Catherine: Full Body – A Discussion on Rin

I remember back in the day feeling like Catherine was kind of revolutionary. It was the PS3 days and a different time; it felt like story-heavy games with little to no combat were a rarity, and morality systems still felt novel. Bioware games had them, but beyond that it seemed options were limited. And then there was Catherine, and younger!me was kind of delighted to play this weird as balls Japanese puzzle game.

It’s been a long time now, but I remember liking Catherine a lot. I enjoyed answering the questions and I loved hanging around the Stray Sheep talking to everyone. The only thing I didn’t love was the puzzles. They were difficult and I somehow didn’t realize I could play on a different difficulty setting? I don’t know what was up with young!me there, bless her soul. Also, maybe I just sucked a lot more at puzzle games back then. Either way, when I finished the game, I remember being kind of bummed. I wanted to play through again, save all the bar patrons, get all the endings, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to deal with the puzzle bits again.

Cut to like eight years later (I really feel like I was younger than that would make me when I played it), and we have Catherine: Full Body. I was excited, even as some controversy built up around the game. I couldn’t wait to play the story again, and also to maybe actually take advantage of difficulty settings this time?

For those somehow not in the know, Full Body introduces a new story path with a new C/K/Qatherine (yes, spelled with a “Q” because why not, I guess). Thankfully, this new one goes by Rin. Rin was also at the heart of much of the controversy, as it was speculated she may be a trans character and there was concern over how ATLUS would handle that given a shaky track record with LGBTQ+ characters in the past. The answer I came to in regards to this is that while they didn’t handle it the worst way it could have been handled, the way they did handle Rin kind of just left me making faces at various screens.

Either way, let’s back it up a bit and talk about how Rin fits into the story to begin with, because the answer to that is it’s clunky. It’s hard not to notice that parts with Rin tend to be shoehorned in more than they organically fit into the overall story. There is a total of like one and a half cutscenes where the other K/Catherines interact with or acknowledge her, along with two text messages, one from each. The questions for Rin’s path are also distinctly separate from the questions for the other two, and you are always told when you are answering a question for this “new path.” I did not wind up answering the questions in the proper way to open up the Rin path despite loving her to death and feeling like maybe she was honestly the best option for Vincent now due to the fact I wanted to play and answer in a way that felt natural for me, which just so happened to mean I answered and played in a way that got me the best ending for Katherine (which I’m pretty sure is the same ending I got when I played the original version of the game?). I digress.

Despite Rin not fitting into the overall game organically, I love her to bits and pieces. She’s precious and optimistic and so, so kind-hearted and open-minded.  As I said, I couldn’t help rooting for her the most while I was playing through. However, your opportunities for Rin-related questions are few, and if you don’t answer enough in the proper way, you can kiss her goodbye for the rest of the game when you still have a fairly large chunk of game left (another indication of how she is forcibly inserted into the story).

When I finally beat Full Body, I kind of wanted to go back and play it again, get a different ending. I also knew though that it wasn’t necessarily practical to do that because I have a long list of other games from the year that I still really want to play. So what did I do? Look up the other endings, of course! There is a new true ending for Catherine, which is kind of sweet. It has its own controversial point, but I’m not going to even get into that because quite frankly, I don’t really know where to begin other than Catherine‘s treatment of its already existing trans character is questionable, at best. Even in Katherine’s true ending, there’s a line that straight up made me cringe because why? Why is that the way you choose to treat this scenario and person, ATLUS?

Regardless, I read up on what the Rin endings are, and… I don’t even know if I can watch them. No spoilers, except to say they take Rin’s story in some off the fucking wall direction that genuinely disappoints me. There was so much opportunity with Rin for a real, grounded, and touching resolution to the story. Which, granted, Catherine is kind of weird no matter what, but I just…. I don’t know. I feel let down by the resolution of Rin’s story and like it led up to an ending where everything we’ve known about her doesn’t even matter.

Also, don’t even get me started on the flippant swapping of pronouns once there are certain reveals. But I guess, to be fair, I had a strong feeling none of this was going to go great  when in an early scene they had the most heavy-handed discussion about sexual orientation I have ever seen. I’m very torn between thoughts like “at least they tried” and “it’s 2019, can’t we be doing better?” It’s all made far more complicated by the fact that most of this game suffers from being eight years old.

In the end, I’m left with some messy feelings about Catherine: Full Body. I still enjoyed the game, enough so that I wanted to play it again. I appreciate the new features added to the puzzle gameplay (which I have not covered at all, but I’m sure many other reviews have); I still have a ton of fun unraveling the stories of your fellow sheep; I enjoy the ride of the story, and I adore Rin and the journey you go on with her to a specific point. Of course, I don’t know exactly how it all pans out past that specific point because it wasn’t the route I got. My issues with the game this time around come from what I feel is a full on faceplant at the finish line, and a gross feeling about certain ways certain characters are handled. I feel like this cringey feeling is just exacerbated by the fact that none of the gross stuff is overtly, or maybe even intentionally, mean. It’s all, for the most part, small things that maybe ATLUS didn’t even know they were wrong for, which somehow makes it that much worse.

I guess I’m unsure how I feel about it all. I still enjoy the game, but I want them to do better. Here’s hoping that maybe in what ever completely new thing ATLUS does next, we truly see the strides they are trying to make towards being more open-minded and inclusive. Here’s hoping that maybe the problem lies most in that it is very difficult to take an eight year old game that centers on male sexuality and cheating on your girlfriend and turn that game into a current, relevant, and non-cringey social commentary on gender norms and sexual identity.