Thursday’s surprise Nintendo Direct was an embarrassment of riches, bringing new trailers, out-of-nowhere game releases, news about Arms characters coming to Smash, and 2K bringing three of its biggest franchises to the Switch. Among the spoils was the brief announcement that Atlus’ cult favorite puzzle title, Catherine, will be headed to the Switch this July.
Catherine was originally released in 2013 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PS Vita, with a PC port of that version released in 2019 as Catherine Classic. It’s a strange little puzzle/dating sim hybrid about a scuzzy slacker named Vincent who finds himself in a love triangle between his responsible, career- and family-minded girlfriend Katherine, and a blonde femme fatale named Catherine. All the while, men all over the city are dying in their sleep, shortly after experiencing the same strange lucid dream Vincent’s been having where they must complete a trap-laden sliding block puzzle that’s like Jenga meets the Hellraiser box.
The Switch version will be a port of the Full Body edition of the game that released on PS4 in 2019 (and on Vita in Japan), which included a new love interest–a piano player named Rin–several new endings, additional puzzle mechanics that weren’t in the original title, a new Safety difficulty, over 500 new stages in the game’s more arcade-like mode, the Tower of Babel, and a full-fledged competitive online multiplayer mode.
In our review, Edmond Tran wrote that Catherine: Full Body “tells a fascinating, personal tale. The nightmarish block puzzles are still weirdly intense and satisfying to surmount, and the Stray Sheep is still a wonderful bar to spend your nights in. Full Body does a great job in refining and refreshing the Persona studio’s fascinating foray into the social lives of adults, and Catherine continues to stand out as a game that feels both incredibly bizarre and authentically intimate.”
Catherine: Full Body is scheduled to hit the Switch on July 27, though, as Nintendo was quick to point out at the start of the Direct presentation, dates are very subject to change due to the COVID-19 crisis.
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