If you had to put a name on it, I suppose you'd call Catherine a puzzle game. After all, a sizable portion of the game -- well more than half of it -- is spent pushing and pulling boxes in a series of challenges that can trace their ancestry straight back to Sokoban. A paternity test would probably show traces of Crazy Climber, Mr. Driller, and Intelligent Qube DNA in there, too, but ultimately this is a straight-up box-pushing game gussied up with stylish graphics and nightmarish hazards: Spike traps, slippery ice panels, explosives, terrified sheep, giant babies, vengeful zombie fianc�es -- you know, the usual.
As puzzle games go, Catherine is really good. The challenges in the main game aren't completely limited to a single solution; there's room for plenty of improvisation and lateral thinking. The important thing is to reach the top of each stage before the bottom falls out beneath you, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Catherine is infamously difficult, and Atlus even toned down the U.S. release to make it feel less punishing. Nevertheless, even the easy difficulty setting becomes hair-pullingly difficult about mid-way through. As for hard mode, it starts out merciless and will quickly fill your mind with thoughts of murder -- of murdering yourself, perhaps, or possibly the cruel developers. Yet even at its most vicious, the game is addictive, and it's fairly generous about handing out retry opportunities. From start to finish, it has that great "one more try" feel to it.
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