Book Review: Catherine Visual & Scenario Collection ♀VENUS☆MODE♂

This is the visual guide for the horror puzzle-solving video game called Catherine developed by Atlus. It's a 160-page paperback with all the text in Japanese. The Japanese title of the book is キャサリン 公式ビジュアル&シナリオコレクション　♀VENUS☆MODE♂.

I like the cover with its striking pink colour and the character Catherine as illustrated by character designer Shigenori Soejima (副島成記).

The first chapter collects beautiful fullpage splash art. The style of art is nice and the use of colours is interesting, especially the yellow and pink.

Second chapter is the entire dialog script for all the days, including the good, bad and true endings. There are also dialogs with miscellaneous characters. This obviously is the spoiler section so you should only go through this after the game.

The third chapter has all the character profiles for the main and side characters. There are commentary on character personalities and how they were designed.

The next chapter is on the world design which includes Vincent's room, the different locations visited, the alternate world where the sheepmen and puzzles are, and the enemies. The puzzle design was actually inspired by some Rapunzel game where the prince has to run up bricks to save the princess in the castle.

The last chapter features the concept art of the characters and environment. I find it strange the art in this section wasn't grouped together in the earlier chapters. The concept art are mainly character designs. There aren't any concept art for puzzle stages.

The book ends with interviews with the producer/game director Hashino Katsura (橋野桂) and Shigenori Soejima.

This is a great visual companion to the game. It's filled with information and beautiful graphics.

Since the book is quite heavy on text, it's more worthwhile to get the book if you know Japanese. Hopefully, there will be an English edition in the future.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon Japan | cdjapan.co.jp | play-asia.com | yesasia.com

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Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon Japan | cdjapan.co.jp | play-asia.com | yesasia.com

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Here's the Amazon Japan buying guide for your reference.