I’m a huge fan of the Persona series. It’s probably one of the main reasons that got me a little more interested in video games beneath 龍が如く(Yakuza). The company behind these mixtures of part dungeon crawler/part dating sim is Atlus. And after playing Persona 3 Portable I was on the lookout for everything the company has done. It was around that time when I noticed Catherine which was already out in Japan. There was no date announced for a European version and I honestly didn’t really know how to get my hands on the game. I eventually ordered the game from amazon with a proxy shipper but before I did that I grabbed this little visual guide/with artworks from cdjapan. It was probably my first purchase ever from Japan. It was a couple weeks later when I finally started to learn Japanese myself. Somewhere around Christmas with no clue where to start.
I still consider Catherine one of the very best games out of the PS3 era and it’s probably my personal favorite. Played it together with my girlfriend on the couch. We really did work well together on this. I was the one in charge of taking the right juicy turns in the story mode and she had to play the puzzle sections. And I have to admit, she was damn good at it. If you haven’t played Catherine and don’t want to plug in your PS3 extra for it. Don’t worry it’s even available as one of the first PS NOW titles where you can just rent it for 3 month and play through it using your Vita or PS4.
- Buy Catherine Venus Mode at cdjapan.co.jp
If you buy the book through my link, I’ll get a small referral fee which will be used to buy even more awesome books for review. Thanks for your support!
I also have been recently interested in this game as I’ve felt in love with Atlus and discovered that Catherine is part of the answer to “Why are there 7 years between Persona 4 and 5 ?”. This book looks amazing, I think I’ll get it when I’ll finish Persona 4 The Golden and get a PS3. This way I may become sufficiently good for playing Persona 5 at its release in Japanese (I’m optimistic there ^^). Great article and stunning photos as always, loved the intimate/cozy lighting there, suits well with the subject :)
Finally someone noticed the lighting. Thanks for the compliments, definitely helps to keep me going here. It’s funny that we both discovered Atlus the same way. Through becoming a huge fan of the series I tried to play as many of the other games Atlus made. Unfortunately it’s always very time consuming and I get tired of most games after 25-30 hours. I know maybe JRPGs aren’t meant for me but at least I always come back to gthe games and try to finish them at some point.
Will deifinitely pick up Persona 5 for my PS4 on Japanese release. Currently planning to visit Japan again in August 2015 so maybe I can pick it up myself :)
I love this game, thanks for showing us the book. It looks really beautiful.