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Catherine |OT| Sheep, Matrimony, Terror - Love Is Gone

cj_iwakura

Member
ProudClod said:
This is definitely the exception, not the norm. You have to keep in mind that the next Atlus game releasing stateside is a heavy-handed 100 hour behemoth by the name of Innocent Sin. Atlus' bread and butter is the jRPG. Now, that doesn't mean you have to force these games down your throat, simply because Atlus developed them. This is one of those times we can very safely say: "These games were not for you." These games have a very strong following, and rightfully so, in my humble opinion. I enjoyed Nocturne, DS2, P3 and P4 for much of the same reasons I'm enoying Catherine. Challenging and incredibly satisfying gameplay, unique and engrossing stories and amazing soundtracks. I'm sure Atlus will release more funky games like Catherine in the future, but I sincerely doubt that they'll ever step away from the jRPG, especially how well Shin Megami Tensei/Megami Ibunroku sell.

Say what? Innocent Sin is 30-40 hours long, tops.


Also, according to a statement from Atlus to IGN, this was their most successful launch title ever.

Thanks to all who supported it! Originality lives.
 

Yuterald

Member
I got all Golds a few days ago on Normal. I've got Stage 1 & 2 completed with Golds right now on Hard Mode. Hard Mode is definitely interesting. Being unable to use the undo function requires a lot of memorization and stage experimentation. It hasn't been TOO difficult yet, but that's only because I spent so much time mastering Normal, getting all the Golds.

I highly suggest avoiding Hard at all costs until getting all Normal Golds. It pretty much requires you to internalize all the block techniques. The second stage I believe requires you to basically master and make sure of the drop around/hanging technique. This was something I didn't really do until Stage 6 on Normal! This is definitely NOT a mode for first timers.

I may do some youtube videos of Hard Golds for my channel, but I haven't decided if I feel like it yet or if I am going to invest more into Hard over the next week or so. We'll see how it goes.
 

Tain

Member
I would love for Atlus to step away from RPGs a bit and make some more action games. This game really did have everything I liked about Persona 3 without any of the stuff that made it too boring to continue playing.
 

mattp

Member
i keep seeing everyone saying they beat the game in like 15-20 hours
im on night 7 and im like...8 hours in

is there really THAT much more game left?
 
mattp said:
i keep seeing everyone saying they beat the game in like 15-20 hours
im on night 7 and im like...8 hours in

is there really THAT much more game left?
What the heck? Are you ignoring all the sheep and skipping the cut-scenes, or what? That or you must be some sort of puzzle master.
 

Adam J.

Member
I promised myself that I'd be responsible and not spend any more $ on games until the fall, but F' it--think I'm going to go down to the store tomorrow and pick this up. I mostly just want to experience the story, so I'll probably set it to Very Easy. Is it beatable for a more casual (as in, beat Super Meat Boy light-levels only 'casual') player on the lowest setting?
 

Seraphis Cain

bad gameplay lol
dragonlife said:
What the heck? Are you ignoring all the sheep and skipping the cut-scenes, or what? That or you must be some sort of puzzle master.

I don't know man, I'm around 6-7 hours in and on night 6. And I've talked to all the sheep and watched every cutscene.

EDIT: Playing on Normal, as well. I'm wondering the same thing about just how much game is left.
 

mattp

Member
dragonlife said:
What the heck? Are you ignoring all the sheep and skipping the cut-scenes, or what? That or you must be some sort of puzzle master.
no! i talk to everyone til the little dialog thing turns grey
i keep thinking im missing things but i dont know what else to do lol
the game is hard as FUCK, so i don't feel like i'm that great at the puzzles. maybe i am? haha

edit: talk to every sheep, play repunzel every night, talk to everyone in the bar etc

im not complaining about the length at all haha im just curious because everyone seems to have longer playtimes
 

Psi

Member
I think it took me about 16 hours to do everything on my first normal run(only did around 10 levels of Rapunzel though). It all really depends on how long it takes you to get through the puzzles.
 

ProudClod

Non-existent Member
cj_iwakura said:
Say what? Innocent Sin is 30-40 hours long, tops.


Also, according to a statement from Atlus to IGN, this was their most successful launch title ever.

Thanks to all who supported it! Originality lives.

Obviously it was a little bit of an exaggeration. I just meant to say that Atlus will not easily steer clear of "behemoth" rpgs, like those in the mainline SMT or its offshoot Megami Ibunroku. Also, keep in mind that this is Atlus USA you're talking about, who is simply a stateside publisher. They make incredibly modest sales, and their budgets are very tight. 100k units for them is a great success. "Best Launch" for Atlus USA is probably nowhere near as important to Atlus Japan (the developer) as sales in Japan. SMT/MI games sell waaay too many copies in Japan for any Atlus USA release to really rival their sales (and furthermore, to change Atlus Japan's philosophies and focuses). That is, unless Catherine sells like 600k+ in North America, which I don't see happening.
 

