Wednesday, September 7, 2011

EXP Podcast #140: A Catherine Conversation

We have wrestled with sheep, turned blocks into staircases, and climbed the highest towers to bring you this Catherine themed podcast. This week on the show, Scott and I discuss the latest erotic-story-focused-puzzle game from Atlus, its cowardly and ineffectual protagonist, and its take on gender, marriage, and fidelity. As always, we encourage you to share your own thoughts on Catherine in the comments section below.

Some discussion starters:
- What do you think of Catherine's protagonist?
- Do you feel your ending fit within the story well?
- What sort of message came through Catherine?

To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
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Show notes:

- Run time: 48 min 07 sec
- Music provided by Brad Sucks

3 comments:

  1. Ah! Great timing. Just finished it as well.

    Concerning that one thing you weren't sure about: Yes, you can save all of the Sheep. The people visit the bar. They survive if you take every chance to talk to them. But they often leave early so if you talk to your friends first, you will miss them and they will die. I lost all of them in my game too. Only the journalist survived. He actually had a nice background story. I think each of them has one.

    I was also disappointed by the ending I got. Vincent ignored both women, got borrowed some money and lost it all in a wrestling match bet. Then he got drunk with his friends. The end. Quite a let down after all that Catherine vs. Katherine build up all of the time. :(

    Generally I agree with a lot of the points you raised. I don't feels as strongly about Vincent though. It's common for Anime characters to let relationship issues escalate due to them acting "paralyzed" in key scenes. He seems to get his bearings by the end of the game. But yes, I think there is way too little story development in the mid-part of the game. All the scenes between Vincent and Catherine are the incredibly awkward morning conversations where it's all about Vincent trying to get away from Catherine. They don't sell the idea of being seduced at all. As for Katherine, Vincent always seems to schedule a "Talk" with her. But once they meet, they don't actually say anything.

    But I have completely missed that bit about Erica. That's amazing!


    Oh am I the only one for whom Vincent seemed like an Alcoholic. Every day in the bar?!

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  2. Very interesting podcast to listen to, and this is why I think Catherine is one of the more fascinating games to come across the pike if you like to think about the importance (or lack thereof) of authorial intent: I agreed with pretty much all the negative points y'all made about the game, but all that stuff more or less rolled off my back anyways, because the game gave me enough to think about (including those negative points!) that I came out of it happy.

    So, on the one hand, I'm curious how the Persona team intended the game be read. But, on the other hand, I ultimately don't think that matters so much, and I find different people's readings of the game fascinating.

    (The post of mine that's most relevant to the issues y'all talked about: .)

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  3. Whoops, the link got swallowed in that last one: http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2011/09/catherine/

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