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Just like a nightmare.note 
Vincent: Have you ever had a dream where you... died?
Katherine: You mean, like... where you're in danger?
Vincent: No, no, where you actually die. You're being killed, or something.
Katherine: No... I usually do the killing in my dreams.

Catherine is a Puzzle Game made by Atlus' Persona creative team, with animated cutscenes by Studio 4°C. It is available for PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One via backward compatibility, and PC via Steam.

Vincent Brooks is an average 32-year old guy in a stable but unremarkable long-term relationship with a woman named Katherine McBride. When Katherine begins to press him on the prospect of marriage, Vincent freaks out at the idea... and then suddenly meets a gorgeous and carefree girl called Catherine who could be his ideal woman.

As this is happening, Vincent starts to have strange nightmares in which he is wandering in a world of endless staircases and being pursued by... something. A number of men have been found dead with a look of sheer horror on their faces, and a popular rumor states that if you fall in a nightmare and don't wake up before you hit the ground, you will die in real life. Can Vincent sort out his increasingly catastrophic love life without hurting the people around him, or will he fall victim to his supernatural stalker first?

The game is an action puzzle game in which you climb a tower by pushing, pulling and climbing blocks. Several obstacles block and hinder you along the way, including other sheep and eventually boss characters.

Catherine also features a multiplayer mode called "Colosseum" where two players go head-to-head in a single action stage, each trying to make the other Ring Out. It's fun enough to have caught on with the Tournament Play crowd. No, seriously!

The game was released on February 17, 2011 in Japan, July 26, 2011 in North America, and February 10, 2012 in Europe. As of August 4, it had managed to break Atlus' previous launch records, cementing Catherine's place as their fastest-selling title in the US, with an impressive 200,000 units sold in just one week.

Has an official Novelization simply named Catherine: The Novel and a Prequel Light Novel under the title Catherine: The Mysterious Tale of Rapunzel, both released only in Japan in 2011. English Fan Translations can be found here and here.

An Updated Re-release titled Catherine: Full Body was developed for PlayStation 4 and Play Station Vita and released in Japan on February 14, 2019. The PS4 version was released in the West on September 3, 2019. It was brought to the Nintendo Switch on July 7, 2020. It adds a new character named "Rin" (short for, somewhat unsurprisingly, Qatherine), over 20 new animated Cutscenes, new sidequests, new Fanservice, new endings, over 500 total puzzle stages, a story mode difficulty, new toggleable gameplay mechanics, and a new Player Versus Player online mode. Paid DLCs (pre-installed on the Switch version) add 9 additional voice actress options for Catherine, the Horn-Rimmed Glasses, 8 playable characters for the Babel and Colosseum modesnote  and Joker from Persona 5 for the same modes, with special commentary from the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.

Notable on This Very Wiki for spawning its own Wild Mass Guessing page before it even got a works page.


The tropes have appeared. They're the killers. Do not die.

    open/close all folders 
    A-B 
  • Aborted Arc: On day 6 in Full Body:
  • Absurdly Short Level: The final puzzle section of the Spiral Corridor is a ten-storey wall. You start halfway up (and the bell's even in earshot from the get-go), so you basically have to ascend five blocks to reach the exit. Easier said than done, though, as the level lacks solid footing for block movement.
  • Abusive Parents: Todd's father (physical and emotional abuse) and Archie's mother (sexual abuse).
  • Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: This is how the sheep-men appear in the Nightmare world. Said accessories are used to identify them (Tie-Wearing Sheep, Sheep with Glasses, Sheep with Long Hair, etc.) and are one of the ways to recognize them in the real world.
  • Actor Allusion:
    • Michelle Ruff and Laura Bailey, who voice Katherine and Catherine characters in English, played the Lovers Arcana characters in the studio's previous Persona 3 and Persona 4 localizations.
    • The developers noted that Catherine's 11 voices for Full Body were selected from voice actresses who had played at least one role where they were cheating on their significant other.
  • Adaptational Alternate Ending: The Novelization provides an interesting if slightly confusing version when taking everything into account: The novel's ending takes elements from all three true endings of the original game: Vincent gets married to Catherine like he does in the True Catherine ending, the setting of the wedding takes place at the stray sheep among Vincent's friends like the True Katherine ending then Vincent gets money from Boss so he and Catherine can have a honeymoon in space similar to how he borrowed money from Boss then used it go to space in the True Freedom ending. Interestingly enough in Full Body there's an ending which while not entirely identical, contains several key elements similar to the ending of the novel (including aspects that were previously exclusive to the novel's ending such as Catherine becoming visible to everyone) with Vincent and Catherine getting married in the stray sheep among Vincent's friends making it a Ret-Canon Ending of sorts.
  • Accidental Murder: Katherine ends up accidentally murdering Catherine during a struggle. She reacts accordingly when she sees what happened. It's quickly revealed to just be a dream, but still.
  • Adapted Out: Not a person, but a beverage: in Full Body, Vincent can no longer order whisky at the Stray Sheep. Instead, he can order red wine, fitting in with the game's subtitle.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: Some of the achievements:
    • In the vanilla game, the achievements for listening to all pieces of trivia for each alcoholic drink are called "Sake Sensei", "Beer Baron", "Cocktail Connoisseur" and "Whisky Wiseman".
    • The descriptions for the achievements for helping out the Stray Sheep's patrons also feature alliterations: "Get Justin out of his jam", "Resolve Daniel's dilemma" and so on.
  • Adjective Animal Alehouse: The Stray Sheep.
  • Affair Hair: In a twist, Catherine (the other woman) finds Katherine's (the girlfriend) hair.
  • Afro Asskicker: Vincent, who has a variation of this as his defining trait to the other sheep. Midnight Venus' afro however, is leagues beyond the protagonist's.
  • All Just a Dream: The confrontation between the two K/Catherines, and Vincent saving Katherine from the nightmare world. See Yank the Dog's Chain below.
  • All There in the Manual: There are several points in the manual itself not mentioned in the game:
  • Almighty Janitor: The final boss is Boss, the bartender of Stray Sheep. Turns out he's one of the two responsible for the nightmares.
  • Amicable Exes: Vincent and Katherine can become this as of Full Body. In Rin's True Ending, Katherine will attend their wedding at the Stray Sheep bar along with Vincent's friends.
  • And Then John Was a Zombie:
    • And then Vincent becomes an Incubus in Catherine's true ending!
    • This is also part of Mutton/Dumuzid's backstory.
  • Animal Motifs:
    • Vincent and rams. He sprouts ram horns in the dreamworld and his dreams are filled with bipedal (and necktied) ones who are really other men stuck in the dreamworld. The game never lets up on the sheep motif, either; they mention their connection to dreams in symbolism ("counting sheep!"), the sheep in the nightmares are condescendingly called "lost lambs"note  by the voice in the confessional, the final boss is a giant head with a beard made of sheep, and so on.
    • To a lesser extent than the sheep, ants are symbolically used as well.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: The vanilla version of the game is practically known by the already masochistic community of ATLUS for its punishing difficulty. Thankfully, Full Body offers them Safety Mode, which erases the time limit to clear a level, removes all traps completely, and if you die, you won't automatically suffer a game over if you have no more lives to spare. For the extra relief, they've also added a support system that lets you fast forward to do puzzles automatically, or undo a mistake.
  • Arrange Mode: Full Body adds Remix Mode to spice up the gameplay for returning veterans. In Remix Mode, you now have special colored blocks that move in clusters of 4 or 5 block spaces, requiring a new mindset and strategy when considering block movement to progress in each level.
  • Art Major Physics: The tutorial voice tells Vincent that these blocks aren't normal; you can connect them just at their edges and they won't fall. Vincent wonders why the hell gravity doesn't pull them down, but this is dream logic, after all.
  • Ascended Extra: Astaroth/Isthar, who played minor roles in Shin Megami Tensei I, Shin Megami Tensei II, and Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon. This version serves as The Man Behind the Man, narrator, and, if you can beat Babel mode, love interest.
  • Ascended Meme/Shout-Out: One of the dialogue choices when talking to a Sheep is "The pregnancy was a lie?"
  • Astral Finale: The Bonus Level in Full Body, "Close Encounters", eventually takes place in outer space from Stage 3 onwards. This is also where Laser Blocks are introduced, which will fry Vincent to a crisp if he stands in front of them when they fire.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: ALL the bosses.
  • Babies Make Everything Better: Subverted. Not only does the announcement of Katherine's alleged pregnancy cause Vincent to freak out, he starts having nightmares where he's chased by a giant baby. This is combined with Chainsaw Good in a later nightmare.
  • Bad Liar: Good lord, Vincent. Especially jarring since his excuses get more and more unrealistic (like telling Catherine that Katherine's super-long, pale blonde hair came from his chest), but the girls don't confront him until later in the story. Although Catherine does lampshade it, and she probably knows more than she lets on, being a demon sent to tempt him and all.
  • Bait-and-Switch: An unintentional example in the English version—many players noticed that Toby and the Mysterious Voice very clearly share the same voice actor, and predicted Toby would end up being the foreshadowed mastermind. However, this really was just a casting choice—there is no connection between the characters.
  • Bar Full of Aliens: The Rin True Ending has has Vincent and his friends watching Rin play piano in a bar full of different aliens.
  • Betty and Veronica: Katherine is the mature, steady, Betty type. Catherine is the immature, adventurous, Veronica type.
  • Betty and Veronica Switch: In Full Body, the new endings for Katherine and Catherine. Katherine's new ending has her yearning for a free life, no longer chained down; this leads to her having a number of wealthy admirers and seemingly rejecting Vincent. Katherine also decides to emphasize her looks more with shorter more stylised hair, a makeover and a revealing red dress. Catherine's new ending has her turning away from her life as a succubus by going back in time to give Vincent a better life but to also be by his side supporting him from high school all the way to getting married several years later and having 4 kids. Catherine's new look has her wearing less makeup, letting her now long blonde hair down and wearing a white dress.
  • Big Damn Heroes: On Rin's Day 8 in Full Body, the real Rin uses a portal to rescue Vincent from a murderous Catherine. However, the portal they escape through takes them to The Cathedral, where Vincent and Rin are forced to evade the now-monstrous Catherine on their way to the top.
  • Bishie Sparkle: Midnight Venus.
  • Bisexual Love Triangle: Katherine/Vincent/Rin. And Catherine/Vincent/Rin, in some routes in Full Body.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The "Bad" endings are really more along the lines of this than anything else. Vincent does not get the girl of his choice, he ends up single again, and will likely go through the usual post-breakup depression. But his friends are there to catch him, he's still free to get his life back on track, and he can at least sleep again. Even Trisha points out that they could be considered "good" endings for Vincent, since maybe the girl and life he was leaning toward was really not right for him anyway.
  • Bizarre Puzzle Game: The game's about moving blocks around to climb a tall tower comprised of them, while struggling with fears surrounding relationship problems and infidelity. It's a little difficult to class this game into an established genre more specific than "block puzzle game".
  • Bland-Name Product: A book on Vincent's shelf is called "Harlly Porter".
  • Booze-Based Buff: The more hammered Vincent is by the time he leaves the bar, the faster he runs during the Nightmare levels. As a nice cosmetic bonus, finishing your drink gives you trivia about that type of alcohol; cocktails, beer, sake, or whiskey. And best of all, taking a drink uses no time in the bar segments, so you're free to get all four pieces of trivia every time.
  • Boss Warning Siren: "The (boss name) has appeared. It's the killer. Do not die."
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall and/or No Fourth Wall:
    • Trisha introduces and concludes the game to the player, and beyond that, the text messages Vincent receives from her are actually for you (Vincent thinks they're spam), and when Astaroth says it has many names and faces and will see you again in another place, it's actually Trisha talking to the player again.
    • Beating the final Babel stage essentially lets the player hook up with Trisha, aka Ishtar the Goddess of Love, and become a god him/herself. No, not Vincent: You.
  • Brick Joke:
    • An unusual All There in the Manual example: Katherine likes cake. This doesn't seem significant until she actually gives a cake to Vincent as a present. However, that same cake ends up rotting in the room a few days later, and ants end up crawling all over Vincent's dorm. Catherine, who somehow slept with Vincent again, questions why does Vincent have a cake after they clean up the mess. This causes a chain of incidents that lead to Vincent being suspected of cheating.
    • A women's wrestling match is mentioned on the first night at the Stray Sheep, and becomes a betting point in the Freedom ending.
    • In Full Body, the long showers Rin enjoys. The first shower was too cold, prompting Vincent to tend to Rin and teach Rin how to fix the temperature. Should Vincent choose to romance Rin, this would lead to them bonding over his helping with the temperature of the shower. Later as the game progresses, Rin takes another shower but the water gets too hot and Rin passes out, prompting Vincent to go help and there it is revealed that Rin is actually male.