JEKKI

Member
finally got to play this again after being away for the whole weekend.

Im on 5-2 now, which is real hard!!!

I saw Aram at Evo and told him Catherine was awesome!!!
 
Tain said:
I would love for Atlus to step away from RPGs a bit and make some more action games. This game really did have everything I liked about Persona 3 without any of the stuff that made it too boring to continue playing.
I love their RPGs, but yeah, I kind of agree. They need to explore other genres.

Somewhat unrelated, but I always thought it would be cool if they made the next Devil Summoner sort of like Devil May Cry as far as the battle component goes.
 

ixix

Exists in a perpetual state of Quantum Crotch Uncertainty.
Just finished the game. I was pretty diffident towards it at first. I hated Vincent, thought the puzzles were boring, was bored to tears in the bar. Sometime around the fourth night all of a sudden the whole thing clicked and I started building block towers like a boss, playing the social butterfly at the Stray Sheep, and hitting up Rapunzel just for shiggles. Still hated Vincent.

Anyway, played the whole thing on Normal, took about 23 hours, never used a checkpoint, started the stage over whenever I died, got a gold award on all stages. Got the ending where
Vincent explains to Katherine -- in what must have been one of the most uncomfortable bar conversations ever -- that he didn't actually cheat so much as he got, uh, raped by a ghost or something. Then they get married in a montage at the Stray Sheep with the last boss catering, Jonny talks about finding his soulmate on candid camera, Toby informs the audience that Erica didn't always have that last vowel, and Orlando gets back with his wife and says something inscrutable about fishing for incongruous mythical Japanese sea creatures. I think the game might have been implying that he was experiencing a form of late-onset schizophrenia, which is a bit of a downer.
Not sure what ending that is, but pretty nice except for
Vincent seeming awfully happy, because I hate him.

Wild game. I was quite leery of it after finding out it was a puzzle game, ended up exceedingly fond of it.

Really can't stand Vincent, though.
 

CatPee

Member
Hah, been a while since I've felt this accomplished for finishing a game( last time was Demon's Souls). Beaten it on Normal for my first run with all questions answered truly honestly. Got the
Katherine normal
ending because I truthfully answered that I still
long for some excitement of chaos in life
during the end.
 
I'm at 6-2, at about 9 hours in on normal, but I've spent about two hours idling at various landings.

I'm not a puzzle master, but I'm tenacious. I love this game. For shits and giggles, I watched a video of a stage on hard. I don't think I'll be able to pull that off. :(
 

zlatko

Banned
The pillow system is fucking idiotic. Yeah I love being on 1 pillow left, new level, oh you fucked up? Great now you get to wait 17 minutes before you are actually back into the level thanks to loading screens and some unskippable cut scenes. (I know some are skippable some are not)

This is shit game design. Just give me infinite pillows. It doesn't add to the difficulty in anyway... it just frustrates the player and wastes their time to go back to the title screen every time they run out of them.
 
zlatko said:
The pillow system is fucking idiotic. Yeah I love being on 1 pillow left, new level, oh you fucked up? Great now you get to wait 17 minutes before you are actually back into the level thanks to loading screens and some unskippable cut scenes. (I know some are skippable some are not)

This is shit game design. Just give me infinite pillows. It doesn't add to the difficulty in anyway... it just frustrates the player and wastes their time to go back to the title screen every time they run out of them.

Huh? 17 minutes? Save at the book right before the elevator, takes 2-3 minutes tops to get back into a level. I hope you're not only saving on the cell phone in the bar, and didn't know you can save at the book...

by the time you get to night 2 or 3 you have an overload supply of pillows because you get a bunch of new ones each time you beat a day.
 

zlatko

Banned
cpp_is_king said:
Huh? 17 minutes? Save at the book right before the elevator, takes 2-3 minutes tops to get back into a level. I hope you're not only saving on the cell phone in the bar, and didn't know you can save at the book...

by the time you get to night 2 or 3 you have an overload supply of pillows because you get a bunch of new ones each time you beat a day.

I was over exaggerating the time, but it's just a time dump and a bad mechanic.

I'm playing on hard by the way. Pillows are rare. I'm at 3-3. I have been getting silver on my most levels I complete, but I just find it stupid that I can't just reload the damn level I fail on infinite times... it doesn't hinder you in anyway to run out of pillows and reload a save, so all the game is forcing you to do is waste your own damn time reloading saves instead of just letting you try again right away.
 
