Catherine (Video Game): Difference between revisions

The game begins with a framing device: Trisha, the Midnight Venus, hosts a television program called the ''Golden Playhouse'', which will this evening relate the tale of a man named Vincent Brooks. The events of the show form the gameplay proper, which is sometimes rendered with a watermark in the corner.

In the neighborhood in which Vincent lives, there have recently been a number of bizarre incidents in which people die in their sleep with a look of anguish upon their faces. Strangely enough, all of the victims are young men. The story quickly spreads throughout the media, attracting widespread attention and theories as to the cause of death. A strange rumor begins to spread that if a person dreams of falling, then they must wake up before they hit the ground or they will be unable to wake up at all and will die.

 

After meeting Catherine, Vincent begins to have nightmares every single night, which he believes may be related to the rumors. In these dreams, he and several other men, who appear to each other as sheep, must escape from various horrors trying to kill them, for if they die in their dreams, they will die in reality. As dreams and reality begin to blend together, Vincent must not only fight to survive, but must choose between Katherine and Catherine.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cathy.atlus.co.jp/|title=Catherine: Story|publisher=Atlas|accessdate=November 11, 2010|language=Japanese}}</ref> Katherine increases the pressure by revealing that her period is late and that she believes herself pregnant, while Catherine manages to arrange to be in Vincent's bed almost every morning, despite his not remembering having invited her over.  A further complication arrives in the form of phone calls from a man named Steve, who defines himself as the boyfriend of Katherine/Catherine and threatens retribution upon Vincent.  However, neither of Vincent's girlfriends know a man named Steve, and Steve's description of his girlfriend does not match either of the women Vincent is involved with.

 

 

Depending on the way certain questions and text messages are answered, ''Catherine'' has a total of eight endings based on three central narratives. The alignment endings (i.e. Catherine and Katherine) feature a good, bad, and an extended true version while a neutral "Freedom" ending only has two versions.  "Bad" endings are obtained if the player's explicit choices do not correspond to the alignment meter position, calculated based on the player's other actions.  "Good" endings are obtained if the player's explicit choices do match the meter; the choice of which of these appears is based on which of these choices were made.  "True" endings are appended with an epilogue, taking place after Trisha formally closes the program and thanks the viewers for watching.

 

 

A final, ninth ending is unlocked when the player completes the "Axis Mundi Babel" challenges. If so, Trisha breaks the fourth wall by revealing that she is actually Ishtar, one of the goddesses overseeing the entire nightmare process, and that the true purpose of the nightmares was for her to test the ''player'' for fitness to replace Mutton, the last man who successfully climbed the tower, as her consort due to his infidelity.