Almost ten years after its original release, the fantastic Catherine brings its expanded and improved version to Nintendo Switch, allowing us to relive the story and puzzles of this amazing game from Atlus. In the analysis of Catherine: Full Body we detail its news and how it works on the Nintendo console.
Iwould like to start this article by saying that: ‘hopefully more video games like Catherine: Full Body ‘. Both for how it rewrites and reinterprets the original for how the video game itself is. The story of this title is simple and brief , and in that simplicity and containment is its grace, which does not mean that this is a short game. Vincent is on the brink of marriage but is not sure whether to take the plunge. His girlfriend, Katherine, asks him to make a decision once and for all, but on his way he runs into Catherine, a very sensual girl who reminds him of how interesting the distracted single life is.. Catherine: Full Body moves in three playable schemes. The first are cinematics in which we are told all this. The second is the one that takes place in a bar with his friends, chatting about these issues while they drink. The third is Vincent’s dream world. That tough decision he has to make, and all those related to them, make up a puzzle disassembled from blocks that he has to reassemble in his psyche. In turn, they form a tower that must be climbed while we put each one in place by pushing them.
The great thing about Full Body is that the original left us with somewhat flat characters. Katherine was like an outdated cliché with an inordinate desire to marry, Vincent as someone childish who thought of nothing but himself; cowardly and giddy, and Catherine was just a sexy lolita fantasy . But this time, the three gain in depth, their contexts are explained and it is understood that they have developed the personalities they have. It has been achieved by adding new cinematic scenes, nuances in which there were already and also putting a new character on the scene: Rin. If Katherine represents the step to maturity, and Catherine the desire to be an eternal adolescent, Rin emerges as calm, as the possibility of choosing neither one thing nor the other, but choosing oneself .
Of course, it has its own story, background, and its collection of endings associated with it. It also appears in playable scenes in which we have to place blocks. With these variations, Full Body rewrites Catherine with great success . For this reason alone, if you have not been able to play the original or Catherine: Full Body on Playstation 4, you have to encourage yourself to do so in its version for Switch, because despite some graphic cuts that the game has suffered in relation to its resolution, it has come out good. Let’s talk about them.
Catherine: Full Body is a good port for Switch
We become Vincent once again to find out how Catherin looks on Nintendo Switch
Buying a Switch port of a PS4 or Xbox One, PS3 or Xbox 360 game is a lottery. Despite the logical limitations of the console, and knowing that it will never be like the original experience , it can turn out good as is the case with Dragon Quest XI S or The Witcher 3 , but also terrible or very regular. In Catherine’s case: Full Body has turned out well and you can get hold of it without fear.
Personally, what bothers me the most about Switch ports are the readjustments in loading times. The ones from the Resident Evil games are terrible, but not here. Catherine: Full Body’s loading times are just right . If they are somewhat elongated, it doesn’t show, really. In this sense, the experience is very similar . Regarding the performance of the game, it does not suffer jerks either, the image is very fluid in any of the three sections of the game. Cinematics, block climbing, and bar moments all play out perfectly .
The problems with this port are twofold: the control, which is somewhat less precise than that of its older sisters played with the joycon, and the resolution of the game , which especially in the block scenes is somewhat less. As for the first, I recommend you play with the pro controller, with Hori’s joycon with crosshead, with a Switch Little or with the Hori Split Pad Pro. Perfect control was never one of Catherine’s hallmarks: Full Body . In block climbing sequences, the viewing angle is slightly tilted , which causes your character to move forward more than once when you press ‘up’.
The game knows this and adds a button to undo our actions, but it was annoying on PS4, and on Switch it is even worse due to the nature of the joycon. In the end you get used to it, tapping the stick instead of pressing it as we would in another conventional game, but it is a detail that is very noticeable when you get into the arcade game modes of Catherine: Full Body: in Babel and in the Colosseum . In them it is all pure climbing and very difficult, without history or anything more than climbing and climbing, and it is appreciated having the best possible control.
In portable mode, the resolution suffers
The port approves in load times and frames per secondThe other problem that the game has, more notable in its portable version than in the desktop version, is that the image is not so sharp . It’s as if a hazy film was attached to it, a semitransparent white brushstroke that muddies the image. Again, it doesn’t affect the readability of the scene and you get used to it. The original had it, but not so exaggerated. We can even think: ‘okay, it looks like this because we are mired in a dream’, but the reality is that the quality of the large consoles is superior. If we connect it to the base, this problem practically disappears, offering us an experience very similar to those of the versions that we already know.
Anyway, if this is the sacrifice that has to be made so that the frame rate per image does not suffer and the game is stable , that seems fine to me. Because once you finish the story, which lasts between six and eight hours depending on the difficulty mode and if you opt for the classic or remixed mode, you will go directly and eagerly to the hardest and most exciting section of the title: the greats challenges . They are played solo, cooperatively and compete online by climbing increasingly tough towers and towers. By the way, if you have been passionate about Persona 5: Royal , here you will find a couple of fun surprises related to that game . Not surprisingly, Catherine was developed as a technical prototype for Persona 5.
The Switch version does not have the ideal resolutionThat is, as a port for Nintendo Switch, Catherine: Full Body passes the exam . It is not the best version of the game, but it is a very dignified and perfectly playable both on dock and laptop. Its frame rate is stable and its loading times are very reasonable . It gives some other problem during the first games, but once you get used to the control you will see that you can play acceptably well. Although the campaign seems short, you have more game modes to entertain you for hours with the puzzles of the title, which are exciting. In addition, it is very replayable , depending on the decisions you make and if you prefer to stay with Catherine, Katherine or Rin, you will unlock one or the other ending.
Climbing together in cooperative
Catherine: Full Body is still great in portable modeAlthough what is most talked about Catherine: Full Body is her story, that we have to make decisions to reach one of her thirteen endings , or everything sexual that permeates her story and her protagonists, we must not forget Actually, its most powerful aspect is the playable one , and it develops in the escalation of the puzzle that we compose in Vincent’s head and dreams.
In Catherine: Full Body, once you pass the story and also before (although it is not recommended), you will have at your disposal game modes that focus exclusively on this component of the title. And I assure you that they will have you hooked for hours. You can choose which game character to climb with , do it in local cooperative and compare your scores with those of the rest of the players in the world. At this point, the game becomes absolutely arcade, leaving aside being a title only to watch or read a story that, by the way, has texts in Spanish .
For this reason, with its campaign and the options that you will find later, Full Body is a title that I highly recommend if you like Japanese girls, you love Atlus and you need more of the spirit of Persona 5 on your consoles. It won’t steal your heart as much as the Phantom Thieves did, but you will love it.
“Very good”
Catherine: Full Body
Catherine’s port: Full Body is not the best version of the video game, but it is a very worthy one for Switch. It lacks its resolution, especially in portable mode, but it has stable performance, not too long load times and all the affection of the original. If you have not played it at the time, take advantage now.
- The rewriting of the original is remarkable
- Your block climbing sections
- Its aesthetic is unforgettable
- Good conversion for Switch with minimal sacrifices
- Control is still problematic
- The image is somewhat fuzzy when playing on laptop
