A Critique of Catherine
WARNING: This blog contains some material that is probably considered NSFW. Nothing pornographic or violent I protest, but there are some adult topics that you probably wouldn’t want your nan, younger sibling or a complete stranger on the morning commute to work to catch a glimpse of. That, and I occasionally swear. Also, chances are there are some SPOILERS as well.
Right, that’s my good deed for the day done!
In 2017 I finally got myself a PS4 and did some catching up. One of those was a game called ‘Persona 5’, which was my entry into the Persona franchise and I simply loved it. I will leave a link to my ‘Persona 5’ blog below for you to read at your leisure.
‘Persona 5’ was also my first ATLUS game and I fell in love with the emphasis the game had on its strong characters, storytelling and monsters that were inspired many real deities, myths and folklore with a truly unique design that is something only a carefree group of Japanese individuals could come up with. I mean, there is a giant green penis in a golden chariot called Mara you can summon into battle (Google it if you don’t believe me…or if that is the sort of thing that makes you tick)!
As mentioned in previous blogs, once I finished ‘Persona 5’ for the first time, I wanted more Persona and more ATLUS. My internet searches made me come to the conclusions that Personas 3 & 4 were the only ones people talked about, so I played them (I wrote blogs about those as well, which you should also check out) and cried some more at their stories, characters etc.
One night, I was at home wasting my evening watching YouTube videos, probably Persona related, and one of the recommended videos was a review of this game called ‘Catherine’. When it came out in the west, (10th February 2012), I barely used the internet and thus, all the reviews and gaming insight I got was from peers at school and the sixth form. The little of it I heard made me think I should stay aware of this title. I initially believed this to be some porno game, and as I would play this game on my 45" HD TV, in my living room (I have never had a TV or main games console in my room), I deemed it wise not piss off my feminist mother.
Coming back to Daniel Mayfair of mid-2017, seeing the thumbnail for this review reminded me of this experience and I finally watched the review and was intrigued, which made me conduct some research. ‘Catherine’ was developed by ATLUS, the Japenese game company that is responsible for the ‘Shin Megami Tensei’ and ‘Persona’ franchises, so that would explain this games inherent weirdness. It is described by ATLUS as an ‘unconventional romantic horror’ and was created as a test for the engine they were planning to use for their upcoming game, ‘Persona 5’. I now had no real excuse not to give this game a go and see what it was really like.
And yes, I can confirm that it is NOT the glorified porn game that I was led to believe those many years ago!
The Game Proper
You play as Vincent Brookes, a man in his thirties who begins the game having lunch with his girlfriend Katherine McBride, who begins to pressure him by wanting marriage. Vincent is not so keen, but cannot summon the courage to tell her. He deals this by drinking the night away at his local bar, ‘The Stray Sheep’, until a young attractive blonde by the name of Catherine sits next to him in this mostly vacant bar. Utterly trousered, Vincent invites her round to his apartment and wakes up to her next to him, naked. He cannot remember inviting her, which starts the game properly as you are thrust into a love triangle as you spend the next 8 (in-game) days sorting out the mess you have gotten into…or at least that is what you are supposed to think.
Vincent begins to have nightmares when Katherine has this conversation concerning marriage and commitment. In these nightmares, he is forced to climb the seemingly never-ending tower by pushing blocks around and creating a path for himself as told by a sheep wearing a black and grey striped tie. Anyone who falls, dies and if you die in the dream…you die in real life. Those who get to the top of the tower are free from the nightmares, but no one has done that yet, as men all across this town/city are dying in their sleep. When Vincent wakes up, he cannot remember any of the nightmares he is having, over than he is being chased by something. Fun times!
The ‘real game’ takes place during Vincent’s sleep and it is a puzzle-platformer, a difficult one at times too. As previously mentioned, you are to climb a large tower using different block types to form a path for you to climb. To name a couple of block types, there are ice blocks that you slip and slide on, which can cause you to fall to your death. Another block type is Bomb blocks, which make other blocks fragile when they explode, limiting their usefulness, as well as blowing you up if you are caught in the blast radius.
You are not alone in these Nightmare Stages, as other men, who are represented as anthropomorphic sheep, are wanting to reach the top, and you must knock them out of the way with your deadly…pillow, or the single-use power-ups that you find on each stage. At the end of each level, you reach Landings, where you can discuss climbing techniques with your fellow sheep (they see you as one also) and support or mock certain sheep who feel like giving up. In later landing sections, there is a large sheep who will sell you power-ups for you to use. Personally, I never used this sheep for two reasons:
- I didn’t really need to use items that weren’t provided me during each stage.
- Each time you used him and any item, the score you would get on each level would be less. Being a highly competitive fellow, I did not want this temptation.