    C-D 
  • Catherine Knows Where You Live: Justified, due to her being a succubus, and has the ability to teleport to anywhere. She doesn't do this in front of the camera, but, towards the ending, she can randomly appear right next to Vincent.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Vincent can't spit anything out. For most of the game, the Karma Meter has an effect on his inner thoughts... while he just stammers and stutters out loud.
  • Captain Obvious: The disembodied voice warning you about the boss. "(Boss Name) has arrived. It's the killer. Do not die." Yeah, thanks.
  • Catchphrase
    Justin: "It's the truth."
  • Color Motif: Vincent is associated with the color pink, as shown by his pink t-shirt, his pink boxers, and the pink bar he attends. The color is used to reflect his love life as Vincent is stuck between 2 women and can't decide if he's ready to settle down and grow up. The color is also used to reflect his childishness as the story is about Vincent coming of age and accepting that he needs to take responsibility for himself and not make Katherine feel like she has to push him in every step of their relationship.
  • Coming of Age Story: The late bloomer variety. The plot is about Vincent struggling with taking responsibility for himself and making that big step into his adulthood by taking risks and making commitments.
  • Central Theme: Being an adult means having to face up to your responsibilities, and to the consequences of your actions.
  • Chainsaw Good: At the start of Rin's 8th day, Catherine gets a chainsaw and tries to kill Katherine with it. She also attacks Vincent at one point, who uses a crowbar to defend himself from both women.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The space tourism discussions, for the True Freedom route.
  • Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends: Different versions depending on your route.
    • Should you choose Katherine, Catherine is basically written off as an "Illusion" by Boss.
    • Should you choose Catherine, Vincent admits that he felt his life and his relationship with Katherine was more just him doing what society expects of him.
    • Should you choose the single/freedom route, Jonny's backstory reveals he's been in love with Katherine since high school, and now that Vincent's out of the picture, his only reason to not pursue a relationship with her is gone, although it is implied that she turned him down.
    • In Full Body, if you get the True Rin ending, Jonny finds his soulmate, an alien during a Rin piano concert in space and they are shown to get married at the same time as Vincent and Rin. In another new ending, when Catherine goes back in time with Vincent so they can be together since high school, several years later, at Catherine and Vincent's wedding, Katherine is shown together with Paul in the new timeline, who was previously shown to be dead and is briefly mentioned at the start of the story.
  • Classic Cheat Code Shout-Out: JUSTIN BAILEY!!! Can we see Samus in a bikini now?!
  • Climb, Slip, Hang, Climb: An integral part of the gameplay.
  • Closet Key: Rin is this for Vincent, who didn't know he was bisexual/pansexual prior to meeting him.
  • Comedic Underwear Exposure: Mutton mocks you on this when you reach the Emperio:
    Mutton: I can see you, boy. You and your underpants!
  • Creator's Culture Carryover:
    • Vincent's apartment is absolutely teeny. While Japanese apartments are that small, American ones typically are much more spacious. Furthermore, he has posters with kanji written on them. Not to mention the ring-shaped bulbs in his ceiling light, which are more identifiable with Japan.
    • A sushi restaurant with a conveyer belt, which while common in Japan are very rare Stateside. Not implausible if they live in a major city on the West coast.
    • At one point, during an optional text conversation with Catherine if you tell her not to bother you, she will eventually reply with "You're so boring!", followed by a rather Japanese emoticon. This isn't to say that Japanese-style emoticons aren't uncommon in the US; stuff like "^_^" and ">_<" get used fairly regularly. You will rarely, if ever, find someone using the one in the picture, though.
    • In one of the cutscenes, it is very noticeable that Vincent and Katherine leave their shoes at the door entrance; this is a Japanese custom that doesn't see much use in America.
    • Characters specifically go on about women's wrestling, and the WrasslInsanity PPV seems to be a women's-only show. In Japanese pro wrestling, men and women generally perform in seperate promotions, but in the States, unisex leagues are far more common.
    • One of Mutton's motivations for the nightmares is the low birth rate of "this country". While it's well-documented that Japan's birth rate (and population numbers in general) has been in a steep decline for decades, population growth is far less of a problem in the United States. Based on the True Freedom ending it's possible that this is not even on Earth but an entirely different planet meaning the low population rate could very well be a major problem for the "country" or the whole planet.
    • When Vincent is describing Catherine on the phone he describes her as "she's white", like being Caucasian is unusual for the area.
  • Creepy Child: The Child. Especially, The Child with a Chainsaw..
  • Creepy Twins: Martha and Lindsay. Unnatural speaking patterns? Speaking in unison? Seem to inexplicably know something about the dreams men are having? Check, check, check. However, they do buck the usual trend of this trope; they're old ladies rather than little kids.
  • Cross Counter: In Full Body, Catherine and Katherine respectively do a chainsaw and axe variant during one of Vincent's nightmares. Catherine emerges victorious.
  • Crucified Hero Shot: A picture in the confessional shows Vincent on a cross, surrounded by sheep. As the game progresses, this picture shows more and more sheep gathered around the cross, making rather obvious implications about Vincent's role among the sheep.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Joker from Persona 5 has his own stage, Tower of Babel, as a DLC for Full Body. The cut scene at the end is also a Mythology Gag, where he is specifically warned at Leblanc not to get "too carried away" with his "girl problems", referencing the infamous Valentine's Day scenario where all the girls he's romanced will confront him about cheating.
  • Death by Irony: The Merchant Sheep. He believes that if he can collect enough coins, he'll be able to buy his freedom from the tower. Eventually, his sack of coins gets too heavy to carry and he falls off the tower while climbing.
  • Death Glare: Katherine gets at least one.
    Katherine: If you're going to make excuses, you could at least look me in the eye.
    [Scare Chord]
  • Denser and Wackier: Full Body contains more zany scenes compared to the original.
  • Devil in Plain Sight: Catherine keeps passive-aggressively inserting herself into Vincent's life. He keeps waking up with her in his bed, even if he told her "no." He has no memory of the nights they supposedly spend together. This could either scream "Catherine is a soul-stealing succubus" or "Catherine is a stalker who keeps drugging Vincent into submission," but either way, she's clearly bad news. And as it turns out, the first one is technically the right answer.
  • Did Not Get the Girl: A possible outcome of the story has Vincent simply walk away from Catherine and Katherine altogether. Rather than a Downer Ending, it's a personal liberation for him. He asks Boss for a loan to start a new life and places it on a women's wrestling match — if he wins, he uses the winnings to buy a ticket on a space colony ship; if he loses, he has a good laugh at the Boss' expense after all the shit he put him through and laughs and drinks the rest of the night away with his friends.
  • Difficulty by Region: In the Japanese version, the "easy patch" can be toggled on and off after installing it, while in the American version, it is permanently on. In addition, the "Undo" move is available on "Normal" difficulty in America, but not Japan.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?:
    • The game employs a lot of this, but then the Nightmare Sequences give several interesting points. One is the fact that Vincent's horns are eerily similar to a specific being. Two is the matter of how Vincent is running away from the depths of the Nightmare, while something is chasing him. The ram horns could be related to the Satyr, who was a symbol for lust and hedonism, and would chase wood nymphs daily.
    • The entirety of the Nightmares are also a major allusion to the levels of Hell, since as you go up the tower, the sanctuaries get cleaner, holier, and more whole, alluding to the fact that you are climbing your way out of hell.
  • Dont Touch Me: In Full Body, Vincent says this after Rin's Unsettling Gender-Reveal. He immediately regrets it afterwards.
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: There is a scene where Vincent is getting a serious beating from Catherine and his friends just laugh it off and ignore it. Subverted, when it turns out that as far as they knew, Vincent was alone and was just making weird noises.
  • Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Catherine and Vincent's "relationship" basically begins with Date Rape. Okay, so you could argue that Vincent's first drunken hookup with Catherine was consensual, since they might have both been smashed at the time. Except for the little fact that he can't remember it in the morning. Nor can he remember any of their other sexual encounters either. And by the end, we realize it definitely wasn't spontaneous on Catherine's part.
    • This is subverted in the case of Archie, which is displayed to be unsettling.
    • Also, the double standard is mitigated somewhat by The Reveal near the end of the game that Catherine is an illusionary succubus, sent to tempt Vincent as part of a scheme by Boss/Thomas Mutton/Dumuzid, so from a certain point of view, Vincent's sexual encounters with Catherine were not real.
  • Downer Ending: Bad Cheater. Vincent loses Catherine, his friends think he's insane, and then he gets hit by a truck.
  • Downloadable Content: Full Body has DLC packs that add various cosmetics.
    • First-print copies come with a pack that allows you to play as Joker from Persona 5 in Babel and Colosseum. When playing as Joker, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts will serve as Mission Control and commentate over the action, and music from Persona 5 is set over the game.
    • The "Ideal Voice" pack in the Japanese version includes 9 additional voices for Catherine on top of the on-disc tracks by Miyuki Sawashiro and Mamiko Noto, allowing you to change Catherine's voice into any of 11 variations. Every single voice track is fully voiced, including cutscenes.
    • The "Nero Glasses" set allows Vincent to wear a bizarre pair of glasses, which causes every other character to be shown in their undergarments (with a handful of exceptions).
  • Dramatic Irony: No characters remember things between the Nightmares and the waking world. They only remember that they've had nightmares, but no details. Of course, the audience has no such handicap.

