History Headscratchers / Catherine

* It's revealed that the nightmares occur to men who spend a long amount of time in a relationship 'with no commitment'. [[spoiler: Turns out that story is bull, but that's not the point.]] How come longstanding relationships are referred to as having no commitment? It requires some proper commitment to stay in a relationship for such a long time, including Vincent spending five years with Katherine. Not to mention, being in a 'no commitment' relationship doesn't impede the chance of having children to begin with. What's this 'no commitment' bullshit?

** Big one is Ishtar / Astaroth being a single character with both a female Ishtar form and male Astaroth is something entirely specific to ''Shin Megami Tensei'', from their weird merging of multiple mythological traditions about Ishtar and her Christian corruption Astaroth. They've entirely spun off their interpretation of Ishtar / Astaroth to create the lore of this game. And of course Nergal shows up too. And Teddie. Beyond that, it's a game with OrderVersusChaos themes, with a KarmaMeter split between Angelic, Neutral and Demonic options that lead to three different ending paths (exactly like LAW, CHAOS, NEUTRAL in main series). It's also an UrbanFantasy game dealing with contemporary people involved with supernatural occurrences. You can play music on the jukebox from ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', ''VideoGame/Persona4'' and so on. And Vincent does indeed show up in ''Persona 3 Portable''. This is to basically say, since it is agreed ''Jack Bros.'', ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'', ''VideoGame/Persona3DancingMoonNight'', and all the other non-{{Mon}} games are spin-offs due to overlapping characters, secondary gameplay systems and thematic similarity, then this game is too.

*** However this ignore the fact that this game takes place in the future, as the main character among with others are on a SpaceColony. So it's still possible that both Persona and this game take place inside of the same universe, just with Catherine taking place in the future.

** It is not. There is no commercial space travel or the like in ''Franchise/{{Persona}}''. From ''Persona'''s point of view, it was just a weird dream the cast had one night. At best it is two worlds from TheMultiverse of ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' as a whole temporarily overlapping, or a similar situation to ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'' and ''Persona'' where similar events and characters exist in different universes.

** It is not. There is no commercial space travel or the like in ''Persona''. From ''[[Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona Persona]]'''s point of view, it was just a weird dream the cast had one night. At best it is two worlds from TheMultiverse of ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' as a whole temporarily overlapping, or a similar situation to ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'' and ''Persona'' where similar events and characters exist in different universes.

* Is this game canon with the Persona series or no? Vincent's cameo back in Persona 3 Portable seems to imply they may, but it just raises questions regarding the Persona 5 DLC for the rerelease.

** As Vincent will admit in the Lovers endings, even if he ''technically'' didn't do so in the end, he did in fact want to cheat on Katherine. We could also discuss his suspicions that Katherine was the "Witch" causing all the weird stuff to happen to him in the first place making him scared of her, but at the end of the day it comes down to Vincent being a bad person who didn't want to be with his girlfriend for a period of time yet wouldn't even discuss any of his feelings with her. Whether he grows out of these feelings or decides to embrace them, of course, is up to player choice.

** As Vincent will admit in the Lovers endings, even if he ''technically'' didn't do so in the end, he did in fact want to cheat on Katherine. We could also discuss his suspicions that Katherine was the "Witch" causing all the weird stuff to happen to him in the first place making him scared of her, but at the end of the day it comes down to Vincent being a bad person who didn't want to be with his girlfriend for a period of time and wouldn't even discuss any of his feelings with her. Whether he grows out of these feelings or decides to embrace them, of course, is up to player choice.

** The aging population is a problem in Europe and North America as well, though Japan has it the worst. Italy is just as bad with is aging population, with Germany not too far behind and the rest of the first world also have their aging population problems too. In the case of USA, it only averts this problem due to immigration, and even then the percentage of senior citizens would rise over 20% in 2050. [[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/immigration-is-the-only-reason-the-us-doesnt-have-an-aging-crisis/283474/ See here for an overview.]]

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: If Vincent really was worried and didn't want to end up cheating with Catherine, to the point that he tries staying up all night at one point, why doesn't he take the simple solution, sleep at Katherine's place?

