When comparing Catherine vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best co-op games on Xbox One?” Dark Souls III is ranked 30th while Catherine is ranked 46th. The most important reason people chose Dark Souls III is:
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story. Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you. Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Challenging puzzles that constantly make you think on the spot
Catherine is uniquely challenging in the way it blends puzzle-platforming with horror elements. Each stage you encounter is a visualization of the main protagonist Vincent's "nightmare": they're a series of connecting blocks that you push and pull in order to reach the very top and escape from the madness. There are all sorts of different blocks, like ice blocks that cause you to slip and fall, bomb blocks that explore after a short time, spike blocks that shoot out traps to kill you if you stand on top of them for too long, and many more.
And the kicker is that you have limited time, since the blocks gradually fall away to an abyss, keeping you scrambling to stay ahead of the puzzles. You have to be quick on your toes in order to figure out a way forward without letting the ground fall from underneath you. This chasing dynamic adds to the nightmarish quality of the stages, giving you an extra push to think strategically in the shortest amount of time possible.
Pro Your choices lead to multiple different endings
Playing as Vincent Brooks, a hopeless thirty-something man who's unhappy with his life, your decisions throughout the game determine how he turns out in the end. The main drama centers around his indecision to marry his steady, by-the-books girlfriend, Katherine, and his affair with the spontaneous and sexy young woman named Catherine. You can choose if Vincent stays with Katherine or Catherine, or if he goes off on his own way and leaves them both behind. The ways each of these endings play out are all unique and vastly different from each other, so it can be pretty fun to do multiple playthroughs in order to see them all.
Pro Horrifying boss designs with symbolism relevant to the story
The boss designs are clever in how accurate they are. Since they're part of Vincent's nightmares that plague him about his guilt over Katherine and Catherine, the symbolism fits right in with this theme. The boss "fights" themselves involve the boss at the very bottom of the stage chasing you and manipulating certain blocks to slow you down.
One of the bosses is a mutated version of Katherine in a wedding dress, another is a disfigured toddler representing Katherine's desire to have kids with Vincent, and others are certain NSFW depictions of body parts. They're over-the-top on purpose, instilling a shocking fear that makes you want to get away from the boss chasing you and reach the end as soon as possible.
Pro Stylized, artful cutscenes, menus, and imagery
The art style in Catherine is really cool in all the ways it pops out at you. The black and pink motifs are a clear running theme, showing up everywhere from the game's logo, to the menus, and the UI. Cutscenes have a neat anime aesthetic that help them stand out more. You can also find the game's ample imagery and symbolism everywhere, both obvious and subtle, such as the male and female signs, and the puns on "counting sheep in your sleep" with the characters who become sheep in Vincent's dreams as well as the bar named the Stray Sheep. The visuals are all creative with a lot of love and care that went into them.
Pro Great cast of characters that deal with real-life struggles
You can get to know a colorful cast of characters aside from Katherine and Catherine. Every day, Vincent hangs out at a bar called the Stray Sheep where he and his friends drink together and commiserate about their uneventful lives. He can also go talk to other patrons of the bar who have their own problems, and possibly motivate them to change, like two different womanizers who had abusive pasts, a journalist who helped drive a celebrity to commit suicide, and a rich man whose parents won't let him marry his lower class lover. They all deal with some pretty mature and serious issues, but if you choose to help them out, there's usually a light at the end of the tunnel.
Pro Entertaining two-player couch co-op
Playing with one other person through Catherine's challenging levels can be pretty funny and entertaining. You naturally have to help each other, since one small mistake can lead to one or both players falling to their deaths. Working together to push certain blocks to make a path upward may or may not always work out, since certain blocks can crumble if you step on them too many times, for example. If someone falls behind, and they're not sure how to get back up, helping them out can get the both of you laughing as you desperately try to figure out a solution together. If you're willing to embrace the tough difficulty and not let it frustrate you, then local co-op can be a blast.
Pro Unique soundtrack with rock songs and remixes of classical music
The game's music is a special blend of sounds that all work well together. Fast-paced, frantic stages have rock music with catchy electronica influences. The more serious stages and story moments have cool modern-day remixes of old classics, like the familiar third movement of "Funeral March", and William Tell's Overtures, "The Storm" and "The Ranz des Vaches". Even if you can't remember the songs by name, hearing their renditions in Catherine will probably jog your memory. These tracks really heighten the energy and the drama as you play.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
Cons
Con A lot of your choices boil down to binary decisions
In the end, the decisions you make aren't all that robust. Most of the choices you make happen in between stages where a narrator asks you certain questions, like whether you personally think it's okay to cheat in relationships. Your responses are usually just yes or no options, which is pretty black-and-white. These choices affect a morality meter that determines which ending you get, but because of how binary your decisions are, you never really get a sense that the system is accurate or insightful. The meter and the questions themselves are just okay, though your mileage will vary on how you feel about them.
Con Might be too hard for players who don't normally play puzzle games
If you're thinking of getting Catherine as your first puzzle game, then you may want to reconsider. Even on the easiest difficulty setting, the game is really tough and tricky to figure out. The hardest part is that you don't have the luxury of time to observe things and find a way forward: you have to keep making snap decisions, one after the other, for several minutes at a time, otherwise you'll fall to your death. The most difficult optional content is also pretty grueling even for the most seasoned veterans. This is definitely one of those games that you play when you want to push yourself with new challenges.
Con Repetitive sound effects can get annoying
There's one small nitpick that can grow to be incredibly irritating as you play. Every time you move a block and connect it to another one by one of its edges, a female announcer says the word "EDGE" in a robotic way. This would be fine every once in a while, except this happens constantly as you situate blocks so that their edges connect for you to climb on top of them. Playing every single stage forces you to hear the same "EDGE" spam from the announcer over and over again. It's prolific enough to have turned into a running joke within the Catherine community online, but it's still really annoying.
Con Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.