LUCIDSTILLNESS'S PROFILE

Well, based on what I like from a game, a five star game should be a game that minimizes its flaws and maximizes its strong points. If it uses a custom menu or combat system, it should be fun and easy to use with minimal micromanagement or frustration. It should have little busywork and avoid using tactics to artificially stretch out the length of the game, such as pointless backtracking. The challenge should be balanced throughout, starting out easy but getting progressively harder as the skill of the player improve. Visuals and music are subjective, but they should show some effort involved in their construction and a consistent design aesthetic throughout. If the game has a story, it should have good pacing and proceed logically without unexplained plot twists and characters suddenly acting out of character for the sake of the narrative. In other words, to use an old cliche, it should be a solid gaming experience.

Whoa, surreal!

Nice choice of musics.

Yeah...I've never really bought the whole 'law and chaos must be balanced' thing, since both are human concepts designed to explain the natural world. You can say the world is chaotic because things seem to happen with no rhyme or reason from a human stand point, but you can also say the universe is ordered because every action has a reaction, which is also viewing things from a human standpoint. It's very much like saying good and evil must be balanced because that is how the real world works (since people do good and bad things). It always struck me as preachy and a bit self-satisfied.

To elaborate, just as people are too complex to be labeled as good or evil, so too are they too complex to be labeled as lawful or chaotic. That's why the crux of Catherine's story, which is whether to live a safe, lawful life of self sacrifice, or to live a free, willful independent life with no attachments, is by the necessity of these conventions a gross oversimplification of human relationships. Nobody decides that their life is going to be 'lawful' or 'chaotic'; people go through moods and phases and have to live with the decisions they make on a day to day basis.

Still, accurately recreating human relationships in a game where the relationship interaction isn't the main gameplay focus is, realistically, asking for too much. I don't want to bash Catherine, because I still think it's a very interesting game about a subject that is rarely discussed in gaming. I only wish the writers of fiction would get over this law and chaos fixation.

I also think it looks good. The only thing I'm not too crazy about are some of the proportionate size differences between the sprites (the stools are huge compared to that bed, for example). Still, a bit of artistic license is allowed in this game.

Sometimes it spooks people a bit when they see it move suddenly. :)