Pallindromemordnillap said:
If the game treats the male characters so badly isn't it misandristic (?) rather than misogynistic? Or is the game just overall misanthropic?
Mostly this. The point is that (minor spoiler) the whole thing is not "divine righteous punishment". There's a bit of a Freudian reason it's all going on.
One of the things that often comes out of Atlus games that I like is "just because the supernatural is more powerful and tough to understand, doesn't mean that they're incapable of doing something stupid for a stupid reason".
I mean how many games have you seen where the all-powerful god character has issues and doubts? Usually it's either "I'm the Big Good and I benevolently watch over you" or "I'm the Big Bad and will erase you for whatever reason".
So, if you haven't guessed, I really enjoyed Catherine despite its missteps in both gameplay and story. The message got through: relationships are ****ing complicated.
Also I'm a bit tired of the Q-Bert analogy. I mean it's one thing if Yahtzee does it, but *actual* reviews have done it, too, and all you have to do is play both games to realize that only on bare aesthetics are the games connected. The actual gameplay is completely different, which leads me to believe that said reviewers haven't played one or more of the two games in question.