CATHERINE: FULL BODY
Is the past worth revisiting?
This is the same campy, romantic puzzler you knew and loved in 2011… for better and worse. This expanded rerelease follows indecisive Vincent as he finds himself caught between an abundance of K/C/Qatherines. 1 On top of an extra layer of polish, there’s a new (and very welcome) difficulty setting for those more into the story than the puzzles. A fun, though not deep, Remix mode introduces Tetris-like blocks for a twist on the block-pushing conundrums, and these remain a fiendishly compelling challenge however you play.
The original’s love triangle is now a square as Vincent is drawn to another other woman. Rin is an adorable amnesiac, pure of heart and someone you can’t help but root for. 2 She’s a seamless addition to the story, showing that Vincent is occasionally capable of making the right choice – though his interactions with the new, naïve ingenue too often hit closer to creepy rather than the cute scenes the game is aiming for.
Rin’s implementation isn’t quite a roaring success in redressing the original game’s flaws. That is to say, a lot of the new story is well-meaning but totally clueless. Besides that, Vincent and his friends still while away the night spouting the same reductive ideas about men, women, and relationships mostly unchallenged or otherwise re-examined.
New endings mean the leading ladies feel slightly more fleshed-out, but those aforementioned old chestnuts have deep roots in the game’s numerous and extremely varied – er – routes. That is to say, it’s more of the same. Obviously that’s not a bad thing but, like marriage, it won’t be for everyone.