HOLY HELL at all the twists near the end. Oh, and I totally called it with
Catherine being a representation of people's desires (kind of). I feel totally dumb for not figuring out she was a succubus. I did question her existence a bunch of times too and it seems like the correct answer was a mix of both theories.

Anyway, just beat
9-1
, so I'll finish it tomorrow.
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
1½ hours in. One of the best games so far this gen. I keep asking myself questions why I even bother with most mainstream games when I can just play these?
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
Teknoman said:
She might have a point if he's got jack in the ATM and just bought a new model cell and a new PC :p I'd still be a little ticked though...

Either way, cant wait to find out whats up with the ants or if its just some running joke. With Atlus you never know.
Doesn't the wife in a Japanese relationship typically handle all the money?
 

zlatko

Banned
5-3 on hard right now so far is the stupidest level yet. This is definitely a giant turd of random going into this level. As far as I can tell every time I try to climb this part after the checkpoint different times different blocks get moved away by what is chasing you... making the level a crap shoot.

Fuck off. :/
 

Althane

Member
So I just started this game on Normal last night, played for about an hour. I have to say, by 2-3 (I think that's the right one, it's the second nightmare stage, right before you escape the nightmare), I was tensing up hardcore just running up the tower.

Freakish, but a lot of fun.

So, I saw a post on here about not looking up how to get endings, the first time, and just following your views . I didn't know there was a "See what others thought of the questions" section in between stages, that's awesome. Although it did get me mocked. (I picked Older)
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
My VG+ order finally arrived! Can't wait to dig in :D
 

Seraphis Cain

bad gameplay lol
Alright, I finally had to cave in. Had to use a YouTube guide for 6-2, 6-3, and 6-4, then I switched the difficulty to Easy once I got back to the bar.

*sigh* Ah well.
 
Hylian7 said:
Fellow GAFfer SirIlpalazzo just sent me this: http://vg-resource.com/?p=974

I would double dip for a PC version if it happened.

It might have been used for prototype testing on PC, or to show clients on a laptop without needing to lug an entire multimedia system around. No need to get all excited.

But yeah, I'd double-dip too. Especially if it supported dual audio.
 

see5harp

Member
zlatko said:
The pillow system is fucking idiotic. Yeah I love being on 1 pillow left, new level, oh you fucked up? Great now you get to wait 17 minutes before you are actually back into the level thanks to loading screens and some unskippable cut scenes. (I know some are skippable some are not)

This is shit game design. Just give me infinite pillows. It doesn't add to the difficulty in anyway... it just frustrates the player and wastes their time to go back to the title screen every time they run out of them.

Agree on the entire save system, which is extremely idiotic considering there's already a save system in place. Not sure I like any of the mechanics in the actual game either. Still sticking with my opinion that it's a novel premise with less than good execution all around.
 

GuardianE

Santa May Claus
Seraphis Cain said:
Alright, I finally had to cave in. Had to use a YouTube guide for 6-2, 6-3, and 6-4, then I switched the difficulty to Easy once I got back to the bar.

*sigh* Ah well.

Shit. I'm on 6-2 Normal right now. I hope I can make it!
 
mattp said:
i keep seeing everyone saying they beat the game in like 15-20 hours
im on night 7 and im like...8 hours in

is there really THAT much more game left?
It took me 10 hours to beat on easy. I didn't skip any cutscenes and talked to all the NPC's
 
Seraphis Cain said:
Alright, I finally had to cave in. Had to use a YouTube guide for 6-2, 6-3, and 6-4, then I switched the difficulty to Easy once I got back to the bar.

*sigh* Ah well.
You're not alone. I had to use a youtube guide for the 7th stage.
 

Daft_Cat

Member
So I'm on night 4 (I think) and I've just discovered that I haven't been taking advantage of all the various systems to their fullest. I haven't been drinking to my limit..haven't been playing Rapunzel..left early from the stray sheep right before night 4...found out I missed a Catherine encounter..missed washing face in the mirror a couple nights..

I guess I've been doing this because I figured not drinking a whole bunch and leaving early would impress Katherine..since I'm going for that ending first..but I've recently been made aware that all that stuff is not really tied in with the morality system..meaning I'm missing out on a whole lot of content plus trophy opps.

My question for those that have completed it..I'm playing on easy and haven't had a hard time with the puzzles thus far..should I quit while I'm ahead and just restart now that I have a broader understanding of the way all these systems work and interact? I want to get the most out of this game on playthrough one before going back for other endings, etc.

I figure that getting back to this point would only take me 90 minutes to 2 hours (I could skip through a lot of dialogue..have played the puzzles already etc).

What do you guys figure?
 