    E-F 
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Vincent first appeared in the PlayStation Portable remake of Persona 3, complaining of Nightmares.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Naturally, given the fact that the game has Multiple Endings. If you helped them, Daniel, Todd, Justin, Archie, and Morgan also earned their happy endings.
  • Earth All Along: The True Freedom ending shows that the game's actually set on another planet.
  • Easier Than Easy:
    • The American version has the aptly named "Super Easy"; curiously, it is somewhat hidden and requires a simple code to use.
    • In Full Body, the Safety difficulty fulfils this role. Not only are the puzzle layouts identical to "Easy", but there's no time limit, infinite retries, and you can even have the game play the level for you.
  • Enemy Within: Shadow of Vincent.
  • Erotic Eating: One early image shows Catherine eating a slice of pizza in a very.. .seductive manner.
  • Escort Mission: Stage 8 (The Cathedral) requires you to bring along Katherine (or Rin if on Rin's Route in Full Body). It's an extremely simple level aside from her presence; she is, however, slower than Vincent, and her AI can easily get her into untenable positions, as she will not move blocks and not be able to perform techniques. Although, her sporadic movement makes perfect sense: she's in a situation she clearly has no knowledge of. There's also the fact that Catherine impaled herself with a knife while she was on top of Katherine, and that was not a pretty sight to see... and is now trying to eat them.
  • Everybody Smokes:
    • Almost everyone in the cast smokes. The only nonsmoker of the onscreen cast is Katherine.
    • This is also part of what, despite the Americanized names, throws off both the localization and the 20 Minutes into the Future setting — everyone is smoking indoors, and most bars, restaurants, and quite a few living spaces in the US legally ban indoor cigarette smoking as of The New '10s.
  • Evil Makes You Monstrous: The sheep who go insane in the Nightmares slowly start to look different from the other sheep, with long horns, different body shapes, and gray wool.
  • Eyes Do Not Belong There: The second boss, the Immoral Beast, is a deformed human torso with eyes (and a nose) on its ass.
  • Fake Difficulty: Suddenly obtains it in Stage 9, the Empireo in the form of Luck Based Stages. Mystery blocks are added that can turn into any of the other block types when you step on it and it's completely randomized, so it can ruin your entire progress. Have fun stepping on one, your heart hammering in hopes of it turning into any block type than the Black Hole or Spike ones!
    • Though undoing your move and stepping on the block again until it's something you like is still entirely possible.
  • Fake Pregnancy: Katherine claims to be pregnant as a Secret Test of Character for Vincent after she realizes he cheated on her. In a variation, she honestly believed she was pregnant at least initially, but still only told him the truth later.
  • First Girl Wins: Choosing Katherine results in this. Toby also believes in this literally, saying he plans on marrying the first girl he falls in love with.
  • Flashback: Full Body features some scenes from Vincent's past with Katherine and his friends, Orlando, Jonny and Erica.
  • Flying Saucer: The Rin True Ending ends with one flying by.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Fairly early in the game, Catherine says that she has to go to the dentist. One of the first sheep Vincent meets in the nightmare world is called Steve, who has also fallen victim to Catherine. His profession is a dentist.
    • Talking to Justin in the bar during Day 2 has him mention during his research about the nightmare cycles that there was a man who survived the cycles that was granted a wish. He muses if one survivor wished for eternal youth, he may still be around.
    • A not so distant example happens later: While Catherine is beating up Vincent, you hear loud punches and slams, along with Vincent's screams of agony. Then, when the scene shifts to Orlando and Toby, all you hear is Vincent. The next day, you find out that only Vincent can see her.
    • No one ever interacts with Catherine in the bar, other than Vincent ( and one casual remark she made to Boss). We later find out that she's Invisible to Normals, hence why she was never bothered despite being a flirty Ms. Fanservice.
    • If you talk enough to one of the bar patrons, Todd, in the nightmares he'll mention how his girlfriend randomly stabbed her food with a fork the night before Katherine does the exact same thing when talking to Vincent. He also mentions how he broke up with a woman because she was lying about being pregnant.
    • Also, just about all of Erica's friends know about her being transgender and obliquely reference it throughout the story.
    • In a more subtle example, the loading screen usually has quotes from well-known people in history about romance. One of the people who is quoted is Thomas Mutton, who unlike the rest, isn't a historical figure. Thomas Mutton is the real name of Boss, who is behind all of the nightmares.
    • The bar owner mentions that he's cheated on his wife and is currently on poor terms with her even though he still loves her but for some reason you never see him as a sheep with the rest of the people you meet at the bar. In retrospect it's a big hint that he's the one making you go through the nightmares.
    • In Full Body, a rumor starts up that anyone who listens to Rin's piano music will be granted happiness. In Rin's True Ending, it's revealed that their music has the ability to slow nightmares and open the listeners' minds to new possibilities and opportunities.
    • Erica is very supportive of Rin right from the start, especially considering they'd only just met. She invites her over to participate in the group's discussions, most prominently the subject of same-sex relationships. She's also Vincent and Rin's biggest Shipper on Deck if you decide to go with their relationship. She knew Rin was male the entire time, and as a trans woman, likely understood the kinds of struggles Rin would face being a person whose gender identity doesn't match outside assumption and whose body differs from their presentation if that fact was discovered. This foreshadowing is doubly important if the player is unaware that Erica is trans; she's clearly trying to get Toby to be more receptive of the idea before her reveal.
    • In some of the earlier scenes, Rin has a recurring white feather motif, can see Vincent in his human form in the nightmares, and clearly remembers the nightmares. All three are hints that Rin is actually an angel. Just before starting Stage 4, the Mysterious Voice in the confessional even comments that Rin appears as a human and doesn't have to do any climbing, referring to them as some kind of overseer.
    • The first look inside Rin's apartment should raise a lot of questions. She has a big, fancy piano, a seemingly random assortment of toys, one spare outfit, blankets, a white feather... and nothing else. No bed; Vincent finds her sleeping under the piano. No food; there are boxes blocking access to her fridge and kitchen sink, and there's a disco ball sitting on her stove. No phone; Vincent gives her one and shows her how to use it. While her amnesia plays some factor into this, Rin being an alien posing as a human is the real cause.
    • If you continue to pursue Rin in your journey, a mysterious voice will ask you a question in your dreams about whether or not you should continue a relationship with someone despite them keeping secrets, and based on some of the answers, the mysterious voice will taunt you about Rin having a secret as well. Further foreshadowing that Rin is not only male but also an alien.
    Mysterious Voice: "Let me give you a friendly warning. That pianist is hiding a very big secret."
  • Four-Philosophy Ensemble: In terms of Vincent and his three bros. Orlando is the Cynic, Toby the Optimist, Jonny the Realist, and Vincent himself (unsurprisingly) the Conflicted.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: In terms of Vincent and his three bros. Toby is sanguine, Orlando is choleric, Jonny is melancholic, and Vincent is phlegmatic.
  • Framing Device: The Golden Playhouse, with your hostess, Trisha: The Midnight Venus. The whole thing plays out as if it's a TV series that shows late night movies, complete with opening and closing narration by Trisha. The story mode of Full Body is framed as a special episode retelling of the original game.
  • Friend Versus Lover: There is a question in the confessional that asks this. Choosing "Lover" leans you towards the Lawful side on the Karma Meter; choosing "Friend" leans you towards the Chaotic side.
  • Freudian Trio: Vincent's Love Interests can act as this.
    • Id: Catherine; she's the Chaotic Yandere. She acts as Vincent's desire.
    • Superego: Katherine; she's the Lawful Control Freak. She acts as Vincent's responsibility.
    • Ego: Qatherine "Rin"; she's the Innocent The Klutz. She acts as Vincent's neutral between desire and responsibility.
  • From a Certain Point of View: From a certain point of view, Vincent never actually cheated on Katherine. Catherine was an illusion and they never really had sex; Catherine simply used her powers to make Vincent think he was cheating. This explanation ultimately pushes Katherine to take Vincent back after the breakup if you pick the Katherine ending, even though Vincent will admit that in his heart, he really was cheating on her.
  • Funny Afro: Midnight Venus. You could lose a beachball in that thing!

