Review of Catherine: Full Body for Nintendo Switch

After her PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 debut in 2012, Catherine made the jump to PC in 2019 with a remastering of the original game, which was enhanced with Catherine: Full Body for PlayStation 4 that same year. Now, the game is coming to Nintendo Switch for the first time to take advantage of the console's capabilities, retaining its undoubted quality and adding some settings and content.

Catherine: Full Body is an action, puzzle, and adventure game with a romantic twist and some racy scenes designed for an adult audience. It's the same title created by Atlus that we recently enjoyed on other platforms, with all the additional content that the original had, only this version includes three new voice options from the Persona saga, which we'll expand on later, and the ability to play anytime, anywhere thanks to the capabilities of the platform.

Its story tells of Vincent Brooks, a young man who is undecided and does not dare to take the next step and marry his girlfriend, Katherine, after five years of relationship. To make matters worse, he has an affair with an explosive blonde named Catherine. But that's not all. Suddenly there are mysterious young deaths all over the place, and Vincent is quick to link them to the strange dreams he's having, where if he dies, he does so in real life. Caught up in the panic of his own infidelity, he is comforted by Rin's innocent appearance, which only complicates matters. Now he has to overcome the test of pleasure and pain to try to get out of the situation.

This plot, as we saw in the previous version, is very funny, is carried out with humor and has spicy elements, with very charismatic characters and themes that pose moral dilemmas such as fidelity, trust, or toxic relationships, all with a touch of fantasy that suits the adventure. The decisions we make are the ones that mark the path the plot takes, whether through our actions in answering questions, talking on our mobile phones, or simply sending messages, then a meter appears that changes Vincent's ideas.

The campaign, Golden Playhouse, offers four levels of difficulty: Safety, Easy, Normal and Difficult, each one of them being well balanced for players who simply want to enjoy the story or a challenge to match. Then you will find two different styles of play: Classic, where all the blocks are normal size, and Remix, which has some unusual ones to make the puzzles more difficult and change the development a little if you enjoyed the original game at the time.

In addition to the conversation-driven development, as night falls Vincent suffers from nightmares that lead to different puzzles in which we have to climb up before the ground collapses and leads us to our deaths, with time also limiting our movements. To do this, we have some simple mechanics that you will do in a few games, where we move sideways and grab blocks of different characteristics to move them (with the possibility of undoing this action) and be able to go climbing while collecting money and objects that facilitate the ascent, avoiding traps, enemies and powerful bosses. We can also fall down the edges of the blocks and climb laterally. At the beginning, it can be simple, but it gets more and more complex, and you can see on the left side of the screen your progress in climbing.

As in the previous version of Full Body, if you connect to the network you can see the souls of the characters in the places that have died, which serves as a warning for possible traps that await us on that journey. From that version we also have the invaluable help of Rin, who prevents the blocks from collapsing, a new scenario, and its puzzles, making it go up, along with the other modalities, to more than 500 puzzles in total. Once each route is completed, we are judged on how we have done it, the difficulty, and the time we have taken, which gives it rejugability.

In terms of game modes, in addition to the aforementioned Golden Playhouse campaign, we have the following: Babel, in which we face difficult challenges using a limited number of objects in the puzzles and we play alone or in pairs and we can consult the records achieved in the place; then there is Colosseum, a place where we compete with other players in various levels, either locally or online by creating or joining different rooms; and finally the Online Arena, which confronts us with an online player, either in casual or qualifying games, as well as playing with a friend online.

The duration of the campaign is not very extensive, being able to complete the eight available episodes in a few hours. However, it is a tremendously replayable game because of its arcade-style, the different paths of the campaign, the game styles, or its difficulties. If we add the other modes, we have a title that will give you many hours of fun.

Its graphic section preserves everything seen in the other versions and, although in general, it has a great quality, it is true that we have noticed a decrease in the resolution that makes it lose sharpness and some saw teeth appear. This is not too worrying, as it looks pretty good and works very smoothly in general, using an artistic style that is very eye-catching.

In the sound we have a variety of melodies, some of them vocal, among which you will find themes of Persona or Project Re Fantasy, to perfectly set their world along with great effects. The voices come to us in both English and Japanese, both with a great interpretation, as well as texts in Spanish so that you can better follow the plot and understand how it works. One of the biggest novelties of this version is that it includes three voice options from the Persona saga: Healing Flower, which is the Japanese voice of Marie in Persona 4 Golden, Naughty Kouhai, the Japanese voice of Labrys in Persona 4 Arena, and Intelligent Beauty, which is the Japanese voice of the female protagonist Persona 3 Portable.

Catherine: Full Body on Nintendo Switch is, in short, a version that has managed to keep all the good things about its history and gameplay, with an audiovisual section that continues to be of quite good quality despite the passing of the years. Although it is not a very extensive title, it offers a lot of rejugability by the different ways in the history, its arcade-style, and the different game modes, being able now also to enjoy the game at any time and place.

Don't expect big changes from one version to another, but if you've never played Catherine you'll find a good reason to give it a try, get to know her story, and test your puzzle skills.