The decision of mocking and supporting in a game means there is indeed some form of morality system in the game, where your actions in the game provide slight alterations in Vincent’s internal dialogues as well as you achieving one of 8 endings.
When you are ready to proceed to the next level, you head into what appears to be a confessional booth where a mysterious voice asks you questions, each time is randomised. It is never clear which one is right or wrong, so the only thing to do is to answer honestly. That said, I can remember during my first playthrough one of the questions being; ‘Are you a masochist or a sadist?’ (I did tell you there were adult themes in this!). I am neither of these, so I chose the one I was most not, which some would have interpreted as the ‘wrong answer’.
Each stage ends with a boss that takes on the form of something that Vincent is worrying about, in relation to his relationship issues. For example, one day has Vincent panicking that Katherine may be pregnant so the boss that night is a gigantic demented cyborg baby with a chainsaw screaming at you as you both climb up this tower. It is pure nightmare fuel…literally!
When you are not climbing, dying, discovering yourself through strangely inappropriate 20 Questions or talking to your fellow sheep, you will spend the rest of your time in the game in The Stray Sheep, the local pub where you can speak to your friends, the bar owner, other punters or two weird elderly ladies. You will also receive text messages from both Catherines, with each answer you give affecting the game’s karma meter. Like with the confessional booth questions, it is not always clear which one is right or wrong, so be honest and put yourself in Vincent’s shoes. What would you do in such circumstance? Well, besides being honest to Katherine about having a one-night stand, otherwise there would be no game. You may wish to drink your problems away, getting pissed on cocktails, beers or sake which makes you move faster in the Nightmare stages. Or, you can just leave the bar and not bother with any of that if you so wish.
The Stray Sheep sections are where I think the game is most interesting, as well as it’s anime-styled cutscenes. Much like the 3rd to 5th instalments of the ‘Persona’ franchise, ‘Catherine’ is a game fuelled by its characters. You will begin to notice that some of the sheep you encounter are some of these punters, who have their own problems, all of which are woman related, of course, hence them being in the collective nightmare.
There is an arcade game in the pub titled ‘Rapunzel’ which is very much like the Nightmare sections, but you are only given a set number of turns to reach Rapunzel on each level. There are 60+ of these levels, so have fun!
Like the Persona games that I have played, the music was bought to you by the same sound team, with Shoji Meguro contributing to most of its soundtrack. As such, there is a lot of wonderful jazz moments and some new horror styled cues throughout the game as the game is supposed to be a horror game (it really isn’t). Each Nightmare stage has a piece of Classical music that has been given the ATLUS Sound Team touch, with some pieces getting electric guitar and drums, whilst some of the cues have a total reimagining, such as the Funeral March by Beethoven, as a melancholic jazz track.
I believe that ‘Catherine’ is far deeper than it is on the surface, which is what will make up the rest of this blog.
The Critique Proper
Morals
We all are currently part of a movement where everyone is encouraged to talk about depression, anxiety and other insecurities with each other, online and in person. I didn’t know what depression or anxiety through most of my life, as no one ever spoke about either and yet, through my late teens, depression was something that ate away at my core. Being told to ‘man up’ or feel that I should remain in silence is something that does not bode well with one’s self-esteem. This is not just me of course, as it is something that has been hammered into males for centuries and ‘Catherine’ brilliantly embodied this movement way before such movement existed.
Note: that is not to say this is not the case with women.
Vincent’s friends, Orlando, Johnny, Toby and Erica, are a wonderfully human as they each part their own imperfect advice and witty banter as the story progresses, providing you with a variety of moral compasses. This type of judgement is a constant theme throughout the game and it is rather nice that despite its themes and the constant presence of a morality meter that the game never really judges you on your actions. You judge yourself and everyone else who answered a particular question, as you are presented with a pie chart to see how the player base answered.
With this feature, the developers never have to judge you, something I have always disliked with normal morality systems in games, such as ‘InFamous’, ‘Bioshock’ and ‘Dishonored’. To voice my opinion on the matter bluntly: you are a cunt or a saint. There is no middle ground with most games of this nature and trying to find this middle ground doesn’t give you many rewards. With ‘Catherine’, there is a huge level of uncertainty, which is key to the success of ‘Catherine’. The game avoids the concepts of good and evil, but rather embrace chaos and order. All three members of this love triangle are presented as flawed, broken, manipulative, selfish, loyal, loving and most important of all, human, mudding the morals further. The same can be said with every other character in the game, from your pals in The Stray Sheep to the other sheep you meet in the nightmare sections. This game is filled with scumbags with some redeemable qualities.