    G-I 
  • Gainax Ending: The Rin route, in which the True Ending ends with Vincent and his friends attending Rin's dinner party. With aliens. In space.
  • Gambit Pileup: A small-scale one.
    • The Big Bad, Boss/Thomas Mutton/Dumuzid, is trying to weed out men who won't do their duty for the continuation of the species. To that end, he sets up as a bartender and convinces a succubus he knows to find men who are single or on the verge of infidelity, who he then traps in the Nightmare till they either recommit to their relationship or die and leave only men who will commit to the continuation of the species. As for why this doesn't quite make sense? Well, he's also cheating on his wife, Ishtar, who's not happy about it. More on that later.
    • Catherine, the above-mentioned succubus, goes to Vincent and seduces him, but also falls in Yandere love with him, leading her to attempt to Murder the Hypotenuse. The attempted murder is soon revealed to be a dream of Vincent's although there are unanswered questions as to her involvement in the prank messages and calls Katherine apparently received.
    • Katherine, Vincent's girlfriend, knows about the affair the whole time, and first tries to take advantage of her pregnancy (which she later found out was a false alarm) to tie Vincent back to her and plans to seize control of his finances because she's implied to consider him too irresponsible (as Vincent doesn't stop wasting his money on cigarettes, booze and newer models of electronic devices, even when he's barely got any money left in his bank account). Later, she decides to cut her losses and break up with him (which is when she also reveals to him that she was never really pregnant).
    • In Full Body, Rin is from a race of Angelic Aliens who oversee and guide mankind. They're sent to investigate and put an end to the Nightmare, but undergoes amnesia to better blend in and socialize with humans. The amnesia causes more problems than it solves, as Rin is left rather naive and defenseless. It's not until they help Vincent and the other sheep through the Nightmare that they regain their memories. Rin falling in love with him was never part of the mission, but they end up far stronger for it. Despite being aware of their origin and the threat to his plan, the Big Bad hires them to work at The Stray Sheep, and Catherine completely overlooks Rin until she realizes she's lost Vincent to them.
    • Vincent is, of course, unaware of all this intrigue. He's just someone whose relationship with his girlfriend is about to cross the point of no return, and who's terrified of it. Because of this, he runs headlong into Catherine's arms, which kicks off the plot. By surviving the nightmares, he's able to derail Boss' plan and decide for himself what he wants out of life.
    • Finally, this whole thing is being overseen by Trisha / Astaroth / the goddess Ishtar, who actually created the Nightmare to find someone worthy and willing to replace Dumuzid, who's been constantly cheating on her, as her husband. The framing device and Tower of Babel are her latest attempts at this, with her new target being the player. Not Vincent, the player.
  • Game Within a Game:
    • The arcade machine in the bar, which is eerily similar to the gameplay proper. Justified in that since the bartender is giving the block-climbing nightmares to the patrons of his bar, he put the game there to help them familiarize themselves with the nightmare world. Its rules are nearly the same as the nightmare game, except that instead of dealing with a time limit and enemies, you have limits on the number of block-pushes you can use. With 64 stages (and 64 more hidden stages after that), it's arguably big enough to be its own game.
    • Of course, this is a game within a game within a TV show. The dreams themselves are games within a dream within a TV show. That's Colon Cancer for you.
  • Giant Hands of Doom: The first boss is Katherine's hands, holding a giant fork.
  • A God Is You: Ishtar plans on turning you into her co-deity of love should you complete all four Babel Stages.
  • Godiva Hair: Catherine has this in an image (link NSFW) only unlocked after getting at least 5 Good/True endings. Notably, her hair suddenly gets much longer for it.
  • Golden Ending: If you choose the right dialogue options and make it through the Nightmare, you will have saved all the patrons of the Stray Sheep, who will have worked through their personal issues. Vincent himself will get married to the girl of his choice, or be able to fulfil his dream of going to space.
  • Goomba Stomp: You can knock down enemy sheep by falling onto them. You can also stand on Monster blocks to kill them, but the game does not tell you this.
  • Gratuitous English: Vincent's text message ringtone is "You got a mail!" Considering the names of the characters revealed so far, it's obvious nobody's actually speaking Japanese, but that means the ringtone should be in Japanese, too... right?
  • Gratuitous Japanese: The Inazuma technique (it means "lightning").
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: As mentioned by Trisha, the choice between Katherine and Catherine does not represent good and evil, as the two both have their merits and flaws. Catherine is physically abusive and pushy, while Katherine is controlling and overbearing, but they both genuinely love Vincent and want what's best for him. It depends on the player and their own sense of morality to choose what's best: Katherine, Catherine, or neither.
  • Growing Up Sucks: The game is basically all about facing the terrors of being an adult; commitment, responsibility, aging, parenthood, and so on.
  • Guest Fighter: A piece of DLC for Full Body adds Joker from Persona 5 as a playable character in Babel, complete with commentary from the other Phantom Thieves of Hearts.
  • Happily Married:
    • In one of the game's three "True" endings, Vincent and Katherine get married at the Stray Sheep and get a very cute Happy Ending. The "True Lovers" ending, specifically. Her "Good Ending" also implies this, but doesn't explicitly cover the wedding.
    • Vincent and Catherine get one of their own. Along with dozens of other succubi.
    • If their respective issues are worked through by the end of the game, Daniel and Anna elope, Justin states that he's worked up the nerve to propose to the woman he's dating, Todd vows to stop taking his wife for granted, and Archie decides to set this plus a family as his goal.
  • Have a Nice Death:
    • Falling from the tower presents you with a nice image of Vincent's corpse atop a stack of fallen blocks while a voice tells you to rest in peace. LOVE IS OVER indeed. Dying on the tower is kinder as at least Vincent goes up in a fine red mist.
    • Plus, when you run out of continues, you're treated to the lovely image of Vincent dead in the real world. Completely pale and with a look of absolute horror frozen on his face. And since this is an Atlus game, you'll be seeing it a lot.
  • Heroic BSoD: Vincent got one after Katherine dumped him.
  • Hell Has New Management: In Catherine's true ending, Vincent storms the hellish dimension where Catherine is from, dethrones her father (stated to be a very powerful demon himself, even if he is a Bumbling Dad), and rules over the succubi until, as Catherine states, "there is nobody who doesn't recognize your power". Damn.
  • Hellish Pupils: In a non-villainous example, whenever Vincent wakes up from the nightmares, his eyes are briefly seen as creepy sheep eyes.
    • In a straight villainous example, however, we have Boss, aka: Thomas Mutton, aka: Dumuzid. Instead of pupils, he has the arrow from the "Mars symbol" in his right eye, and the cross from the "Venus symbol" in his left. He also has orange, almost glowing, sclerae.
    • Also played straight in Vincent and Catherine's True Ending, where both of them have red eyes with slitted pupils.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Vincent and Orlando. Sometimes, they will discuss their life with each other while they are in neighboring stalls taking a shit, which Orlando even lampshades at one point.
  • Hidden Depths: Though he starts off pretty average, even the villains take notice of this about Vincent...
  • High-School Sweethearts: In Full Body, if certain conditions are fulfilled on the True Cheater route, Vincent and Catherine become this via Cosmic Retcon.
  • I Am a Humanitarian: Steve, who turns out to be the first Sheep Vincent meets in the Nightmares, is eaten alive by the above listed Enemy Within.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: Vincent can continue to romantically pursue Rin following his Unsettling Gender-Reveal, should the player choose this. While Vincent ultimately decides in-story that he doesn't think gender matters all that much after all, it's clear that Rin is the only person who's ever prompted Vincent to consider that he isn't straight.
  • Improbable Weapon: Vincent's pillow.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: Vincent, every single night! Fortunately, there's also a Booze-Based Buff.
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: When Vincent shakes down Boss, demanding to know if he saw Catherine or not, it was simply to find out if Catherine was really an illusion. Boss, thinking Vincent had figured out that he was the mastermind, gives his Motive Rant and spills the whole story to him.
  • In-Universe Game Clock: The sections taking place within the Stray Sheep cause time to pass as you talk to the other patrons, which results in people coming and going that you might miss the chance to talk with. Strangely, sitting around drinking, playing Rapunzel, watching TV, and getting up to wash your face don't affect the clock at all.
  • Interface Screw: The boss of Stage 3 spews hearts that reverse Vincent's controls if you don't take cover.
  • Interface Spoiler: A minor example. At one point, Vincent receives a furious phone call from a man who claims to be Catherine's boyfriend. There's a brief plot where Vincent tries to work out which one of his two lovers is having the affair, as Steve only ever says the name aloud and doesn't spell it (and both girls claim not to know anyone named Steve). However, the subtitles clearly show that Steve is referring to Catherine.
    • Full Body eases this up some. The first time the caller says it subtitles will use the "Q" name because that's who Vincent thinks he's talking about, only for him to confirm he doesn't know who Rin is. Then it shifts to the spelling that Vincent thinks he's talking about. He's correct about who Steve is talking about the second time, although in reality Catherine doesn't take the relationship as serious as Steve does.
  • Invisible to Normals: Catherine, since she is a succubus. They can only be seen by the humans they're seducing. Boss also can see her, thanks to being the person organizing the nightmares and using Catherine to judge who needs to be sent into them, which screws him up when a desperate Vincent is looking for some confirmation that Catherine existed and instead congratulated Vincent about finding out his role in the Nightmares.
  • Ironic Echo: Early in the game, Katherine puts two sugars in Vincent's coffee, saying that's the way he likes it. In the cutscene before The Cathedral, Catherine does the same, right in front of Katherine, too.
  • It's a Wonderful Failure: If you run out of lives, or opt to just quit the game after Vincent dies in a nightmare, you'll be treated to a cutscene depicting his corpse in bed, with his expression frozen in horror.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
    • Jonny, most likely, for Katherine, in the true end for the Lovers route.
    • Daniel talks about this during the Nightmare stages.

