Catherine is the anticipated new horror/puzzle title from Atlus and it features a lot of provocative artwork featuring the titular character. Atlus creative designer Jeremy Cail says some of the risque art necessitated some changes for the American market.
“We have two different versions of Catherine cover art,” detailed Cail. “There's already two different versions, one for both the PS3 and Xbox 360, but the altered imagery was at the request of some our retail partners. They wanted the change in case people got the wrong idea about the game... or, as I see it, the right idea about Catherine! No change to the games themselves – the disc themselves are the same.”
For the Catherine badge stuffer for E3, Cail said, “We tried another of different image, but that didn't go through [it was the one with Catherine's legs spread]. We couldn't put it on the badge but we put it on [Atlus staff] shirts. We wanted people to understand the different 'Catherines.' We wanted something that stood out, but we wanted to make sure that people knew about the other character as well. Even this image less provocative to than you might think! Certain hemlines were lengthened before final approval.”
“We had to eliminate Vincent from the small of the small of Katherine's back [in some of the posters]. We did what we could to bring the art out; if it works, we try to preserve the art because having the same thing that Japanese consumers have is a thrill for our niche,” added Cail. “We also have to balance concerns of the original designers in Japan; maybe we'll want to use one piece of art in this way or that, but we'll ask them and they'll say it wasn't the intent to use it that sort of way. But with the badge stuffer... it took three to four iterations to get there, but people seem to like it.”
Find out more about the Catherine badge stuffer in the interview with Cail here.
