Recent reviews by KrisEXP

Throwback to good old fashioned sprite graphics, turn based JRPG. It's not exactly challenging, but there's not much grind required. Some fun combat mechanics and equipment management that you can take time with and enjoy.

The music and story stand out though. Great game. This is the first of three Trails of Sky games.

Some issues at 1920 x 1080 top graphics, where it occasionally quits out for no reason, so regular saving is a must,

Took about 41 hours to beat the story at a steady pace, but I'm faaaaar from anything like a 100%.

9/10

Great artstyle, brilliant soundtrack. If you know Persona you know the feel.
Smooth innovative gameplay that I don't think has been emulated anywhere else, and is in depth enough to spawn a competitive scene. Multiple endings (8).

One quick playthrough runs around 15 hours but can easily extend into 30-40 ore more if you're a perfectionist. Speedruns around 1.5 - 2 hours for professionals.

For new players;

Catherine Classic is a port of the 2011 Deep Silver published game, Catherine, for PS3 and Xbox. The story follows Vincent, a 32 year old man who's torn between loyalty to his long term girlfriend (Katherine) and infidelity with a seductress (Catherine), and your choices influence his decisions and outcomes. Over the course of 8 days Vincent's world is turned upside down and he starts having nightmares that carry over into the real world. As he scrambles to keep his life from falling apart, being pulled from all direction, he must battle demons in his sleep and confrontation in his waking hours.

The tone of the game is very much horror that revolves around sexual topics (and it's not scared to throw titilation your way without being outright explicit). This game has two major mechanics, the first and foremost is the puzzles, the second is social sim.

The puzzles are climbing a wall by strategically removing and shifting blocks with a time limit. No matter the difficulty level there is a learning curve that skyrockets around the middle of the game. Some of it becomes second nature as you start recognising patterns and how to overcome them, sometimes you have to wing it because it's something completely new, sometimes it's natural and you're in the zone not even realising how in depth the maneuvres you are doing are. It's slick. I'd highly recommend a gamepad though as confusing your fingers is far too easy on keyboard.

The social sim side will be familiar to anyone who has played a Persona, SMT, or dating sim. You interact with NPCs and pick dialogue options that influence relationships (and in this game the overarching story and ending). Talking to most NPCs takes up "time" and causes the other NPCs to move along from conversation topics and maybe leave for that day altogether. Some other actions are "free" and should be exploited to their maximum to help the player. In the sim side there is also a puzzle cabinet that is helpful for the main puzzles as you can use it to figure out strategy without the pressure of time.

If this sounds up your alley, I'd definitely buy it (and did twice). It's fresh and intriguing. You'll quickly find "Tetris effect" where you picture the puzzle sections when you're not playing the game, mentally solving steps when your mind wanders.

There are rumblings of an extended edition called Catherine: Full Body coming to the west this year (Japan gets it this year, but there's no solid announcement for NA/EU/AUS). That will have the same gameplay and story, but adds a new main character (Rin) that should add a new "Romance" route, a new story branch, and some additional mechanics and levels in the puzzle sections. This could be a year away (as of Jan 2019) or may never come, so you may want to weigh up whether to wait or not, however this release could be testing the waters for whether Catherine has enough interest in the west to localise it (as Atlus are notorious for keeping their games Japanese release only).

For players of the original;

This is pretty much a straight port of the 2011 version (I experienced the PS3 version though I don't think there were any differences at all, even in performance and visual, between that and the Xbox version). It runs a little smoother than the console version, and it's visually improved (less bloom, sharper image, slightly upscaled res, better colour contrasts. The only real thing added is the Jukebox has extra songs added from other Atlus games such as Persona 3 and DDT.

The puzzles for some reason feel harder than 8 years ago, but that may be me slowing down as I had to reteach myself all the moves. The multiplayer is also still locked behind a game completion, and I don't think there is any online MP to it.

This may also be a test to see if the market is there for other Atlus games to come to PC, as well as bringing Catherine Full Body to the west, so if you have £15/$20 to burn and love Catherine I'd suggest buying it to show demand is there if you're interested.

I've branded myself with imagery from this game. That's all you need to know regarding what I think about it.

Did you get into the bitcoin mining scene? Ever wanted it to have an animu interface and to get rid of the actual reward? Ever wanted to add unneccesary processes to run in the background 24/7?

Yeah, here you go. Enjoy.

It's the only thing I play day in day out. I think that speaks volumes about it.