This is an extremely long post, so incoming wall of text.

TLDR Version: I enjoyed Catherine immensely because I felt like it did a lot of things that video games should do right with it's gameplay and story. The gameplay was a good break from the bar sections and I did enjoy the puzzles. The gameplay was given a good incentive to move forward and continue trying to instead of demanding to make the next checkpoint. The story was believable and had reasons for the setup and the responses from the characters. The characters all felt like they were well developed and given real personalities instead of suffering from the stereotypes that some of them were modeled after. They had reasons to be how they were, and the narrative allowed to explore them by showing you the way the acted to Vincent and how they acted towards themselves in the dream sections, and I thoroughly enjoyed how the game made the narrative feel player bound. That it presents choices with weight and showed how those player made choices changed the way the narrative played out. It made the player feel connected to the narrative instead of simply showing them hey this happened.

I enjoyed the hell out of that game. I might actually pick it as game of the year 2011. I never really played a game quite like it. They tried something new and it payed off, in my opinion. The storyline was fantastic and interesting. I couldn't put the game down til the end....and then played it again a few more times.

I'm not that big of a puzzle gamer, but I found the puzzles in Catherine to be very challenging and rewarding. The only complaint I have with it is it seemed to get a certain ending it all just depended on a few choices you make near the end of the game.

I loved the game and I agree with you on practically all the reasons you point out.

Though the game didn't get much love and I think it was a mixture of the anime sexual themes turning a lot of people off and also the fact that it is a "puzzle" game. Both those things don't reach a large audience these days.

For those that did try that game, I feel they felt got more out of it then they expected.

Of course I knew I would love the game because I have large range of interests, plus I am an Atlus fan.

The puzzles are fun and challenging, the story was more interesting a relatable then I thought it would be, and it came with some fun extra's and a great art style.

A great game all in all, and I think more people should try it out! :)

I thought Cathrine was AMAZING. It was a breath of fresh air in the gaming industry in my opinion! The characters were round, the Story was unique, the interaction between characters did not disappoint, and the the "actual" gameplay was fun (and frustrating sometimes lol). This game is a big yes a worth replaying for ALL endings.

Loved the story and characters, hated gameplay. Played thought it in one go (12h red bull fuelled marathon) i like Cathrine everything else about it so superb that i can easily overlook gameplay part that i don't like.

I'm only just playing now. I'm enjoying the story, and it's the first game I've seen to approach the idea of relationships from this angle. That said, I'm finding the puzzle difficulty frustrating. I've knocked it down to easy, so I can experience the story without grinding my teeth down to the gums.

It's fantastic.
I played a hella-ton of games in 2011, but not a single one was quite like it. Hell, I can't really think of a game that's like it period. Sure it had it's hellishly frustrating moments, but they made triumph all the sweeter. And once you pop the game in a begin to get into it's story, it's impossible NOT to beat it. It's just that compelling.

Catherine is a prime example of a let down for me. I was there when it was announced, I'd been following every single bit of info I could on the game, downloaded both the Japanese and US demo, hell I'm even in one of the trailers. Put simply, I hadn't been this excited for a game in a long long time.

But when the game actually arrived, I didn't play it that day...didn't play it the next day either. Just kept not playing it, and when I finally did, something weird happened. I wasn't having fun. Sure, I was enjoying the story and the puzzles were a neat challenge. But I just wasn't having any fun.

That's not to say I think it's a bad game, and it might be my own fault for overhyping the game in my own mind, but when it came time to take the gloves off and release the game unto me...I just wasn't enjoying myself.

Still, if there's one thing I am really happy about, it's how successful the game was, and how many people actually did enjoy it.

Was only just released here yesterday. I'm enjoying it the controls is kinda annoying for me. The amount of times I had to restart a level due to the guy pushing when I wanted him to pull was ridiculous. But it's addictive and fun.

I'm only about halfway through (at the ice block part)

My take on it is this:
The puzzles are great.
The bar parts are fantastic.
The cutscenes are ATROCIOUS!

I honestly hate Vincent. I literally have to pause the game at least 3 times per cutscene just to facepalm at him. IMO, he deserves every bit of misfortune that befalls him (minus the nightmares of death. No one deserves that).

So yeah, I hate the story, but love the gameplay. I think overall it's a decent game.

loved it played through it a few times
though I only played the Japanese version so I can't really talk about the difficulty or the voice overs ^^

I had enjoyed the game dood. My only issue was after playing the game once you didn't need to watch the story again because so very little changed from one choice to another in terms of dialogue and narrative. The gameplay itself was kind of silly to me being a rabid fan of the Persona series but I must admit I played the hell out of it and enjoyed the puzzles dood.

Personally, it was the worst game I played in 2011. It's absolutely terrible.

The "relationships" are completely hyperbolic and caricatures of anything resembling a real relationship. You choices are wanton sex with no responsibility or an ice-cold, no-nonsense battle axe. Yes, Atlus, because all women are either or, right?

The voice work was God-awful, they got the same ten people you hear do the V/O for every cut-rate anime and hentai.