    J-M 
  • Jaw Drop:
    • A rather epic one pulled by Vincent on the morning after the 2nd night, when he finds Catherine's in his bed.
    • Also done routinely when he finds out something is chasing him. Or that Catherine was in his bed again.
  • Justified Tutorial: The various sheep compare notes on different block-pushing techniques to keep themselves from dying, and they fill in Vincent on what they come up with. Sometimes Vincent is the one who tells them.
  • Karma Meter: This seems to be in play, based on how you answer questions in the Nightmare section and how you respond to text messages in the Stray Sheep section. Which side the meter is on will affect Vincent's thoughts when dealing with Katherine or Catherine. The blue side of the meter is pro-marriage and commitment, while the red side of the meter is pro-freedom and passion. Full Body adds certain questions that will cause the meter to crack and warp if the right answers are chosen (representing a decision that's completely outside the scope of Order or Freedom); if this is done enough times, Rin's Route is opened after the 6th Day and will replace the normal route if taken.
  • Kick The Son Of A Bitch: You may feel bad about pushing the other sheep around or zapping them with the Grimoire. But the crazy, murderous sheep in the later levels? Not so much.
  • Large Ham: While Astaroth and Boss can get over-the-top, Dumuzid takes the cake with his special attack.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Exaggerated. The whole story of the game is that cheating men are subject to horrifying and insomniac nightmares where they must climb towers and escape physical manifestations of their own fears to survive in another day.
    • Vincent especially goes through a Trauma Conga Line of events due to his bad decision-making. This causes him to lose loved ones like Rin and Katherine.
  • Last-Second Ending Choice: A variation. Questions answered throughout the game affect your standing on the Karma Meter, but your actual ending is decided by your responses to the final 4 questions in the last stage. Depending on which you answer "yes" or "no" to, you'll be locked into either the Order, Chaos or Neutural ending. The variation comes with the fact that if you pick an ending that contradicts your Karma Meter (e.g. having mostly Chaos Karma but saying you prefer a life of stability), you'll get the Bad Ending version. So you do get to make a Last-Second Ending Choice, but if the game knows you aren't truly committed to it the ending won't be a good one.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: Vincent's cameo in the PSP port of Persona 3 received much hype when Catherine still was in production, talking to him will summarize some of his great frustrations in his own game, like how a girl suddenly made his life take a new turn (Catherine), and that his actual girlfriend (Katherine) is expecting his child.
  • Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Catherine is the Dark Feminine, while Katherine is the Light Feminine.
  • Likes Older Women: Toby. Quite enthusiastically, at that.
  • Limited Wardrobe: On two points.
    • The first is of the "closet full of the same" variety. Sometimes in Vincent's apartment, you'll see a hanger drying out his underwear. All pink-spotted boxers.
    • The second is of the "never change clothes regardless of the situation" variety. If you get the True Lover ending, you'll see Katherine and Vincent's wedding, with them dressed up, as well several anonymous wedding guests in formal wear. Then you see Vincent's friends in the same clothes they always wear. Even Toby is still in his work jumpsuit.
  • Local Hangout: The Stray Sheep which takes a whole new meaning when the Boss' real name is revealed.
  • Loophole Abuse: If you pick Katherine instead of Catherine, this is how Vincent manages to get Katherine to take him back after the breakup. See, Catherine is technically nothing but an illusion, in this realm at least, so she and Vincent technically never actually had sex... which means that technically, Vincent never actually cheated on Katherine! If it's the bad ending, Katherine doesn't swallow this, but if it's the Good or True ending, Vincent's friends show up to confirm that they never saw Catherine, and Boss/Thomas Mutton confirms that Catherine isn't from this realm and Vincent's screw-ups were the result of an illusion and artificial nightmares.
  • Lost in Translation: The title of the game is "Catherine", but in the Japanese version the name is spelled so it clearly refers to both Catherine and Katherine, making them both the eponymous character. note  In the English version, only Catherine's name is directly referred to by the title.
  • Luck-Based Mission:
    • Later levels have Mystery Blocks, which will transform into any other block type when stepped on. You could get a normal block, a meaningless change like a Monster Block (since you're always standing on them when they manifest, they die immediately), something annoying like an Ice Block, dangerous like a Spike Block, or you could get the worst luck ever and get a Black Hole Block.
    • One of the attacks of the Final Boss tags you with a curse that causes all non-normal blocks to transform into a different special block each time you pull a block. It can throw a wrench into your plans if, for instance, something transforms into a cracked block, but at the same time it could provide you with a spring block and let you skip parts of the level.
  • Man Behind the Man: The bartender is really a creature called Dumuzid who was the previous Man of Legends. He was able to climb to the pinnacle 100 years ago in Astaroth's game. The reason men are sent to the Nightmare World is that they refuse to populate the species and he sends out Catherine, a succubus, to test the worth of some of these men.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Catherine. Though quickly starts getting deconstructed in some really creepy ways.
  • The Many Deaths of You: All compiled with this one little video.
  • Meaningful Echo: Early in the game, Katherine asks Vincent how many years they've been together, and he can't remember. Later, after Vincent starts to realize just how much Katherine means to him, he asks himself the same question and remembers the answer: five years.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Katherine's surname is McBride. As if it wasn't obvious already that she was the Love Interest...
    • Boss, the final boss of the game. Not to mention his human alias is Thomas Mutton.
    • The "Full Body" subtitle for the Updated Re-release comes from its connection to wine, symbolizing a richer experience for players.
  • Meaningless Lives: It is common to find extra life items close to a check point. In easy and normal mode, each item give you 3 and 2 lives respectively, and they reappear each time. As a result, you are likely to end up with more lives than you started with no matter how many times you die. In hard mode, you get only one extra life per item, making lives meaningful again, as if it wasn't difficult enough.
  • Men Are the Expendable Gender:
    • The evil force behind the nightmares seems to think so, with all that this trope implies.
    • Lampshaded in one of the conversations you have with Justin; he postulates that in hundreds of years men will be extinct.
  • Mental Monster: The bosses represent various fears that Vincent experiences in his nightmares throughout the game. The story focuses on Vincent's relationship with his girlfriend Katherine, but things get muddled when he meets (and wakes up next to) Catherine. As he and other random men in the city struggle to keep climbing each night just to stay alive, Vincent is confronted by horrific amalgamations that represent his various fears such as committing to his relationship, losing his freedom by getting married, the unwanted possibility of being a father, the possibility that the child might not even be his, being confronted for cheating, and even his own insecurities with his obsessions with being a free man not being weighed down by a relationship. Since every man climbing has their own issues to overcome, they all experience different horrors.
  • Mirror Scare: If you wash your face in the bathroom of the Stray Sheep, the lights will flicker, the walls will drip with blood, and there will be a brief flash of that night's boss in the mirror.
  • Mistaken Confession: Thomas Mutton accidentally reveals their involvement in the nightmares, not realizing that Vincent just wanted confirmation that someone else had seen Catherine and that he wasn't crazy.
  • A Mistake Is Born: On day 3, Vincent unexpectedly finding out that Katherine is pregnant. This sort of revelation hits him like a truck, and it would with any other couple if they weren't planning on having kids (just yet).
  • Most Programmers Are Programmers: Our hero's job is implied to be a computer programmer.
  • Motif: Sheep are very prominent throughout the game as symbols for many different things: sleep, counting sheep, herd mentality, sheep who have gone astray, lambs to the slaughter. The big bad's name is Thomas Mutton. Mutton is sheep meat. He even has pajamas decorated with sheep.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Played straight with Catherine. Also justified, since she's really a succubus and her appearance is Vincent's personal ideal of Ms. Fanservice.
  • Multiple Endings: Nine endings total: eight of them for Golden Theater story mode and one for Babel mode.
    • Bittersweet Ending: The Good endings for each girl, where Vincent is in a happy relationship with them, but nothing is properly set in stone. The Freedom endings, where Vincent decides to not stay with either girl and bets some money on a wrestling match. Depending on the Karma Meter, Vincent will either lose or win the bet. If Vincent wins the bet, there's one more cutscene showing Vincent about to leave for a trip into space. One of the new endings of Full Body involves Katherine being signed with a fashion magazine and gaining a number of wealthy admirers. However, it also seems to indicate that she no longer wishes to be with Vincent but she does thank him for helping her live a more 'free life' and tells him to do the same.
    • Downer Ending: The Bad endings for each girl, where Vincent tries to get together with the girl, but she rejects him.
    • Happy Ending: The True endings for each girl, resulting in getting married to her. Full Body also adds some new endings: Catherine's new ending where she and Vincent go back in time to Vincent's high school gives Vincent a better life together with Catherine for several years before getting married at The Stray Sheep. Catherine and Vincent are then shown to have 4 kids in the post-credits images. Rin's true ending where he starts touring and playing piano throughout space with Vincent as his manager, they are then seen getting married in the post-credits images.
    • The ending of Novelization interestingly enough involves Merging the Branches of the true endings of the original game, with Vincent marrying Catherine in The Stray Sheep Bar before they leave to have a honeymoon in space.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Catherine goes after Katherine with a knife in the animated cutscene before Stage 8. It does not end well. Combine this with Crazy-Prepared, considering that Katherine, perhaps having the same thoughts, was backing up to Vincent's sink to go for the same knife, but Catherine reveals that she already had it.
  • Musical Spoiler: If you thought that the "Hallelujah" theme that plays at the end of every level had something to do with mind-raping Angels analyzing your self, then you were correct.
  • My God, You Are Serious!: Happens on day eight, when Boss informs Vincent that Catherine is a succubus from another realm.
    Vincent: Psh. Telling me you didn't see her. There is no way [Catherine] does not exist.
    Boss: Well, normally that is the case. Normal people can't see her, after all.
    Vincent: (Laughs sarcastically) (the music stops) ...Wait, what?

