[Catherine, First Impressions]

[I got my hands on the Japanese demo of Catherine today, Atlus's newest masterpiece, thanks to a great friend. If you do not know what Catherine is, go look it up! You've been under a rock and need to learn about the epicness. For those who do know of Catherine, read on!]

[The demo was very impressive. It starts you off in a 'get familiar with it all' nightmare level, where you of course climb and manipulate boxes to make your way to the top. This is where you are informed on how to do things. You can push blocks, pull them, even pull them to the edge and then sidle with your fingertips to a safe location where you can get back up. I found myself engaged very much right off, which I did not expect. You can watch a video of climbing something and think 'that does not look very fun' and I too was guilty of similar thoughts. However, I found it immediately enjoyable. Then, the tutorial map was over, and I was plunged into the great story of Catherine, most of which I could not understand [It's in Japanese afterall]. After much dialogue, you are sent a text message by your girlfriend Katherine. You have a choice to reply the the messages or ignore them. When playing around with this, I noticed a good/evil meter came up after each reply, implying that you will indeed have many choices in the game that can sway your alignment. Good stuff Atlus!]

[After more dialogue, the illustrious Catherine shows up, and you soon find yourself in a nightmare with large, zombie-like hands that hold a gigantic fork...you will be stabbed bitches! Run! Climb! Anyway, I noticed the giant zombie hands have the same type of fingernails as Katherine...hmmm, a nightmare of Katherine perhaps? It does say some eerie sounding things to you in the beginning, I surmise it is to the effect of "I will never forgive you...I will kill you..." or the like. Now! The REAL climbing begins. This is MUCH more fast paced than the tutorial map. There is cash to be grabbed here, adding to your score. When you make it to the top, a multiplier is added to your cash, which will be higher during higher difficulty modes if I am not mistaken. Anyway, you will find pillows as you climb up to the top. These are your continues, which you will consume one at a time should you manage to die [very likely if you try to go for all the yen piles like I did]

[This game quickly lets you know it is not messing around. There is a puzzle at the very top that, while not super hard to figure out, is quite difficult considering you are not loaded with time to fuck with it. Ever been bogged down with a mess of multi-colored pills on Dr Mario? That's sorta what this is like. When you come across a puzzle, you have 30 seconds to try and figure it out TOPS, and I might be giving you a little too much time. So, this puzzle at the top is a bit stressful, and you must figure it out in order to finish the climb. This game will most definitely have plenty of very challenging stuff to deal with, for all you hard-core difficulty veterans out there. The challenge of getting all the cash in a given level is challenging enough - they purposely make getting to some of them into puzzles themselves, some of which I have still yet to figure out!]

[If that weren't enough, each time you finish a level, you have what I believe to be three different trophies you can receive depending on how well you preform - bronze, silver and gold. I have yet to achieve a gold trophy. You have a bonus counter or something similar for the game. As you climb the blocks, the counter goes up, but also displays a draining gauge. If you manage to climb up another set amount of blocks, the time gauge will fill back up and your counter will raise. Add all of these elements together - the stair counter, the yen piles, the puzzles on the way up, and you're looking at a challenging gold trophy, and this is all on easy!!! Who knows what horrors await those who dare to venture into the harder modes [which are not accessible on the demo, sadly]. I know, sadpanda. I feel ya]

[After you finish the first real nightmare level, a little more footage of the game is shown, promptly followed by a message from one of the game's creators - "Can't wait to see you!" I couldn't have put it better myself, Mister Game Creator. I can't wait either]

[Now, of all the greatness of this game, there is but one complaint I have, and it revolves around the control scheme. In these Nightmare levels, you can only move left, right, up, down. This is not much of a problem, and it's comfortable, but it does not work very well on the analog stick. I kept falling up the edges, trying to get back up, only to jump up and off the other side. It's very liquid and hard to control. However! Using the D Pad really seemed to help in this area, and to be fair, the tutorial also tells you to use the D Pad for movement. Still, all this time on the game and no 3D movement? Sounds kinda cheap to me]

[Well, that's it for my review on the Catherine Demo! It releases in February 2011 for Japan, and assuming we do get it [cross your fingers and say your prayers] we should get it around July, best case scenario, though August is more realistic, as you want to give small companies like Atlus six months of localization work. T_T Anyway! Hope this review was helpful. If you want a video review, ask! Beard and I will put one together for you. Anyone that wants to play this demo can do so by setting up a Japanese account for their 360 or PS3 game network! However, you will need a Gold Membership to get it on the 360. Yeah, sad but true. Well, until next time guys. Game on] -AT9-

the demo was fun, but it simply didn't showcase enough of the game.

To be fair it would probably show off more (story wise atleast) if you understood Japanese.

@Beard

Well, the demo shows a bit of the story and main gameplay. The rest is decision-making, so there is not really all that much to show in the demo.

[Nevertheless, I think this game will rock]