Catherine Full Body Review: Catherines Please Apply

User Rating: 7.8
Catherine: Full Body

Are you a sheep, or are you a man? While this may not be the greatest existential question of your existence, in Catherine: Full Body, this is a question that you inevitably answer.  In the generous remaster of the original game Catherine,  ATLUS does more than simply update some graphics and expand on a level or two. In Catherine: Full Body you get a full figured tale with additional endings, new puzzles, and an entirely new mode.  Is Catherine: Full Body just another one night stand, or is this a game that players can see themselves getting more serious with?  PS4 and chill with our Catherine Full Body review.

Catherine: Full Body Review

The original Catherine was a surprise to many as it followed Vincent, a strangely expressive yet fully indecisive protagonist as he juggles two women, and battles pyramid puzzles in his dreams. The original Catherine hung heavy on the story aspects, as it pushed into a gaming genre that would almost be considered more of an interactive film. Catherine: Full Body doesn’t change this formula much. In the first several days’ worth of Vincent’s journey, you will undoubtedly spend as much, if not more, time watching cut scenes and reading or listening to story dialog. While the original Catherine only boasted a simple love triangle, Vincent finds himself in a bigger pickle as a third Catherine is added into the mix as an alternate love interest.

ATLUS has woven an interesting experience with Catherine: Full Body, giving players a plethora of new options to choose, and over a dozen different endings to experience with are all determined by the choices you make as you play.  To streamline the story aspects, ATLUS has added the ability to allow the AI to take control during the game play portions so that players can simply sit back and watch the stories unfold. On the complete opposite end of that spectrum, for veteran players that have played the original and want more of a challenge, Catherine: Full Body has a remix mode which adds new puzzle blocks and challenges so familiar Catherine players will still have a completely new experience.

Catherine: Full Body Review Sheep

In regards to the actual game play, when you aren’t in a bar chatting with your friends, or freaking out over the next mishap with your love interests, Vincent will find himself scaling a shifting block puzzle where his failure would mean certain death. The puzzles aren’t particularly challenging at first, but as you progress, traps, power-ups, and even some enemies find their way into the nightmare world and prevent you from climbing further without some creative thinking. As simplistic as the actual game play is, there is a modicum of difficulty depending on the mode you are playing, and how good you are at shifting the blocks around.  More than once I found myself shifting a block forward on accident when I meant to pull it backward. The quick fix for misplacing a block is simply pressing the rewind button, which will allow you to make your last move again, but those re-do chances are limited, so the fewer mistakes you make, the better off you will be.

Catherine: Full Body also has a full versus online mode, and special puzzle levels in-game that will undoubtedly appeal to the less story-centric gamer. As a puzzle gamer, the long stints of the story had me itching to just run some puzzles back to back, which isn’t really possible when working your way through the story, so having the option to get right into some puzzles made Catherine: Full Body much more enjoyable than a simple interactive-movie game could. Catherine: Full Body is a peculiar mix of story, puzzles and a fetish for women named Catherine, but somehow, it oddly works very well. While die-hard puzzle gamers may not find much enjoyment regarding game play in the story mode, Catherine: Full Body does have enough different avenues to follow so that anime-story fans and puzzlers can both find something to appreciate.

Summary
Catherine: Full Body is truly a remaster done right. With multiple puzzles, a brand new storyline, and new options that include an auto-play feature for story-lovers, if there are gamers out there that were on the fence about picking up Catherine, this version is a definite must. While more veteran Catherine players and action oriented puzzle fans may get tired of the long story scenes, ATLUS has also included online modes, the remixed story path, and non-story oriented puzzles which are also available to keep players invested.
Good
  • Fantastic branching storyline
  • Simplistic yet challenging puzzles
  • Online play and multiple endings, high replay value
Bad
  • Might be too story heavy for die-hard puzzle gamers
  • Autoplay AI kind of trivializes accomplishments
  • Puzzles can feel repetitive during multiple play throughs
7.8
Good

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