Catherine: Full Body

Between an 8 and a 9 on this one. Absolutely dripping with Katsura Hashino's direction from the Persona games. Amazing visuals, awesome direction for the cutscenes, amaaazing music thanks to Shoji Meguro. The whole thing feels like kind of an aside in the same universe as the Persona games especially given the ending with gods and what not. I love that the thing basically plays like a high production visual novel or anime.

The one thing I'd ding is the puzzles. They're actually pretty cool but I'm not a huge puzzle guy. The thing that redeems them is the fact that you can switch it to Easy or Casual and can basically autoplay the puzzle levels. It's glorious and such a great damn addition to the game.

The story was actually really cool. I loved the characters. Talking to all the people in the dream world and learning their backgrounds slowly unfold. The development of Vincent as a character is actually really cool. He starts just this spineless layabout and turns into the hero and it really works.

Rin I really loved as a character. The twist with her being trans was kind of crazy. I'm not sure how I feel about how they handled it. It's pretty standard fair given Japan's treatment of the LGBT community culturally but still...not great. I actually really want to get the Rin ending to see how it ends for Vincent and her.

All in all I think I stand by my 9 rating for it. I really just fucking love anything that Hashino-san touches.