Your Cheating Heart

For much of the time I spent playing Catherine, I wanted to punch the main character Vincent. First I wanted to punch him for cheating on his girlfriend, Katherine. Then I wanted to punch him for not telling her about it, and for not telling the girl he was cheating with, Catherine, that he has a girlfriend already, sorry. Then I was irritated by his excessive drinking - this was before I began enabling/encouraging it, we'll come back to that - and then there was a long sequence near the end where he was annoyingly whiny.

There's a little meter that appears throughout the game, and the needle moves left or right depending on Vincent's responses. In turn, his reactions at certain spots in the game are determined by where the needle sits. I thought it was a matter of Good vs. Evil, and I was pushing Vincent towards the good side as hard as I could. But it didn't seem to matter. Vincent would not tell either girl the truth. He'd just feel guilty about not telling either one the truth. It was maddening. Then at the end, I found I was completely wrong about what the meter represents - which explained some of the times the needle didn't move as I expected - and things made more sense.

Vincent's waking hours are spent trying to think of some way out of this mess, mostly while drinking with friends at the bar. He can talk to anyone in the bar, and the patrons will change over time as people show up, or get tired and leave. Or, you can ignore everyone, listen to the music, play the arcade game, drink, leave if you want. You'll receive texts on his phone, from both girls. You can respond if you like, selecting from a limited variety of appropriate responses. Or ignore them, or just ignore one of them. I didn't respond to any of Catherine's, because I didn't want to risk that encouraging Vincent, not when i was trying my hardest to guilt trip his lazy butt into doing what I thought was right.

When Vincent sleeps, he finds himself in an immense tower, climbing row after row of blocks, trying to avoid falling to his doom. All around him are sheep, some with familiar voices. Some are climbing for all they're worth, others are ready to give up. Some are willing to share what they've learned about climbing, others are looking out for #1. In between climbs, he finds a sanctuary, complete with a confessional, where a sly voice asks him questions. Vincent's answers are not regarded as right or wrong, but they are reflected by that meter.

Catherine's part puzzle game, part dating sim. I stink at puzzle games, but the game includes an easy setting for those who are more interested in the story than the gameplay. Still gave me some problems, but like I said, I'm bad at puzzle games, especially working on the clock. The blocks gradually fall into the abyss, you've got to keep moving up, and the pressure doesn't help. Neither do the controls. They're mostly fine, but you can climb around on the edges of the blocks, including around to the back. Unfortunately, once you get back there, the controls start inverting, and it can become a real pain to move anywhere, especially if you end up one the side of a block as well. I had situations where climbing left meant alternating pushing the controller left and right, which is not intuitive. Combine that with boss battles where the camera will shift focus away from Vincent to get the boss on-screen when it attacks, and it can be disconcerting. I should appreciate the heads up, but typically the boss affects the blocks, and those targeted glow red, so it isn't as though I can't tell where I need to not be.

I do like the odd voice that gives commands at the start of each climb, especially for the boss battles. 'Vincent's Shadow emerges. It's a killer. Do not die.' I don't know why they included that, I hardly need a reminder to not die. But the delivery is funny to me. It's unsurprised by the whole thing, but has an undercurrent of urgency to it, as if this is critical information.

I did start to get the hang of it near the end, so it doesn't put me off from playing through it again. There are supposed to be multiple endings depending on the meter and how you answer some questions near the end. I think there are certain events that have to happen, but I'm guessing there are others that could change if I played Vincent differently. Which I'd like to try. Plus, I let some of the other sheep down, and I'd like to correct that if I could. I might enjoy trying a different strategy in answering the confessional's questions than, "Guilt Vincent relentlessly". I'm not sure how I'd approach it, though. Answer them how I think Vincent would, or how I would, or just pick whatever sounds strangest?

I said I'd come back to my enabling Vincent's drinking, so let's touch on that. For some reason, the more Vincent drinks in the bar at night, the faster he can move in his dreams. Yeah, I don't understand it, either, I might need to consult with some of my friends who do drink about that. Anyway, once I twigged to that little effect, I figured I could use all the help I could get. Besides, Vincent was already getting soused every night, I might as well get some benefit out of it.