* How did Vincent even [[spoiler: survive the Cathedral? He never opened the door (which kills the Boss of the current level), and instead decided to stay with (dream/fake?) Katherine a few blocks down (knowing that, y'know, said blocks can disappear over time, thus dooming him). Being saved by Astaroth/Dumuzid might be a thing, but that'd mean risking the fact that they might give away their identities (which they probably don't want any human to know about them, considering Dumuzid's response to Vincent in the last stage in regards to Astaroth) considering that Vincent seems to recall at least a tiny bit of his dreams.]]

* Who or what does Atlus have to thank for the game's unforeseen success? It sold pretty well for an Atlus produced game and anybody who hasn't heard of Atlus or MegamiTensei seem to know about it to an extant.

* How did Vincent even [[spoiler: survive the Cathedral? He never opened the door (which kills the Boss of the current level), and instead decided to stay with Katherine a few blocks down (knowing that, y'know, said blocks can disappear over time, thus dooming him). Being saved by Astaroth/Dumuzid might be a thing, but that'd mean risking the fact that they might give away their identities (which they probably don't want any human to know about them, considering Dumuzid's response to Vincent in the last stage in regards to Astaroth) considering that Vincent seems to recall at least a tiny bit of his dreams.]]

* How did Vincent even [[spoiler: survive the Cathedral? He never opened the door (which kills the Boss of the current level), and instead decided to stay with Katherine a few blocks down (knowing that, y'know, said blocks can disappear over time, thus dooming him). Being saved by Astaroth/Dumuzid might be a thing, but that'd mean risking the fact that they might give away their identities (which they probably don't want any human to know about them, considering Dumuzid's response to Vincent in the last stage in regards to Astaroth)considering that Vincent seems to recall at least a tiny bit of his dreams.]]

* How did Vincent even [[spoiler: survive the Cathedral? He never opened the door (which kills the Boss of the current level), and instead decided to stay with Katherine a few blocks down (knowing that, y'know, said blocks can disappear over time, thus dooming him).]]

** Remember this entire scheme is actually a way for Ishtar to find a replacement for the BigBad. So it's ''actually'' just because she needs to find someone who would be willing to dump his girlfriend for her (or already be available) if they were worthy. But yes, Dumuzid is, putting it lightly, not very bright, and Vincent outright calls him out on how his explanation for this plan basically makes no sense.

** Big one is Ishtar / Astaroth being a single character with both a female Ishtar form and male Astaroth is something entirely specific to ''Shin Megami Tensei'', from their weird merging of multiple mythological traditions about Ishtar and her Christian corruption Astaroth. They've entirely spun off their interpretation of Ishtar / Astaroth to create the lore of this game. And of course Nergal shows up too. And Teddie. Beyond that, it's a game with OrderVersusChaos themes, with a KarmaMeter split between Angelic, Neutral and Demonic options that lead to three different ending paths (exactly like LAW, CHAOS, NEUTRAL in main series). It's also an UrbanFantasy game dealing with contemporary people involved with supernatural occurrences. You can play music on the jukebox from ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', ''VideoGame/Persona4'' and so on. And Vincent does indeed show up in ''Persona 3 Portable''. This is to basically say, since it is agreed ''Jack Bros.'', ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'', ''VideoGame/Persona3DancingMoonNight'', and all the other games non {{Mon}} games are spin-offs due to overlapping characters, secondary gameplay systems and thematic similarity, then this game is too.

** Big one is Ishtar / Astaroth being a single character with both a female Ishtar form and male Astaroth is something entirely specific to ''Shin Megami Tensei'', from their weird merging of multiple mythological traditions about Ishtar and her Christian corruption Astaroth. And of course Nergal shows up too. And Teddie. Beyond that, it's a game with OrderVersusChaos themes, with a KarmaMeter split between Angelic, Neutral and Demonic options that lead to three different ending paths (exactly like LAW, CHAOS, NEUTRAL in main series). It's also an UrbanFantasy game dealing with contemporary people involved with supernatural occurrences. You can play music on the jukebox from ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', ''VideoGame/Persona4'' and so on. And Vincent does indeed show up in ''Persona 3 Portable''. This is to basically say, since it is agreed ''Jack Bros.'', ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'', ''VideoGame/Persona3DancingMoonNight'', and all the other games non {{Mon}} games are spin-offs due to overlapping characters, secondary gameplay systems and thematic similarity, then this game is too.