Thoughts on Catherine: Full Body
Do I… stan this game?
I played the original Catherine on the PS3 when it first came out. I really like the gameplay loop of a 3D block-puzzler interspersed with what is basically a gussied up visual novel. I also thought that the story premise was quite fun; Vincent, a schlubby guy in his 30s has to choose between his high-school sweetheart and long-term girlfriend Katherine, or the mysterious Catherine, a girl he just met and seemingly can’t stop sleeping with - waking next to her each morning with total amnesia of how he ended up taking her home.
The game frames this as a choice between ‘order’ and ‘chaos’, although really it’s a choice between responsibility and hedonism. Katherine represents the most realistic and sensible choice for Vincent, suggesting they get married and urging him to get a promotion at work, move out of his flat and into a proper house, and to start taking life seriously. Catherine on the other hand is free-wheeling, seemingly unphased by sharing a single bed in Vincent’s cramped apartment, and simply wants to go out, drink and have sex — encouraging Vincent to abandon his responsibilities in favour of pleasure-seeking and self gratification. It’s not a ground-breaking dichotomy or anything, but it’s a fun theme.
The Full Body re-release adds a 3rd option; Qatherine, also known as Rin, who Vincent bumps into on the street in a cutscene before either of the other two love interest characters are introduced. Rin is charming, cute, kind and talented. The only thing is… Rin isn’t a girl.
Spoilers will follow as I talk about both Catherine (PS3) and Catherine: Full Body (PS4), assuming at least a passing familiarity with the story and characters.
Objectively, Rin is an absolutely terrible addition to the story. He completely obscures both of the original main love interests and takes over the narrative almost entirely. At multiple points, the game feels like it’s tripping over itself to show off how cool and lovely Rin is. In fact, the game is so enamoured with Rin, it ends up stepping on the other characters toes to give him space, meaning he ends up feeling a little bit like a Mary Sue, or Poochie from The Simpsons.
The story of the original Catherine was pretty lean and economical. The story as it existed didn’t really leave much space for any major additions or expansions, which is evident from awkwardly Rin is added in to various cutscenes, at times to the detriment of other characters. A notable example is the way the bar waitress, Erica, now shares her job with Rin in Full Body, meaning less screen time for Erica, and a shift in focus of Erica’s dialogue to be about Rin (Erica takes on a protective, ‘big sister’ role toward Rin). Rin’s dialogue for the most part is walk-on, one-line roles in several conversations, seemingly just to remind the player “hey, look at Rin”, only to quickly gloss over his contribution and return back to the original topic. It’s at best awkward and at worst, quite jarring, especially since Rin’s cosplayer appearance and naive bubbly personality don’t really fit with the rest of the cast, who (with the exception of Catherine) are quite grounded and sober. The game even provides an apt visual metaphor for Rin’s lack of organic integration into the story; during the nightmare sequences, Rin’s piano platform is clumsily glued to the edge of the landings. The landings haven’t been changed or rearranged in any way to accommodate Rin, there’s just now an extra ‘bit’ stuck on the side (see below).
However, in-universe, Rin is universally adored by practically every other character. They all comment on how cute he is, how talented his piano playing is, to the point where just having him around seems to make their lives better. When it’s revealed that Rin is not girl but a very effeminate boy, Vincent and his friends have a little open-minded chat with one another about how gender shouldn’t be such an important factor in who a person is etc etc…It honestly reads like clumsy fan-fiction, although I say that with love, because it’s exactly the kind of clumsy fan-fiction I’ve written in the past.
And… that’s honestly part of the appeal to me! I can’t help but get a little bit mushy about a story where a crossdressing guy is introduced and met with love, acceptance and praise by everybody around him, being portrayed as sweet, talented, kind and beautiful. In fact, considering all the multiple endings, the ending in which Vincent chooses to pursue Rin is possibly the best of all the endings, literally uplifting all of humanity in the process. It’s also one of the only endings in which Vincent somewhat surrenders his role as protagonist of the story and gives way to Rin. In the end, the way for Vincent to break out of his cycle of toxic romances with women, is to start dating men instead, and I think there’s something bitterly comedic about that, that I can’t help but find appealing, since it’s not very often that homosexuality is framed as the ‘good ending’ in media!
That said, when Vincent learns the truth about Rin, he’s pretty homophobic to him. Skip this next paragraph if you don’t want to read about that.
Vincent sees Rin naked while he’s unconscious and immediately enters a kind of panic, denying and questioning his own feelings and intentions towards Rin based on this new information and even rationalising his feelings and ‘excusing’ himself for being attracted to a guy by asking “what kind of a guy looks like that?”. When Rin notices Vincent is spacing out, he reaches over to him, and Vincent slaps his hand away shouting “don’t touch me!” which causes Rin to run away crying. The next few story segments focus around Vincent introspecting about what it all means for his own sexuality and his guilt over having upset Rin, which is exactly the kind of navel-gazing you might expect from a story about a straight cisgender man. It’s extremely cliche and a little bit gross, just how secondary it treats Rin’s feelings as. However, whilst Vincent’s reaction and a lot of his subsequent musings are definitely coming from a place of homophobia, it’s the kind of sanitised homophobia that exists only in the world of BL and yaoi. Vincent’s confusion and insecurity quickly dissipate after spending a bit of time dwelling on his feelings before eventually rediscovering why he cares about Rin in the first place.
As is fairly typical in these kinds of stories, whilst homophobia exists, it rarely feels like true hate or malice, framed instead as ignorance and misunderstanding. That’s not a defence or an excuse — and in fact we could have a conversation about the way that portraying homophobia like this leads people misunderstand what real homophobia is — but I feel like it’s a lot less egregious compared to other media than you might think.
Let’s be real; both Catherine and Catherine: Full Body have some pretty messed up gender politics. The game’s philosophy is premised on the view that men are shiftless losers and women are self-interested harpies, and it never really seriously analyses that thought, simply accepting it as the default paradigm for sexual politics. From there, the conceit of the story is that an extremely mediocre man has to choose between two gorgeous women (and possibly one guy) who are deeply enamoured with him for seemingly no reason aside wanting to control him. They’re treated less like people in their own right and more like obstacles to happiness that have to be conquered; plates that need to be spun long enough to decide which one you want to take home, and how you can walk away from the other without taking blame for any breakage. It’s all deeply problematic and couched in a misogynistic and honestly quite misanthropic worldview. And I haven’t even really discussed the way Catherine handles its canon transgender character Erica (not very well!), or the way in which Catherine: Full Body does her extremely dirty in one of the game’s multiple endings.
And yet, despite its messy politics, I think Catherine is a weirdly charming game. I’m glad I had a chance to spend time with the characters again in Full Body, and I enjoyed getting to meet Rin and see a corny gay love story between a man and a femboy, even though that extra addition basically tramples what was previously a very tight story and dynamic. For me, Full Body isn’t the definitive version of the game — it’s not what I’d recommend people play first if they’re interested — but more like a re-mix for fans who wanted more. Really though, it feels like a re-mix aimed precisely at a single person: me. It’s a game where a cute crossdresser falls from the sky, and is instantly beloved by everybody, improving their lives just for knowing him and getting his own happy ending simply because that’s what he deserves.
How could I possibly not like a game that feels like it was written as fan-service both by and for me specifically?