This is why this game is truly mature, not because of it’s suggestive box art, boob teases or saucy images that Catherine may send Vincent via text. It does not focus so much on either Catherine and Vincent, but how we choose to live in our society, as a human of murky grey-morals.
Herbivore Men
For a year, I thought these were the only things Catherine were remarking on. A year is a long time to be thinking about a game’s commentary on society beyond the metaphor behind Vincent’s ascension in the nightmare sections being physical and spiritual one. With all of this in mind, there was one thing that had yet to be answered: sheep. Why were sheep being used constantly throughout the game? I was confident there was a deeper meaning behind this and, for the first time since finishing my dissertation five months ago (at the time of typing) I was going to do some ‘serious’ research. Perhaps there was something that was happening in only in Japan that would reveal the meaning behind the sheep and I believe I may have found a possible answer.
It is revealed late into ‘Catherine’ that the men haunted by macabre and deadly dreams are more than one-dimensional cheaters. They are victims who are unwilling to procreate, which is a reflection of real world Japan. Whilst the rest of the world is overpopulated and crowded, Japan’s is slowly decreasing. There are many reasons for this, including career-driven women not interested in sex or starting a family, but ‘Catherine’ concentrates on one of these. The so-called Herbivore Man has been well documented. They are single men with the desire or remaining that way, too frightened by the potential rejection of trying to engage romance with actual women and much prefer the gratification they get out of porn. To want a traditional relationship with a subservient partner whilst also refusing to chase romance is absurd, as it requires an almost paradoxical ideal.
I think it is safe to say that Vincent Brookes is most certainly one of these men.
When things begin to change, he is presented with a young blonde who is not afraid to get her tits out and ravish him in bed, but yet is rather shy when needed to be. She gets lingerie confused with outdoor wear, and sends Vincent many sexy images. She tells him what he wants to hear and yet she asks nothing more than to wrap around his arm. This is blonde is, of course, Catherine who not only provides a fantasy for Vincent but a huge portion of the men out there. It now comes to no surprise that Catherine is in a big red bow. She is essentially gift wrapped for her fans, for Vincent and for this generation of Herbivore Men.
I suppose any herbivore would have been acceptable here, but I feel the usage of sheep is simple. In the west, calling someone a sheep is not a compliment. They are part of a crowd, just because. They don’t have any real thoughts or opinions about something. They follow the herd because it is easy and safe. Perhaps ATLUS knew this, or they use the same expression, I don’t know. This little paragraph is pure speculation.
Katherine is the polar opposite. She is the breed of woman that scares these sort of men into their bedrooms, with her stereotype being just as effective as Catherine’s. Demanding, and wanting some commitment from Vincent, so she does not become unviable for marriage. The social cut-off point for women who are acceptable to marry I believe is 25 and are referred to in Japan as Christmas Cake Girls, but kindly correct me if I have got that right because that was something I read years ago and it just stuck.
Other Note: I am also aware that Katherine may be too old to one of these girls in her scenario with Vincent. If Vincent were to dump her, this may apply to her, presuming my facts and speculations are indeed correct.
Coda
In case you haven’t worked out by now, I simply adore this game. It is actually one of my favourites, despite its questionable flaws and one of the most frustrating protagonists in video games. As a game, its puzzles are tough, yet repetitive. The challenges are exciting at times and rather stellar at other points, but ‘Catherine’ is far more than a puzzle game filled with scumbags and stereotypes from both genders. Hopefully, I have convinced you to give this game a go or to pass onto someone you know who may benefit from the ride.
It was announced that ‘Catherine’ was going to get a reboot titled ‘Catherine: Full Body’, in a similar fashion that ATLUS rebooted ‘Persona 4', adding in a new Catherine, spelt with a Q who is speculated to be transgender. I will be honest and say that I am far more intrigued by this than excited, as I was quite happy with the narrative of the original and I am curious which characters are going to have their backstories revealed and what is the deal with Catherine number 3. Regardless of the outcome, I do intend of writing a blog about that when I get my hands on it and digest all that is needed for me to write a cohesive blog.
If I were to rate this game out of 10, I would rate it EDGE/10, as that is just as useful as a proper out of 10 score.
I leave you with my favourite cue from the game ‘It’s a Golden Show’, which is the menu theme that encompasses all of the themes of the game (in my humble opinion). It’s sexy and yet coy. It’s upbeat and yet refined.
I would like to leave some links that I found concerning Japan’s Herbivore Men for you to read, should you be weeaboo trash like me and find anything Japan-related interesting.
What do you think of this game? Do you agree of my points or am I just making a mountain out of a molehill? What insight do you have to give on Japan’s Herbivore Men?
Let’s start a conversation, people!
