In the latest issue of Famitsu 360, a Famitsu spin-off that focuses only on Xbox 360 titles, Atlus shared a few more details on their upcoming HD title, Catherine, a horror action–adventure game starring an unambitious man and a nympho blonde.
Producer Katsura Hashino has told the magazine that the first playthrough of the game should last twenty hours, but in order to obtain all endings, it’ll take up to thirty hours to complete. That means, yes, there are multiple endings.
When explaining why they made it on high-definition consoles rather than on a handheld, Hashino told the magazine that the game would lose its charm had it been mobile. The genuine feel of the high-def world made Catherine a perfect fit for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. He does admit, though, that the team had a lot of problems debugging the game for multiple platforms, which did cause some scheduling backtracks.
At the moment, Catherine is around eighty to ninety percent complete and if Hashino is to be believed, the team should reach completion very soon. Catherine‘s actually been in development for a while now, as Hashino recalls to when the Persona 4 development team would switch back and forth between developing Catherine‘s first stages and polishing up Persona 4. With that said, they intentionally made Catherine a shorter game.
The game will shift between action and adventure scenes depending on what point of the game you’re at. The action mechanics in the game are apparently very deep. As the player will be able to make choices, you’ll be able to make your own way to pass “stages”. Hashino explains that there are various way to do this. He also says that Vincent’s character can be affected by the choices that you make.
“Vincent’s character can change in many ways depending on the player’s choices throughout the game,” Hashino told the magazine, “his character development can get pretty unusual.”
As for the adventure segments in Catherine, they consist of running around town and visiting various places.
Hashino expressed his happiness in the support Team Persona‘s received since the game was announced. He says they’re working hard on the game’s rating because CERO is reluctant to give them the rating they want.
Thanks, Hiro.
Note: This post was updated from its original version, which consisted of minor details, then bumped to the top of the news rotation in order to provide all the information in a single article.