Every so often a game comes along which looks intriguing in an art nouveau sort of way. Catherine on the PS3 and Xbox 360 is one such title. Releasing in Japan next month (17 February), it offers a glimpse into the future of anime-style videogames by combining highly-detailed cel-shaded graphics with expressive character models which fill the screen with colour and personality. The story is about a lonely, 30-something man called Vincent who meets a mysterious, beautiful young woman called Catherine at a bar one evening, and consequently begins to have terrifying nightmares each night which he must escape from in order to survive.

The demo for this game was released on the Japanese Playstation store yesterday morning and judging by the constant tweets on the subject, it was eagerly anticipated around the world (despite being in Japanese). Weighing in at 930MB, it’s a fairly small download for all the content that the developers generously dished out in the demo.

There are two levels to play in the demo, as well as a handful of in-game sequences, pre-rendered cut-scenes and an awesome trailer to watch after completing the second level, which all hint at some of the bizarre adventures awaiting you if this game ever gets a Western release.

I was hoping for some exploration-type gameplay in the demo but sadly the two levels are composed of block-moving mayhem which seems to be a major facet of Catherine’s design. Basically the objective in these levels is to survive your current nightmare by successfully climbing a tower of blocks and reaching a door which allows you to awaken unscathed. To do this you will need to push and pull blocks to create a path upwards. There is no jumping involved so those of you who play Uncharted or Prince of Persia games regularly will be wondering why on earth your protagonist can’t just leap to the next ledge.

In the first level you need to avoid a gang of sheep who are perched on certain blocks (think Metal Gear Solid’s sentries and their cones of vision), and in the second level you need to ascend quickly enough to avoid a horrific monster with razor sharp claws who is scaling the tower right below you, and is only too happy to skewer you when it catches up.

I initially spent at least 40 minutes trying to complete the second level because I thought pushing blocks out (and thereby collapsing the tower) was the way to go. It turns out pulling blocks to form a sort of 2D staircase was a far quicker and more effective strategy, and I breezed through the level in about 3 minutes using this method. There are a couple of power-ups to collect during each level including pillows, which give you an extra continue, and a small rotating cube, which allows you to create one new block at any time - this is extremely handy when you’re in a rush to create a way forward.

Let me talk about the graphics in Catherine for a second. The character designer is none other than Shigenori Soejima who did the art direction for Persona 3 and 4 – two of the best RPGs on PS2. His style of anime is very unique and represents some of the best work I’ve seen not only in video games but in the anime TV and film domains as well. I think that all the hype around Catherine, even here in the West, is mainly due to the game’s beautiful visuals and link to the super-popular Persona series. Certainly in my case, I was excited to play the demo to see how anime-style graphics would look on a next-generation console like the PS3. Well, the visuals in Catherine certainly don’t disappoint.

There are a few jagged edges on the character models and the levels themselves don’t look anywhere near as detailed or vibrant as a similar 2D platformer like LittleBigPlanet, but it’s the cinematic cut-scenes designed by Studio 4°C that really impress, as well as the real-time sequences which feature some of the most expressive facial animations I’ve ever seen in a game. Such realistic characterisations really add to the level of immersion this game offers, and the cel-shaded graphics are somehow more convincing than those used in games like God of War III which try to approach photo-realism. If you’ve eagerly been awaiting a true successor to the glorious cel-shaded graphics in the PS2 classic Okami, then this is the game to get excited about.

Apparently the full game will offer a plethora of player choice and multiple endings. This is hinted at during the demo when you get an SMS from your long-time girlfriend Katherine (not to be confused with Catherine, who is the mysterious blonde in the image above). You can choose whether or not to reply to it, and the same applies to the next SMS that arrives if you do choose to reply. At certain decision-making points in the game, you’ll see the choices that other players opted for if you happen to be online, like a poll of sorts. Other online features have also been confirmed, such as competitive multiplayer which will see you racing against another player to reach the top of a tower first.

The demo of Catherine is certainly worth playing by anyone who enjoys the anime genre or who is a fan of the Persona series. A lot of the on-screen text is in English, and the gameplay only involves a few buttons so the demo is easy to navigate despite it being in Japanese. Of course the nuances of the story will pass you by, but this is a small price to pay to be exposed to next-gen anime visuals which feature more than enough style to get you hastily writing to Atlus USA, pleading for this game to be released in the West.

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