    N-R 
  • Navel-Deep Neckline Midnight Venus' clothes always feature a plunging neckline that reaches her navel.
  • Never Gets Drunk:
    • Vincent, kinda. He certainly looks pretty drunk when his meter's full, but he holds conversations perfectly fine.
    • Justin complains that his tolerance has gotten too high to get really drunk anymore.
  • Never Trust a Trailer:
    • The early trailers made it look like it was some kind of horror game. While there are certainly more than a few creepy moments, it really isn't a scary game.
    • Additionally, some of the early descriptions of it brought up the sexiness of the game to the point people thought Atlus was going into softcore. You see some skimpy clothing, cleavage, and conveniently placed bed sheets, but really nothing that couldn't be shown on evening television.
  • New Neo City: A wine bottle at the start of the game says the Stray Sheep is in Neo-Brooklyn.
  • Next Stall Shenanigans: Vincent has several conversations with Orlando in the bathroom about the strange things happening to him, but Orlando is often lost to some degree on everything as he can only go by what Vincent's telling him. This also leads to some snarky humor.
    Vincent: Does all this feel like a dream to you?
    Orlando: Who dreams of taking a shit with another guy?
  • Nightmare Sequence: The gameplay. Vincent, along with many other young men, have began having nightmares where they must climb a tower by pushing blocks, or else fall and die, and Your Mind Makes It Real. At the end of each 'stage', they are pursued by a manifestation of their fears and flaws. The nightmares were Dumuzid's attempt to weed out couples who won't get married and have kids, and Ishtar's attempt to find a better boyfriend for herself. Cheating, sleeping around, and being reluctant to find a girlfriend or tie the knot will get you pulled into the nightmares.
  • Nintendo Hard: To the point where Atlus had to patch in an Easy Mode in Japan so players can make actual progress. The international releases included it from the beginning.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Clock Tower boss is a giant killer mecha baby with chainsaws coming out of one eye socket.
  • Nipple and Dimed: For all the hype, this game isn't that racy; all naughty bits are kept hidden by handy nearby objects and clever camera angles, and we mostly just see scenes of pillow talk. Not that this isn't enough to shock Vincent, though, of course. His horror in these scenes is palpable.
  • No Bisexuals: Discussed and Averted in Full Body. After Vincent discovers Rin's male genitalia, he freaks out, rebuffs Rin and questions his sexuality. Arguing that he could not be gay for another guy. However, after some realization of what he has done and his feelings for Rin haven't changed, he outs himself to his friends as bisexual and goes to be happy forever with Rin.
  • Nobody Poops:
    • Averted. Several scenes happen in the lavatory at Vincent's office, his friends sometimes get up to go to the restroom at the Stray Sheep (prompting the rest of them to talk about him while he's gone), and Catherine announces she's going to the bathroom at one point though she may just have been using that as an excuse, being a succubus.
    • That said, from a gameplay perspective, you can enter the restroom at the Stray Sheep, but all you can do in there is wash your face and look at Catherine's naughty pictures in the stall.
  • No Points for Neutrality: Averted. Being neutral is a perfectly viable option and there is actually a nice satisfying ending for sticking with it.
  • Not-So-Imaginary Friend: When all signs proving Catherine's existence disappear and it becomes clear that nobody Vincent knows has ever seen her, Vincent starts to question both his sanity and whether or not she really was real. It's not until he has a discussion with the Boss where he learns that she was real, and that she's a succubus.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: The way Catherine moves around seats when the camera's not on her, you'd think she can teleport or something. She can.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Vincent has this look whenever there's a nightmare death sequence coming up. Or whenever he sees somebody in his bed that wasn't there before.
    • When Boss realizes that Vincent hadn't in fact figured the truth out on his own, and that in giving his Motive Rant he basically just shot his own masquerade to hell, he's reduced to stammering as he desperately tries to backpedal.
  • One-Winged Angel: Catherine, after she's been rejected by Vincent and failed to kill Katherine, and the Bartender/Thomas Mutton, who is really an Eldritch Abomination called Dumuzid.
  • Optional Boss: Big Brother, who is encountered in the Extra Stage: Close Encounters, can only be fought at the end of Rin's route in Full Body.
  • Order Versus Chaos: A given, being the game is a brainchild of the Shin Megami Tensei development staff, but at the same time downplayed by the fact it's all within the context of marriage and relationships, instead of the usual cosmic forces. Do you stay faithful, cheat, or do you realize you want your own life?
  • Perpetual Molt: Vincent's pillow.
  • Pink Is Erotic: The game has a predominant use of pink and is about a man caught in a love triangle between Katherine McBride, his loyal and steadfast girlfriend, and Catherine, a gorgeous and carefree woman.
  • Plagued by Nightmares: Vincent's nightmares about his girlfriend act as the game's main setting.
  • Precision F-Strike: Not that the language in the game is squeaky-clean in general, but if both characters survive to Night 7, Todd's reaction to Archie's backstory is a particularly emphatic "holy fuck".
  • Promoted to Playable: The DLC for Full Body adds the possibility to play Babel as Catherine, Rin, Orlando, Jonny, Toby, Erica and Boss, plus Katherine in solo mode or for player 1 (she was previously playable only as player 2's character in multiplayer mode).
  • Psychic Dreams for Everyone: Well, any guy who's around age 30 and is a patron of the Stray Sheep, and is entangled with a woman with whom he has no intention of having children. Later scenes imply that the Big Bad might eventually spread said dreams to everyone assigned male at birth who wasn't busy fathering a family by a certain age. Given how even Erica starts getting these dreams, that presumably applies to trans women, gay men, asexual men, and anyone else with the equipment for it who didn't, for whatever reason, choose to impregnate a woman and start a family.
  • Psychosexual Horror: The 2nd boss of the game, the Immoral Beast, is a walking, heart-shaped female butt with Katherine's eyes, a nose, and a massive tongue and gnashing teeth for a "mouth". It shows up the next night after Vincent wakes up with Catherine in his bed and realizes that he just cheated on his own girlfriend, and properly represents his fears and feelings of guilt about it.
  • Public Domain Soundtrack: The game features remixes of music by Sarasate, Beethoven, Holst, Bach, Dvorak, Rossini, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Bizet, Chopin and Handel.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Surprisingly, considering the story, the Big Bad may come off as this in at least one ending.
  • Puzzle Platformer: ...to the dismay of the fanbase it seems.
  • Recurring Dreams: Basically, the whole game.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning:
    • Zig-zagged. The sheep in the nightmare world all have red eyes, but most of them are just average Joes trying to escape like Vincent. But most of the bosses, with the exception of Vincent's Shadow have them too.
    • Boss, without his sunglasses; he is an Eldritch Abomination called Dumuzid, afterall.
  • Red Herring:
    • There's a fair amount of "clues" that point toward either Katherine or Erica being the "witch" that's cursing the male characters. It turns out that Erica is the "witch" from the rumors, but not as you'd imagine: she has nothing to do with the supernatural events, and her identity as the "witch" is a result of misinformation and second-hand gossip from her schooldays with Vincent and friends.
    • The ants. The camera notes their presence during critical scenes, and Erica shares a rumour that ants are the servants of the "witch" that's cursing everyone. Vincent and Catherine wake up one morning to find the apartment infested with them, and you even have to fight against giant ants in one of the stages. Turns out, the ants have nothing to do with anything.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Catherine and Katherine, respectively.
  • Retraux: Rapunzel, the arcade game in the bar.
  • The Reveal: Double Subverted. Mutton completely misreads Vincent's attempts to prove Catherine is real as proof that Vincent's figured out the bartender's involvement in the nightmares, leading to quite a bit of confusion on both sides. However, despite Mutton's attempts to pretend their conversation didn't happen, Vincent quickly catches on, forcing Mutton to continue explaining what's been going on.
  • Right Through His Pants: No matter what he did with Catherine the previous night, Vincent is always wearing his boxers in the morning. Possible Fridge Brilliance: There's evidence to doubt the physicalness of Vincent and Catherine's relationship, so it could even be foreshadowing.
  • Rise to the Challenge: Gameplay in the Nightmare sections involves climbing a tower of blocks and reaching a door on the top, or else Vincent will killed by whatever massive monstrosity is chasing him down.
  • Running Gag: Again, see Boss Warning Siren.

