vincent Brooks is an ordinary man: he has been engaged to Katherine for 5 years, he spends his days between meetings with his girlfriend, work and drinking at the Stray Sheep with friends. His life flows quietly, the responsibilities do not oppress him and he doesn't seem to have any intention of upsetting everything. Far be it from Vincent to take big steps like marriage or parenthood. However, everything is turned upside down in a single night with the appearance of Catherine, a sexy bomb who dotes on the curly employee who seems unable to resist the great temptation that the girl represents. As if that weren't enough, strange nightmares begin to haunt Vincent and other customers of the Stray Sheep: every night they are condemned to climb immense towers made up of absurd blocks that, over time, fall into the void. It seems that whoever fails to reach the top is condemned to die not only in dreams but also in real life. It gets even more complicated when Rin shows up (totally new character and created specifically for Catherine: Full Body): a girl that Vincent knows in somewhat particular circumstances but for which he tries to do his utmost in a thousand ways, finding her a roof over her head and a job. Our gentle and loving soul gets into action, as well as the amnesia that hit her, not making her remember her origins or what she was dealing with before meeting Vincent. The triangle that in the first version was composed of Vincent, Katherine and Catherine, now becomes even more complicated, adding even more mysteries and questions due to the arrival of Rin but renewing what was the original plot, enriching it with beautiful twists and deepening the s between some characters. However, some questions, depending on the endings you will encounter, will not have a real answer and will therefore remain unknowns. With the exception of this particular, however, the narrative sector of Catherine: Full Body has no flaws and certainly cannot be considered boring: between spicy moments and numerous twists, Vincent's adventures will keep us glued to the screen for at least 15 hours.
Q * bert? No, Vincent!
The gameplay of Catherine: Full Body does not differ much from what we saw years ago with its first incarnation: as regards the main campaign we will have to guide Vincent in his adventure which will last 9 days. Each day will be divided into two parts: the evening and the night. During the evening we will be busy wandering around Stray Sheep, Vincent's favorite pub. Here we will be able to drink, talk to friends and pub patrons, choose songs from the jukebox (there will also be Persona tracks!), Play minigames and talk / text via smartphone. During our stay at the pub (and beyond), as well as discovering the various implications of the plot, we will have to make decisions that will make Vincent's orientation towards chaos or order. It will be thanks to our choices that Vincent's moral indicator will hang on one side rather than the other and on it will also depend on how our story will end. During the night instead we will live Vincent's nightmares, thus entering the highlight of Catherine. Each nightmare will consist of various stages that we will have to complete in order to wake up alive again the next day. Each tower will be composed of several floors, where we will find other dreamers in the form of anthropomorphic sheep but which will keep their distinctive signs. Some of these may even hinder us during our climb. In the last stage of each night we will have to face a boss, which will materialize in the usual climb against time but with an extra penalty, that is a huge creature that will hinder us during our ascent in all possible ways. Basically, each level is made up of suspended blocks to be used to go up to the last block that represents the exit. Each of these giant cubes can be pushed, pulled or used as a support by hanging with your arms on either side. To get to the top it is therefore necessary to move them with a certain criterion. Furthermore, the blocks remain suspended only when they have at least one side in contact with each other. Our priority will therefore be to form steps in order to climb to the top.
During the various stages different types of blocks will come into play, each with its own peculiarities: some will be fixed and impossible to move, others will be frozen and therefore slippery, others will break after a couple of times we walk on them and so on . Thanks to these particularities, the puzzles will be very variable and never boring. There will be some techniques to keep in mind and a good part will be explained between one stage and another by some sheep with the help of some small videos that we will be able to see and review at the save points. We will also be able to take advantage of objects to facilitate the climb, buying them from the merchant sheep or finding them during our climb, in order to have an extra help, however it will be possible to carry only one object at a time.
Another element that will be possible to find during the climb will be the cushion: thanks to it we will be able to increase the number of "undo" that we can use. Rin will also be present within the levels, a novelty compared to the past: in some stages, when we are too close to the blocks that are about to fall, the girl will slow down the process, giving us a few more moments to engineer the next move. In addition, to avoid totally compromising the climb with our mistake and not restart from the beginning or from the checkpoints scattered along the stages, we will be able to cancel our last actions in order to move the cubes in the correct way.
The fact that these types of aids are present may suggest that it is all very simple but it is not at all like this: the level of challenge in Catherine is quite challenging, at each level we will have to study the moves by reflecting on them quickly and without going at random , especially if you opt for the difficult mode.
To appeal to longtime fans, Catherine: Full Body also features other modes including Babel, Arena Online and Colosseum. Babel has been adapted, modifying its levels and making it even more challenging. The Online Arena, on the other hand, allows us to challenge other players online or play cooperatively with a friend. If, on the other hand, you prefer the challenge between friends locally, you can opt for Colosseum.
Sheep restyle
Catherine: Full Body features much cleaner graphics than the original, both during gameplay and cutscenes. Speaking of the latter, for the occasion, thanks to the entry of Rin, even 20 have been added. Everything appears much more defined and clear while remaining faithful to the original work. The real pearl remain the animated sequences, created by the 4 ° C studio, which alternate with the scenes created with the game engine and represent a real pleasure for the eyes. The audio sector in turn presents some news as new tracks have been added, in addition to those we already know, which will not struggle to get into our heads, between the Stray Sheep and the night climbs.
Catherine: Full Body cannot be qualified as a mere remaster of the original title, it is perhaps closer to a remake thanks to the amount of content that Atlus has added to his work, both in terms of gameplay and narratives. The plot, despite a few small flaws, is always captivating and fresh, even for those who have already ventured into Vincent's nightmare nights in the past. The gameplay, on the other hand, has not aged at all, thanks to the small innovations introduced by Atlus, without underestimating the importance given to multiplayer that opens the doors to the eSports phenomenon. Full Body also deals with fairly important and current issues, launching various significant messages that everyone should start to make their own. We can safely say that Atlus has hit the mark once again!
► Catherine: Full Body is a Puzzle-type game developed by ATLUS and published by Sega for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 03/09/2019 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 07/07/2020
