E3 2019: ‘Catherine: Full Body’ Remixes Our Nightmares
Eight years after release, Catherine is still one of the most unique, captivating and creative games you can find on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Part visual novel, part puzzle game and part cheating simulator, filling the boxers of Vincent was an unforgettable ride. But if playing as a man who unknowingly cheated on his long term girlfriend just as she begins pressuring him to get married wasn’t bad enough, what happens when you throw a third love interest into the mix? Catherine: Full Body will answer that question with new stages, modes, an expanded story to flesh out the cast and a remixed mode that alters the stages of the original campaign. Diving back into the nightmare world that is rumored to claim the lives of cheating men, we briefly took control of Vincent once more to escape his fate.
The core game play of both versions of the game involves climbing a tower made of blocks. A puzzle game at its core, Vincent must arrange the blocks while avoiding traps and competing victims to reach the top and ensure that he’ll wake up to see another day. This is easier said than done since the layers beneath you collapse as the clock ticks down. In some cases like in the demo, this is made even more difficult thanks to bosses, such as the giant demonic baby that’s trying to drag Vincent into the world of fatherhood. Using quick thinking, your wits and a few glasses of booze, reaching the top proves to be pretty challenging.
Remix Mode makes the climb even more difficult to complete thanks to some new blocks that make their debut in Full Body. Large segments resembling Tetris pieces occupy a large section of the tower, meaning that pushing or pulling them can disrupt potential routes. Other blocks with beams on the sides of them will push Vincent off if he hangs on them for too long, denying him the safety usually associated with ledges. Items that once provided new blocks to climb are now replaced with ones that transform surrounding blocks into a specific type, making them less of a crutch compared to their original purpose. Even more trick blocks will be present in the full version, so even veterans of the original game will find new ways to challenge themselves as they reacquaint themselves with this bizarre world.
Thankfully, some of the new features are here to help us survive the night. Unlike the other love interests, Rin can follow Vincent into the nightmares. By playing her piano as the collapsing tower is about to catch up to the player, her song temporarily freezes time. This pulls the player out of panic mode and gives them some time to re-think their strategy when they would have otherwise plummeted. If they do end up dying and forgot how they progressed up to that point, (a problem I ran into many times in the original game), Full Body also provides the option to take Vincent from the most recent checkpoint to the point where he screwed up thanks to a fast-forward auto play mechanic. Purists can turn it off or stop it mid-run, but for those who had a winning strategy that they couldn’t remember, the game gives the choice of allowing you to retrace your steps.
Once the goal was reached, the demo closed out by giving us a new cutscene that showed how much Vincent had admired his girlfriend, Katherine, back when they were in high school. In addition to quizzing the player on their personal views on relationships, (which affects Vincent’s morality and helps determine which of the 13 endings he ends up with, five of which are unique to Full Body), the narrator laments on how love tends to fade over time. It’s moments like these that made Catherine such a memorable game, and Full Body is taking that narrative even further.
Launching with two editions exclusively on PS4 on September 3, it looks like this remixed edition will offer plenty of reasons to dive back into our nightmares. For those who missed out the first time around, it’s never too late to discover paradise. Katherine? Catherine? Rin? We’ll have to answer for our decisions as the release date approaches. And I for one couldn’t be more excited!
