These games celebrate the season of love
During the Valentine’s day season, if you are one of the lucky elite couples out there that subscribes to the idea that video games are a fun pastime, there are a multitude of games with themes of love. Here is a list of three great titles that you and your honey can enjoy this Valentine’s Day.
Catherine is a game developed by Japanese role playing company Atlus. The game follows the misfortune of Vincent, the afro wearing purpose seeking computer programmer that has a relationship that he is marginally happy with. Vincent has been in his relationship for a long time, 10 years to be precise and his girlfriend Katherine is ready to tie the knot and even have children. Vincent is not ready for this and his doubt and lack of faithfulness of heart leads to the appearance of the succubus women Catherine that will force Vincent into cheating with Katherine at every junction available.
Cheating, in this universe, is “worse” than normal. In the world of Catherine, when you cheat you are cursed to fight for your life in your nightmares which are challenging but fair puzzle games. In this other world, you will meet other men who have similar adulterous issues and this allows for interesting conversation as well as a stable way of moving the plot along. Because this is a Japanese adventure game, the game uses conversation in real time to move the plot, some people might say “why play a videogame where you have to read a book”. My response to this is, yeah, you’re reading a book, but its a really really good book.
The gameplay follows what I would describe as a fair difficulty curve with the difficulty being progressive unlike most Japanese puzzle games. The way to survive your nightmare is by climbing to the top of the floor from the dungeon all the way up to the Cathedral. The game introduces new challenges in a fair progressive way as well, clearly explaining the hazard and even giving ways to avoid it. This may seem like a bit of a handout but trust me, the game is not easy by any means.
If you are staying in on Valentine’s Day, maybe you can confront the ultimate relationship test with your loved one. Catherine.
I hate to include a classic save the princess game on this list, but its too hard to resist gushing about one of my favourite games for the NES.
Super Mario Brothers, not only transcended console gaming to all new heights, it also told one of the most simple and engaging narratives seen in gaming. Granted, the save the princess cliche had already been done a prodigious amount of times dating back to the origins of storytelling, but this NES classic stands out on gameplay alone.
Pixel perfect difficult platforming defined in this 1987 release, this game won’t offer the depth that Catherine will but will provide an excellent experience on the way to conquering level 8-4 to receive the love of Princess Peach.
Brothers: A tale of two sons. Title doesn’t seem very Lovey dovey at first but rest assured, this game is deep.
Brothers story is this, there is a big brother and a younger brother. Together they must save their dad (after failing to save their mom) by gathering waters from the tree of life. The brothers traverse through many basic stage concepts,mountains and villages, but do so in an interesting way. The levels are mostly puzzle that introduce interesting levels of challenge by incorporating the main unique gameplay mechanic, controlling two characters at the same time. Each brother is mapped to their own analog stick and at first, in my opinion, this seemed clunky and I didn’t feel like it worked all that well. Of course that was at first, after some practice you will be able to move the Brothers effortlessly and this will become an essential skill for later in the more difficult castle stages.
This game is very story driven and to save spoilers, I will say that the first 10 minutes could make anyone shed at least one (maybe two) manly tears. The brothers Naia and Naiee truly go through a progression of growing up during the course of the game, and will serve as a strong example for your son.
