Past the gaudy kitsch pop-aesthetics of Catherine lies a sincere warning sign: it is as if the concealed message under the very outline of this most provocative release was an open appeal to reconsideration. For someone who has found himself knee-deep in this universe of digital wonders for over two decades, Japan has surely become a woefully strange nation in what concerns the production of games: the colossal enterprise that has long defined this country and, to a great extent, acted as a foreign representative of their outstanding creative minds. It is now widely known that eastern game creation is undergoing a midlife crisis, as revealed by the acute reluctance and loss of identity, in comparison to the boldness once instituted to almost every work dating back from an age when the average nihon-game designer had purer and far more focused pursuits. This peculiar syndrome of mental dispersion was undoubtedly brought about by the recent increase of North-American partaking in video ludic affairs, its ostentation of an image of absolute power terrifying enough to germinate profound creative introspection even among the most respectable and established prodigies of Japanese videogame production.
Yet to what degree is this Western threat veritable enough to be taken into consideration? The game turf is still highly defined and characterized by Eastern giants whose sheer volume of sales, both of systems and software, should be plentiful enough to promptly burst this overly inflated and ever deceiving bubble. When, occasionally, Japanese game creators do opt to ignore the media spectacle and its pernicious falderal, admirers of their once refined craft may be surprised to discover intrepid new inventions such as this intermingling design from Atlus - certainly not a reference in innovation of late. As far as uncanny hybrids go, few could ever outstrip Catherine in its dissolute amalgam of genres, as unalike as arcade puzzle, sound novel and a soupçon of Japanese dating simulation. At this point of any evaluation, the otherwise widely employed designation of puzzle-adventure would not suffice in revealing the precise orientation, much less the intense transition between the unnerving abstract sequences taking place in Vincent’s disturbed dreams, and the common quotidian quality bestowed to the interactions of his waking life. Unambiguously, Catherine revels in the transitions between these definite types in its perversive characterization of a character struggling with the gaping abyss between the two women that dominate his life, intimately associated with opposing parts of his mind: conscious and subconscious.
Due to the brevity of the sample, it would be at this point very unwise to issue a precarious opinion regarding the final version. The premise of this outlandish game points to a cryptic existentialist narrative that is certain to please the most refined of players, teeming with references as ostentatious as the inclusion of erudite music - as is the case of the revised themes by Holst, Handel and Mussorgsky, audible in this preview. Nevertheless, the very employment of such barefaced anime aesthetic brings to mind the recurrent examples of the many animated features of this variety whose initial thematic richness fail to translate into a credible and stimulating exercise. Whereas if, indeed, the narrative of Catherine may achieve the desired grade of distinction, defying the average formulaic pattern of Japanese animation, we may very well stand before a deviation from that vastly contaminated watercourse of anxiety and cowardice, on which so many an iconic Japanese game creator has been sinking their exalted careers.
1 year ago