Mupod

Member
It's kind of silly that you get two lives per pillow on Normal. I wish they hadn't done that, because I feel like I'm getting rewarded for sucking ass. I think it was a level in stage 5 where I died about 30 times in a row, but grabbed a pillow each time so now I'm sitting on 60 extra lives.

Then again if I'd started on Hard I'd probably be gnawing on my controller by now.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
I really like how this game makes you feel genuinely conflicted over who to choose. Neither girl is cut and dry, and they both have traits that make you think twice. For example, both of these traits would be dealbreaker territory to me:

Katherine:
Saying she'll take care of the bank accounts
Catherine:
Threatening to kill you

Yet they both have their good points, and you have to choose one. As the game goes on, Vincent goes from someone who is just a typical indecisive loser to someone that you genuinely feel for, because his dilemma is so believable.
 

CatPee

Member
Secret_Riddle said:

Eh, I still think that it's best to keep the first playthrough of the game honest and pure without redos so you can get the ending that best reflects your personality. You can always experience the stuff you missed on subsequent playthroughs on an easier difficulty and it'd be far quicker since you know far more techniques and can skip some unimportant scenes.
 

Mupod

Member
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
So... What kind of game is this? Even from the OP I'm still not sure what you do in the game. Is it just some weird dating sim?

The demo would give a better explanation than any of us could.

Although it does make me laugh picturing someone expecting a 'dating sim' and playing this.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
So... What kind of game is this? Even from the OP I'm still not sure what you do in the game. Is it just some weird dating sim?
It's hard to describe. It's a weird combination of puzzle, rpg and...interactive movie? At least half of the game is spent during puzzle segments, but there are a lot of sections where you can walk around and talk to NPCs.

During these NPC conversation sections, you can influence the way other characters think, and your dialogue choices also influence your own character's views on the same subjects. These dialogue choices ultimately change the actions of these characters, as well as the way the story (and relationship) goes between your character and the girls in his life.

I hope that makes sense.
 
Mupod said:
The demo would give a better explanation than any of us could.

Although it does make me laugh picturing someone expecting a 'dating sim' and playing this.

The screenshot made me hopefully it was like persona with that kind of "dating/interacting" but it doesn't seem like that. I didn't realize there was a demo for some reason so I guess I'll try that tonight. I've just seen this mentioned a lot and trying to figure out what all the hype is about.

Akuun said:
It's hard to describe. It's a weird combination of puzzle, rpg and...interactive movie? At least half of the game is spent during puzzle segments, but there are a lot of sections where you can walk around and talk to NPCs.

During these NPC conversation sections, you can influence the way other characters think, and your dialogue choices also influence your own character's views on the same subjects. These dialogue choices ultimately change the actions of these characters, as well as the way the story (and relationship) goes between your character and the girls in his life.

I hope that makes sense.

Sort of... What kind of RPG elements are in it?
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Sort of... What kind of RPG elements are in it?
Hmm, me saying there are RPG elements might be pushing it too far. I only say RPG because of how much story and character interaction matters in this game. Interactive movie/novel might be more accurate.

The people you talk to and the dialogue choices you make directly steer how the story turns out. The things you say to other characters influence how they think, which affects their relationship to you and determines how they go through the story. What you say also determines how YOU think, which determines which girl you go for and how the story goes.

That's it. There is no leveling/exp system or anything, so that's not what I mean when I say RPG.
 
Akuun said:
Hmm, me saying there are RPG elements might be pushing it too far. I only say RPG because of how much story and character interaction matters in this game. Interactive movie/novel might be more accurate.

The people you talk to and the dialogue choices you make directly steer how the story turns out. The things you say to other characters influence how they think, which affects their relationship to you and determines how they go through the story. What you say also determines how YOU think, which determines which girl you go for and how the story goes.

That's it. There is no leveling/exp system or anything, so that's not what I mean when I say RPG.

Ok, that's what I though you were trying to say but couldn't think of how to word it myself to see if that's what you were saying. :p Is there a lead platform for this game or should I buy one system over another?
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Ok, that's what I though you were trying to say but couldn't think of how to word it myself to see if that's what you were saying. :p Is there a lead platform for this game or should I buy one system over another?
I only have the PS3 version, so I can't say anything about that.
 

Zerokku

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Ok, that's what I though you were trying to say but couldn't think of how to word it myself to see if that's what you were saying. :p Is there a lead platform for this game or should I buy one system over another?

PS3 is the lead platform, but theyre not huge differences in quality.

You should totally buy the 360 version to show support for multiplatform releases from Atlus
 
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Is there a lead platform for this game or should I buy one system over another?
360 anime cut-scenes are compressed while PS3's are not. I have the 360 version and didn't really notice it enough for it to bother me. It was fine.
 
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