Catherine: Full Body Reviews
It's unfortunate, since the voice acting, visuals, and overall cinematic direction of both cutscenes and gameplay are all excellent. This game is the product of a passionate and talented team. It's just a shame that their efforts were all in service to writing that is cynical, regressive, outdated, and just plain exhausting.
Catherine: Full Body didn't really change my opinion on Catherine all that much. I'm still as conflicted as I was in 2011 with a love for the art style and weirdness of the game. The uninspired puzzles that make up the rest of it wear out their welcome too quickly though.
Catherine: Full Body has more interesting things to say about relationships that are dragged down by a story too cynical to let it shine.
Catherine: Full Body is about the prices people are willing to pay, in more ways than one.
Is Full Body worthy of a revisit for fans who played the first game? Most definitely not. Your longing for debauchery will not be sated by the game's new romance option who is wedged into the plot for no good reason. However, those who have always wanted to try the game but missed out last time should definitely give this one a look.
While some of the writing feels outdated and downright problematic, 'Catherine: Full Body' feels right at home on the system as one of the best ports to hit Nintendo Switch in a long time.
Catherine: Full Body is a fun and unique puzzle game with a story that is fine if you don't interrogate it too closely.
With Catherine: Full Body, it feels like Atlus was trying to find an acceptable midpoint between remake and remaster.
Catherine remains a talented caricature of a hysterical, impossible man's moral frailty and romantic insecurity. Characters and complications introduced by Full Body, however, lack the connective tissue and social maturity to support its expanded ambition. A (now optional!) tower-climbing puzzle game fused with a supernatural infidelity meditation, even in its spiraling convolution, still survives as a provocative oddity.
Catherine: Full Body is a marked improvement over the original Catherine, offering more ways to play for those who want to experience an engaging yet slightly problematic story.
All I see is a story that embraces its own toxicity, with views on relationships so useless and counterproductive it’s almost suspicious how desperately it wants Vincent to be a hero.
If you can look past that, though, there are new story elements here that help to enhance and develop its existing characters to make them feel more relatable. If not, well, at least the puzzles are awesome.
Catherine: Full Body is the best way to experience an incredibly unique game. It oozes style eight years after its original release, and although its storytelling does stumble from time to time, this glimpse into the desperate life of Vincent Brooks is still more than worthy of your attention.
The new additions to Catherine: Full Body are mostly a win, with sharper graphics, more complex puzzles (and better hand-holding for players intimidated by them), and more background on Katherine in particular. Where it lacks though is in the new romance route, which is awkwardly shoehorned in and feels too separated from the rest of the story. Still, for Catherine fans, Full Body has enough nightmare-inducing goodness to make it worth another round 'til last call.
Still one of the few video games to deal with love and relationships in anything like a realistic manner, but the attempts to shoehorn in an extra new character fall flat.
If you enjoy tricky practical puzzles and wacky Japanese stories then you'll love Catherine: Full Body.
You'll love it and hate it almost in the same thought. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing though — it’s an extremely unique experience that you owe it to yourself to at least try if you haven’t already.
Catherine: Full Body is truly a remaster done right. With multiple puzzles, a brand new storyline, and new options that include an auto-play feature for story-lovers, if there are gamers out there that were on the fence about picking up Catherine, this version is a definite must. While more veteran Catherine players and action oriented puzzle fans may get tired of the long story scenes, ATLUS has also included online modes, the remixed story path, and non-story oriented puzzles which are also available to keep players invested.
Catherine: Full Body is the definitive version of a cult classic game, in terms of gameplay. When it comes to the story and romance simulation side of the game, I can't help but feel it's a step down when compared to what we already had years ago. Still a great game that deserves to be experienced, but Catherine: Full Body should only be essential for those die-hard fans and the competitive scene, everyone else can wait for a sale.
With over 500 levels at your fingertips, Catherine: Full Body has a wealth of content that will keep veterans and newcomers entertained for hours on end. Although themes and representation are questionable, the gameplay and narrative are undoubtedly fun, making Catherine: Full Body more than a one night stand.