Vincent as a character was a complete tool. He's a petulant man-child who never, never made the right decision. The "choices" you made for him lacked any real nuance or impact. In fact, it's a case of Japan segregating the story and gameplay. Them impact of your moral conundrum is resolved through basically unrelated survey questions.

The story makes no sense in the beginning, starts to make sense, and then ends making no sense. The morality was handled so badly that I just ended up taking the route that got me the most side-boob, because you're so shoehorned into the situation. You don't get to decide whether or not Vinnie the Moron cheats, that's done for you. You don't really get what he's going to say, that's done for you. You just have to salvage this crap. The game shoehorns me into cheating, then asks me what I'd do? Herp-a-freaking-derp, guys, I would not cheat in the first place. Honestly, I get that they needed to move the crappy plot along, but just to have it happen for no real reason (see back to the nonsensical plot) is just stupid. It takes all the weight out of it, if it's already happened. You choices are clean up the shit, or I'm already in it.

The gameplay, is probably the best part, but it's handled so terribly there's no reason to play it again. The puzzles were challenging, but a lives system was just freaking stupid. They know it's stupid too because they made it easy to spam x99 lives from pillows and checkpoints really early on. Seriously, a lives system. What? So I can just go back to the title screen and reload my last save? That's not doing anything but wasting my time. I can do without that archaic piece of trollop.

Ultimately though, the puzzles are unintuitive... they don't really build on your mastery more correctly. Usually you imply a later technique all of once, and you need about four techniques to get through the majority of it. The levels, especially bosses, break down into tedious games of trial and error; and if that's the way you have to beat it 9 times out of 10 you've failed in my book.

Cathrine is a terrible game. It's absorbed in how cleaver it thinks it is, but anime cutscenes and puzzle mechanics that are barely related to the story (ooh, they're dream sequences, except it's a communal dream... ooh). The bar scenes were just unrelated filler, with a mini-game that is the game, what the heck? I didn't even know you could save the bar patrons and I talked to them obsessively and their dream sheep counterparts. I never managed to save one, you think I would have. Other than that Vincent is a barely functioning alcoholic, which the game encourages!

It's a poorly executed jumble of separate pieces that's just lame, uninteresting, and grinding.

It was the worst 2011 release by a substantial margin. There's seriously nothing good about it. I would go into it further, but Inkidu already did(thanks, mate). No sense beating a dead horse. I'd just like to add that the Japanese can't write a convincing love story worth a shit. They might want to stop basing their entire society around the hatred of women if they want to remedy that. Either that, or they could just write gay love stories. They'd be awesome at that, and I'd probably play a game about two yakuza bosses falling in love or something.

Raika:
I'd just like to add that the Japanese can't write a convincing love story worth a shit.

Almost as if... different cultures have different expectations for love stories? Shit, man, next thing you'll be telling me they speak a different language in Japan, too.

Well it is no doubt something unique, but not something I like to play.
Anime romance drama... dear god I'd rather eat a bullet, and the gameplay was pretty horrific.
But if you want to get girls into gaming this is pretty much the ideal start, with all the drama they demand how could they ever resist.

I disliked the game immensely. My review is basically a mirror image of Inkidu's. I enjoyed the puzzles for personal taste reason; once you do enough of those types of push/pull block puzzles for your puzzle-inept parents in their games, you start to like them. I enjoyed the art direction, as I watch a lot of anime and it's rubbed off on me.

The characters ruined it for me, utterly and completely. See Inkidu's review above.

Kahunaburger:

Raika:
I'd just like to add that the Japanese can't write a convincing love story worth a shit.

Almost as if... different cultures have different expectations for love stories? Shit, man, next thing you'll be telling me they speak a different language in Japan, too.

I'm sorry that 'good writing' is a universal concept that doesn't alter when subjected to the confines of nationality. I'm equally sorry that Japanese culture is so steeped in misogyny that their idea of a love story typically consists of a headstrong woman being 'put in her place' by a dominant male figure. That's not a love story, that's just woman-bashing horseshit, and I'm not afraid to say that yes, Japanese culture is disgusting disrespectful toward women. Defend it if you want, but that's still a country where rape is considered a lesser offense than petty larceny.

My take on Catherine would be: Teasing is not nice :P

Raika:
I'm equally sorry that Japanese culture is so steeped in misogyny that their idea of a love story typically consists of a headstrong woman being 'put in her place' by a dominant male figure.

http://www.ferretbrain.com/articles/article-563

I generally don't see this as a thing with Japanese stuff in particular. The difference is when it happens in a western country, we say "lol, bad writing" and when it happens in Japan we say "lol, Japan." See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_attribution_error

Also, fun fact: Catherine is less a story about love in general and more a story about particular relationships between particular characters and how the SMT Order-Chaos dynamic plays out in that context.

i fuckin loved it, a game for the fuckin ages for sure and a nice break from a franchise mode from a sports game. best story ive ever seen out of a game. i just adored it from beginning to end. my fav game of 2011

I loved the game and was quite glad I pre-ordered it. The puzzles were difficult, but a blast to play through. One of the better games of 2011 for sure.