    S 
  • Sacrificial Lamb: With the sheep/ram theme the game has going on, this isn't just a terrible pun, but the game's first victim is Paul, who is described as having been childhood friends with Vincent and his friends and his death is treated as a big shock when it's initially brought up.
  • Sadistic Choice: Picture this: You've been going out with your girlfriend for the past five years, and she's been talking about getting married and making things permanent. It hasn't been the most exciting of relationships, but for the most part you're content with it. One day, you hit up the local bar, and the next thing you remember, aside from a nightmare that you barely even remember, is that you've woken up next to a random beautiful woman, and it's implied that the two of you did...things the night before. Still not freaking out? Not only does this woman not know you already have a girlfriend, but she threatens to kill you if she finds out you're seeing someone else. It certainly doesn't help that this Yandere girl does have everything you could ever want in a girlfriend, which now throws you into deciding between your longtime lover and this new girl. And just when you're contemplating how to get yourself out of this mess, you find yourself in several situations where these two women nearly find out about each other. Welcome to the life of Vincent Brooks!
  • Sanity Has Advantages: You know those blabbering, homicidal grey sheep you see? Their descent into insanity caused their death.
  • Sanity Slippage: Some of the sheep you talk to in between levels exhibit this. Some of them don't get better.
  • Save Scumming: Anyone who desires to see all 7 endings without playing all the way through from start to finish each time might want to consider this option. Just save at a level or two before the final night and make any last minute choices to place where you want to be on the Karma Meter.
  • Scenery Censor: Most of Catherine's nude scenes show her with Shoulders-Up Nudity, but Vincent's computer monitor pulls this duty in one scene.
  • Schrödinger's Gun: The differences between the "Bad", "Good", and "True" version of each ending are supposedly determined by how well the girl can sense your feelings (that is, your position on the Karma Meter), but other events happen differently seemingly independently of your feelings about relationships. If you choose Katherine, Jonny, Orlando, and Boss don't show up to corroborate your story in the Bad ending. If you choose Catherine, her father doesn't show up in the Bad ending. And the difference between the Good and True Freedom endings is whether or not Feather wins the wrestling tournament, which Vincent should have no way of influencing.
  • The Scream:
    • Vincent does this in a montage at the end of the demo; a fairly impressive scream, too, as he manages to hold it for a good twenty seconds.
    • In the game, this happens when Catherine and Katherine are arguing, and Vincent cannot have his own word in the conversation. That scream is shown as like a Mind Screw, and acted out as like a Skyward Scream.
  • Secret Test of Character: Catherine herself.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Freedom Endings, especially the True version. Vincent, after having his chance to choose, chooses neither Catherine nor Katherine, deciding that the relationship scare means he's clearly not ready to settle down with any major choice. As his reward, he asks Mutton/Boss for a loan to place on a bet for a Wrestling match. Depending how close your Karma Meter is to True Neutral, Vincent either loses it all on a risky bet and drinks the rest of the night away with his friends (Normal) or wins the bet and makes enough money to move out of his apartment and join the fledgling Space Colonies.
  • Sexy Packaging: Particularly the PS3 version depicting Catherine, shown here. Cleaner covers were made for the parts of the US that would have a fit over the originals.
  • Sexy Shirt Switch: The morning after Catherine's always wearing an oversized t-shirt instead of her getup from the night before.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely:
    • Midnight Venus is pretty hot without her Funny Afro.
    • Katherine in the True Lover's ending when she ditches the glasses and does up her hair.
  • Shout-Out: Many in the intro, including The Ring, Jaws, and Godzilla. There are also several to Persona 3 and 4, including a small figure of Teddie on the counter of Stray Sheep and Gekkoukan High's school badge on the wall of one of the box seats there.
    • A Green Jacket , Lupin III appears in the demo/intro with his familiar theme music.
    • There's also one to Neon Genesis Evangelion later on in the game. For more info, see Musical Spoiler above.
      • More than one line-check, as well. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, even an old DMX track.
      • Thomas Mutton provides another Castlevania shoutout, remarking that it's a fine night for a curse.
    • If you carefully watch Vincent's list of books, you can see Hally Porter and Persona as book titles.
    • Cowboy Bebop Shout Outs:
      • Vincent's hairstyle and dress style are very reminiscent of a dressed-down, toned-down Spike. He even walks like Spike. Hell, his Japanese voice actor is Spike!
      • The space tourism/space travel setting seems very similar...
      • Katherine looks somewhat similar to Julia
      • Everybody Smokes 20 Minutes into the Future and looks damn cool doing it
      • The cocktail trivia about the Prairie Oyster, Spike's favorite hangover cure.
    • Likely not intentional, but one can't deny that the fact Thomas Mutton has Hellish Pupils, the fact he wears Sunglasses indoors, AND considers himself to be a god easily can remind survival horror fans of Albert Wesker.
    • There's a brand of beer called "Bear Beer" and it has Teddie on its label.
    • Loading screens have tons of famous quotes, mostly about love and commitment, except for Babel Mode, which has quotes regarding overcoming challenges. Everyone from Sophocles to William Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde to Douglas Adams to Anton Chekhov and even George Carlin (yes, THAT George Carlin) are represented in those quotes.
    • The achievement/trophy name for completing the Inquisition stage is "No One Expects The..."
    • The way Vincent runs, especially on the map screen, is reminiscent of another boxer-clad hero (from another Nintendo Hard series).
      • Taken even further in the True Cheater ending, where we see Vincent fighting his way through Hell in his boxers.
    • In the True Cheater ending, our first look into hell is a castle that looks quite similar to Laharl's.
    • When you leave to the title screen any time during the main level, we see what the victims of the nightmares look like in real life via Vincent. The frozen positions and frozen faces of pure terror could be a Shout-Out to The Ring.
    • The Golden Playhouse intro is actually a parody of a real Japanese TV show called "Golden Theater".
    • In an interesting inversion, you can actually find Vincent (or at the very least heavily implied to be him) in Persona 3 Portable.
    • Catherine in the True Cheater Ending appears as a demon with black and white zigzags all over her body, like how Asherah appears in Shin Megami Tensei. Fitting, as Asherah's Semitic mythological roots are closely related to Mesopotamia.
  • Shown Their Work: Finishing your drinks in the bar gets you a bunch of accurate alcohol trivia, which is appropriate for a game where the protagonist drowns his sorrows so often.
  • Show Within a Show: The whole game, actually. The Golden Playhouse mode actually opens with Midnight Venus introducing the game as if it were an episode akin to something from Tales from the Crypt, while Babel mode is framed as a televised game show. Many cutscenes have a watermark in the corner of the screen as if we were watching a TV channel.
  • Significant Anagram: Rearrange "Trisha" and you get Ishtar. She even lampshades this when she reveals it, saying she had to leave some sort of clue.
  • Significant Name Overlap: Vincent's primary love interests are named Catherine and Katherine, who each represents the Order Versus Chaos dynamics of a relationship. In the English version, when Vincent challenges Mutton/Dumuzid to earn K/Catherine back, the localization team edited the subtitles to read "her" when he says the name to keep which one he's fighting to win back ambiguous. The Updated Re Release adds a Third-Option Love Interest also named Qatherine (usually shortened as "Rin").
  • Slasher Smile: Shadow of Vincent sports this at the real Vincent very briefly in a cutscene.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Quadrangle, FULL STOP. Careful around those ice blocks at the edges, you don't want to slip off..
  • Small Universe After All: In the Rin True Ending Vincent says that they're heading to Andromeda after Rin has a successful tour of the galaxy.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Vincent, Jonny, Orlando, and others in the story mode are all smokers.
  • Sophisticated as Hell: Thomas Mutton's speech before the final battle.
    "I swear by the name of Dumuzid, the Shepherd, consort of Ishtar... your ass is mine, punk!"
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: While for the most part, the epic classical music remixes fit the gameplay, one level has Rossini -William Tell Overture Part 2 "The Storm" And Part 3 "The Ranz Des Vaches" playing, and portions of the song are serene and don't fit the climbing to escape your death gameplay at all.
    • The level with the baby boss features "Pictures at an Exhibition" as a soundtrack, with "the Hut of Baba Yaga" being one of the creepier segments.
    • The menu theme may also count. It starts off sinister, but gets pretty catchy and disco-like, creating quite the dissonance of Vincent being stuck to a pillar, with what looks like barb-wire, and the two title characters just sitting on said pillar. That given, this is made by Atlus.
  • Space Whale Aesop: Don't cheat on your girlfriend with a succubus or else a disembodied voice will force you to climb a giant block tower in your Goofy Print Underwear. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • Spanner in the Works: Rin is sweet, earnest, supportive, naive, and completely harmless. She's suffering from amnesia and has little idea of how the world works; she just wants to play the piano and make people happy. Even the Big Bad thinks Rin isn't a threat to his plan, despite knowing their origin. He even hires them to play at The Stray Sheep! She's open-minded and has some unusual - but profound - ideals: No one can tell someone else how to live their life, and that individuals are the only ones should decide what is important to them. If you choose to romance Rin, this philosophy turns out to be exactly what Vincent needs to hear to take a step back from the whole Katherine/Catherine debacle and reassess his life. Not only does Vincent become a far stronger, more competent person, he realizes Rin makes him happy and that gender doesn't matter to him. This completely derails Catherine's plan; she isn't even aware of Rin as a romantic rival until it's too late, and just gives up when she realizes Vincent may not even be interested in being seduced by a woman. Also, the Big Bad made a huge mistake by hiring Rin as The Stray Sheep's pianist; their angelic power creates Magic Music that slows down the Nightmare and allows its listeners to think of new opportunities and possibilities. Better emotional stability and less stress makes the Nightmare far easier to handle. By the end of the final challenge, Vincent and Rin's relationship is so strong, they easily counter Mutton's homophobic rant with a heartfelt Kirk Summation. And that's before Rin's Big Brother zaps him into submission in Rin's True Ending. Vincent could've survived the ordeal on his own, but Rin was the one who made that victory inevitable.
  • Spell My Name With An S:
    • Catherine versus Katherine. In the True Lovers ending, there's a blink and you'll miss it error where the chalkboard reads: "Welcome to our wedding party: Vincent and Catherine." Of course, considering it is likely Boss who wrote it, this might have been a deliberate error. Funnily enough in Full Body, while the mistake has been corrected for Katherine's ending, they re-use the same message on the chalkboard from the original game for Catherine's new ending at the stray sheep.
    • Played straight with "Dumuzi" compared to "Dumuzid". May be due to pronunciation issues.
  • Spin-Off: Of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. The game's The 'Verse is based around a recurring character from the main SMT games, the combined female goddess and male demon Ishtar/Astaroth, who serves as the "Midnight Venus" Trisha / Ishtar in the Framing Device and the young boy, Astaroth, that you can talk to in the confessional booths during your trip through the nightmare. The game also imports multiple general concepts from the main series, including the Urban Fantasy Order Versus Chaos (versus Netural) Central Themes, Karma Meter and Multiple Endings, though here it's in the context of relationships instead of the main series' Apocalypses. Other characters from SMT also serve minor roles in the story, such as the demon Nergal.
  • Spit Take: Already nervous because Catherine called him while he was having lunch with Katherine, Vincent drops one of these when she actually shows up at Chrono Rabbit a short while later.
  • Spoiled by the Manual: The American/European version of the manual does a splendid job of spoiling Erica being transgender by listing her voice actress as voicing 'Eric Anderson (Erica)'.
  • Stealth Pun:
    • A minor one, but the boss of the Cathedral is Catherine.
    • The achievement named "A God Is Born" involves someone getting laid by Isthar, the goddess of fertility, of all things. As her children would unlikely be mortal, it's easy to see the pun in the name.
    • The restaurant Vincent and Katherine visit is called the "Chrono Rabbit." The rabbit in a waistcoat from Alice in Wonderland is used as a symbol for time in Japan as well. One revelation in the Chrono Rabbit? "I'm late."
    • Another minor one: In the Katherine Good Ending, something Orlando says as he, Jonny, and Mutton come to Vincent's rescue, "Long time, no see, K." That is, if expounded: "(After the) long time (game), no C(atherine), (you get) K(atherine).
    • Finishing a drink at the Stray Sheep will give you a piece of drink-related trivia—a cocktail fact.
    • While he's preparing for one last nightmare at the Stray Sheep after a week grappling between his feelings for two women culminates in him (possibly temporarily) losing both, Vincent receives a message from his cell phone provider regarding "Attachment Issues".
  • Story Overwrite: No matter how far Vincent's Karma Meter is on the red line, indicating a Catherine ending, Vincent will break up with Catherine to fully commit himself against to Katherine and prepare to propose to her, including his shock when Katherine, in turn, breaks up with him over cheating. The only thing that really indicates that the game is taking your decisions into account is Vincent's internal monologue.
  • Stringing the Hopeless Suitor Along: As it turns out, anyone who has been cursed with the nightmares was judged to be doing this by Thomas Mutton. As an example, for Vincent it was his unwillingness to go any further with Katherine despite currently being in a relationship with her for the past 5 years, but at the same time not wanting to break up with her either.
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders: Vincent's reaction after Rin's Unsettling Gender-Reveal to him.
    Vincent: Wait, wait, wait. This can't be right... Is Rin seriously a guy?! I had no fuckin' clue when I was falli— I mean— No! No... I wasn't fallin' in love or anything... I mean, what kind of a guy looks like that?! What was I suppose to think?! I mean...
  • Succubi and Incubi:
    • Catherine (a succubus).
    • In Catherine's true ending, Vincent becomes an incubus.
  • Sweet Tooth:
    • Katherine. Most interactions with her take place at the Chrono Rabbit, a love-themed restaurant, with her eating some kind of pastry.
    • Vincent claims this when Catherine finds the cake Katherine had given him, and Catherine says that she has one as well.
  • Sympathetic Adulterer: There's a lot of cheaters in this game, and many are portrayed sympathetically.
    • Vincent feels like he's being pushed into something he isn't ready for, and his affair may or may not have been entirely willing. Depending on the player, he might also regret his actions and attempt to push Catherine away.
    • Todd and Archie each have a Freudian Excuse, and if they make it through the nightmares, will resolve their issues and stop cheating.

