Part 1: Alternate Endings

Alternate Endings

There are eight endings in Catherine (not counting one strange secret one...)

Well, technically speaking there are eight. Actually they fall into three categories of ending - Lovers, Cheaters and Freedom with various good, bad and true variants. And which ending you get is determined by two things - the answers you give to Astaroth's questions in The Empireo, and the position of the meter.


The Meter



The game labels the ends of the meter "Freedom" and "Order" but I prefer Law and Chaos because I am awkward. Throughout the game it's been determining where you land on this scale, though responses to Confessional questions, NPCs and texts. In general answers that lean toward teamwork, stability and tradition are lawful, while answers that are independent, risky or promote splitting up are chaotic.

(an example I like is Lindsay and Martha asking Vincent if he prefers to watch Golf or Baseball at home. Golf is a game for individuals and considered chaotic. Baseball is a team sport and is lawful)

Yes, the results are hardly conclusive and you're probably going to disagree with some of the results. I think that in general, the system works well over the course of the whole game.

The last opportunity you have to influence the meter is in the Stray Sheep after the Spiral Corridor. After that, nothing will shift it and you're set on your path.


The Questions to Freedom

The first question (would you give anything to get your lover back?) actually does nothing. After that you get the questions about whether you wish for Peace or Chaos, and a fourth question that gives you once last chance to reverse your choice.


Once you answer, the game looks at your choice and compares it to the meter.

If Vincent is true to himself - if the choice of Peace or Chaos matches the result on the meter - you will at least get a Good ending, and will get the True ending if he's fully committed and the meter is at max.

If he does not know his own mind - the choice does not match the meter - then a bad ending awaits.

If you wish, you can downgrade a True Ending to a Good one by choosing the wrong alignment and then changing your mind with the fourth question. Good for catching them all.


The Disappointment

Unfortunately, replaying the game to get more endings betrays what is, for me, the biggest disappointment in the game. The Meter does not affect anything else apart from the little thoughts you hear when Vincent is in a crisis. What you saw in this LP was the one and only path of this game - nothing at all in the main story truly branches until after you defeat Dumuzid. Vincent dumps Catherine, Katherine stabs Catherine in the dream, Katherine dumps Vincent... it's fixed.
For that reason, I will not being doing a "Catherine path" playthrough, it doesn't exist. However her endings are intact.

I can't really speculate why this should be the case, though I do suspect it was a budget issue. This was only supposed to be a test for Persona 5's engine after all. And I can't complain too much - between saving sheep, hearing trivia and getting golds there was plenty of reason to replay. Especially since the game is very good about letting you skip cutscenes and even entire levels once you have the gold for it.

The endings are often quite similar too - some of them are just extended versions of each other. I've combined highly similar endings into one video.


... anyway... on to the endings. I'll be posting these gradually over the next day or two.


Lovers Endings


Picking Peace while the meter is in the red zone gets you the Bad Lovers ending.


Picking Peace with the meter in the blue zone gets you the Good Lovers ending.


Picking Peace and not backing down with the meter all the way to the right gets you the True Lovers ending. You already saw this at the end of the LP.


Cheaters Endings


Picking Chaos while the meter is in the blue gets the Bad Cheaters ending.


Picking Chaos with the meter in the red zone gets you the Good Cheaters ending.


Picking Chaos and sticking with it while you have the meter all the way into the red gets the True Cheaters ending.


Freedom Endings

You can, of course, reject both Peace and Chaos. If you do you will recieve the following question:

If "the truth" causes you to be alone, would you still search for it?

Answering yes gets you one of these endings. They're similar, so I've combined them into one video.


Rejecting both Peace and Chaos while the needle is in either red or blue gets the Good Freedom ending.

Rejecting both while the needle is in the grey area in the middle gets you the True Freedom ending...

(forget about accepting both Peace and Chaos! The fourth question makes you choose. Too bad, no threesome...)


Babel



Babel is a special mode that is unlocked by getting gold medals on Normal or Hard, and is effectively the Post-Game content. It can be much harder than anything in the main game.



Let's Play Babel: The Altar



Let's Play Babel: The Menhir



Let's Play Babel: The Obelisk



Let's Play Babel: The Axis Mundi



Let's Play Babel: Axis Mundi Pairs

... yeah, I prefer to pretend the ending of Babel doesn't exist either. As someone said in the thread, it's probably more appropriate that Axis Mundi IS impossible...



Confessional Votes

Here are the goon's answers to all the confessional votes!

Second Nightmare



Third Nightmare



Fourth Nightmare



Fifth Nightmare



Sixth Nightmare



Seventh Nightmare






Other Stuff



Bonus Update: Beer and Sake Trivia


Remember back when I asked for help getting some art done? It was for this video.
Unfortunately while I am extremely grateful to those who submitted art for it, and I was very happy with the quality, the quantity wasn't quite enough to do what I had planned. I felt the video fell a little flat as it was, and gave up on it. So I'll be putting the art that was submitted in this post instead.

The concept: Vincent drank no less than sixteen drinks in this video. The game stops counting after three, but since he gets faster and better in the dreams with each drink, what kind of superhuman feats would he be capable of with 16 drinks?

(pictures posted in order of submission)



Doomfunk drew Vincent, apparently right after mugging the Merchant sheep for all his items.



Pizzathief focused on his growing self-confidence and lack of inhibitions.



Portals knew super-strength was the way to go.



systemlogoff settled on an all-too-real effect - super Beer Goggles.



More art

Since I'm collecting art here, might as well get all the fantastic art people have submitted as the LP went on!


Belgaer



Morgan's last words to his wife seemed to resonate with this forum, somehow.



Meanwhile Todd said what we all were thinking.


Dinictus



He was apparently only just beaten to the punch.



Erica as she might have appeared in the dreams, had Vincent met her.


RoeCocoa

A discussion in the thread suggested that Vincent's persona would be good at climbing, and then this happened.



Spider-Sheep, Spider-Sheep
Climbs for freedom in his sleep.
Can he save his sheepish friends?
I don't know; it depends.
Look out!
There goes Spider-Sheep!


Shaezerus



Shaezerus contributed a great pic of how Vincent might look to the other sheep, which Samuel decided to color.


Aristide



Katherine, as she might have appeared in the Cathedral if things worked that way.


SystemLogoff



His reaction to the Monster Blocks!


Triangle



"The canon ending is that Catherine goes home and plays video games with her dad."