    T-V 
  • Take a Third Option:
    • The neutral ending is this for the alignments. Vincent rejects meeting up with Katherine or Catherine and decides to put off marriage until he feels ready for it. Keeping a so-called "Chaotic" lifestyle but with the "Law" mentality about it.
    • Rin's route in Full Body is a fourth option, and also arguably the happiest for everyone involved. Vincent hooks up with Rin (who is actually a crossdressing male alien), and the two are seen living Happily Ever After in space together. Catherine has vanished completely, and Katherine has split up with Vincent on amicable terms.
  • The Tetris Effect: Inverted in-game with Rapunzel. The prequel novel reveals that Freddie McGoohan created the game to help men to break free from the nightmares, however Thomas Mutton turned it into the current version by inserting subliminal messages into it in order to draw people into them instead.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: Katherine screams this at Vincent when she discovers what he and Catherine have been up to. Turns out, it was just a very real-looking dream.
  • This Loser Is You: Vincent is in his thirties, doesn't even have a kitchen in the hole he calls an apartment, goes out drinking every night, has a job that he's never shown at and is afraid of commitment towards his girlfriend, whom he's been with for five years.
  • The Three Faces of Eve: Katherine McBride (wife), Catherine (seductress), and Qatherine/"Rin" (child), but only in Full Body, as Rin is not present in the original.
  • Through the Eyes of Madness: Vincent on the eighth day.
  • Top Wife: In The Stinger of the "True Chaos Ending", in which Vincent decides to marry Catherine and travel with her back to the underworld, we see that Vincent has conquered the entire underworld, with Catherine as his queen and several succubi as his concubines. Catherine is the only one who shares his throne, and provides the page image.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Vincent's favorite drink is apparently a Cuba Libre (a.k.a. a rum & coke).
  • Translation Style Choices: In the English version, whenever a critical moment occurs in which Vincent must side with Catherine or Katherine, the dialogue will say the name but the subtitles will use general pronouns or just disappear altogether. This allows the audience to choose either side without the game aligning with either one.
  • Trans Relationship Troubles: In one of the Katherine/Catherine/Rin relationship arcs in Full Body, Toby broke up with Erica because he couldn't handle the fact that she was not only transgender but also "Eric back in high school". He reminds her he likes girls, disregarding Erica's identity entirely. However, when Vincent romantically pursues Rin, it's revealed that Toby and Erica are still dating despite her transgender revelation.
  • 20 Minutes into the Future: Unlike some other Atlus games, Catherine doesn't take place in a specified year. It basically looks like the present, though space tourism is implied to have gotten cheaper.
  • Twitchy Eye: Katherine, during Catherine's volley of insults. Not long afterwards, Katherine moves towards the sink to grab a knife.
  • The Unfair Sex: Apparently, not a single woman, unless you count Erica, fits the conditions to be sent into the nightmares. Though this may be more because of the guy sending them all in there to begin with, instead of the writers. Pointed out in-game when Vincent asks Asteroth why only men get targeted.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: The solo version of Axis Mundi, the fourth and final stage of Babel, is this in North American versions of the game. Averted when playing in pairs.
  • The Unpronounceable: There is no language that comes close to pronouncing Rin's true name correctly. In the subtitles, it's spelled as @+*+?&$, and even then the spoken version sounds like a word said backwards.
  • Unsettling Gender-Reveal: At the start of Day 6 in Full Body, an explosion in Rin's apartment leads to Vincent discovering Rin's lack of female breasts and his genitalia. He is extremely freaked out by this revelation.
    • Deconstructed when Vincent slaps Rin's hand away and Rin runs out of the apartment in tears. Vincent is horrified with himself, and realizes his feelings for Rin haven't changed, but Rin refuses to return to the apartment even after Vincent calls to apologize. If the player has failed to unlock Rin's route,this is their last conversation.
  • Vagina Dentata: Featured on the game's second boss, the Immoral Beast.
  • Vapor Wear: Trisha's Navel-Deep Neckline makes her obviously bra-less.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Cathedral certainly looks like the final stage, but after that there's the Emperio.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: Vincent may be an indecisive loser in the waking world, but he's surprisingly brave and supportive in the nightmare world, and encourages the sheep on the landings as much as possible.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential:
    • You can push the other sheep off edges, lure them onto spike traps, or turn them into SHEEP JUICE!
    • Once you get up to the higher levels with the crazy sheep who have died in the real world and now only care about killing other sheep, you don't feel so bad about it any more.
  • Voice of the Legion: Most of the bosses have them, and pretty much every demon as well, including Vincent and Catherine in the True Cheater Ending.

    W-Z 
  • Wedding Finale:
    • If you decide to have Vincent stay faithful to Katherine, and have your Karma Meter all the way on the law side, the two will reconcile their relationship. Vincent will eventually propose to her, and the two will wed at the Stray Sheep with the Boss supervising the proceedings.
    • If Vincent chooses Rin in Full Body, Rin and Vincent can also marry in the Stray Sheep, this time officiated by Rin's Big Brother. Given that Rin is both a man and an Angelic Alien, their legal status is an open question.
    • Also happens in Full Body's new ending for Catherine, but with the ending slides also chronicling her life and future family with Vincent.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Not Vincent, but Todd, another one of the sheep from the nightmare, whose story is that he wanted to be his father (who called him "Maggot" and "Little Shit") and is chased by his own father every night.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: It's understandable that Mutton, or Dumuzid, would want men to continue to be faithful and continue to populate humanity. That's fine, but did he really have to do so in a way that involved death? Scaring them would be more than enough, but Mutton does infer he's also "weeding out" what he's deemed lesser males in favor of improving the gene pool. Or at least what Mutton believes is an improvement.
  • Wham Line: Two big ones on day 8, bringing the whole story together.
    Orlando: I said I didn't see her!! Hell, I never saw her once.
    Thomas "Boss" Mutton: You are just full of surprises... Not only did you survive this long, but to think you figured me out...
  • Wham Shot: In-Universe. Vincent runs into Rin's apartment upon hearing an explosion. As he checks on Rin, Rin's towel slips off revealing that Rin is not a girl.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The majority of the cast is white with Anglo-Saxon names, and the town is a rather American-looking city. However, the actual name of the place is very deliberately avoided, along with other quirks. The police officer Morgan wears a hat with a checkered rim, resembling those worn by police in England rather than the United States. On top of all of that, the True Freedom ending shows Vincent at a spaceship dock overlooking the city, wherein it appears to be a small colony in a desert — and certainly not on Earth at all — as an incredibly sci-fi-looking spaceship flies in the background with no visible sky, raising more questions than it answers.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: The entire Rapunzel mini-game is actually a retelling of Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld. In other words, it's Trisha / Astaroth / Ishtar and Boss / Dumuzid's backstory.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Rin is a kind male crossdresser who uses his powers to help the main character Vincent.
  • Win to Exit: Vincent's only hope of escaping from the Nightmares is to reach the top of the tower.
  • Womb Horror: One of Vincent's nightmares is a giant amalgamated horror in the shape of a baby known as "The Child". It's covered in Volcanic Veins as if still developing in the womb, and chases after Vincent, wanting to play with his "daddy". It represents Vincent's fear of losing his freedom as a bachelor and having to settle down when learning that Katherine might be pregnant. He later experiences another nightmare in the form of "The Child With A Chainsaw", where the baby transforms and reveals grotesque rusted robot parts, including a sharp pincing claw for a left hand and a chainsaw for a right. It represents Vincent's fear that the child might not even be his, which means that Katherine is cheating on him just as much as he might be cheating on her.
  • Yandere: Catherine. After one (drunken) rendezvous with Vincent, she chokes, bites, and threatens to kill him if he ever cheats on her. Not to mention trying to slice up Katherine. Erica also tells him about a rumored curse placed on unfaithful men by a mysterious woman...
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Vincent saves Katherine from falling to her death in the nightmare towards the end of the game, and it's a fairly romantic moment. He wakes up to Katherine standing in his apartment, under the impression that everything's fixed between them. Turns out the whole thing was All Just a Dream, and Katherine was never actually in the nightmare at all. She then explains that she knew about his affair the entire time and breaks up with him.
  • You Are Worth Hell: Played for Laughs in Catherine's true ending, where Vincent proposes to Catherine and is transported to the Netherworld. He doesn't seem to mind much... probably because he eventually takes over the whole place anyway.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: How the men keep dying. Falling to your death in a dream means dying in real life is an old saying and these nightmares are so persistent and feel real to these men, to the point that this idea causes them to actually die.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The Cathedral is the top of the tower, and the narrator even refers to it as "the last level". It's not.
    • The Cathedral itself isn't revealed in full until the K/Catherine fight comes to its end. Vincent and the player (most likely) believe they're done with nightmares up until the confrontation.
    • The Cathedral technically would be the end of the nightmares, but Vincent actively chooses to proceed further.

"Great Escape!! You survived."

Alternative Title(s): Catherine Full Body

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Catherine: Full Body

NOT helping that this dude is totally drunk as a skunk too!

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