All you need is a Gold Japanese account. Which is easy to do. All you need to do is sign up for a japanese Windows Live account on msn. Then setup a new gemertag using that email address you just made. Quite simple!!

Catherine is an action/adventure horror game being made by the persona team.

Students of the Round is an old school style dungeon crawler rpg.

Both demos are slightly less than a gigabyte. I haven`t tried the demos myself but have them downloaded. Willl post impressions when I can.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that you get a free 30 days of Gold when you first sign up for a new XBL Account. :) Cheers!!

 1st impressions of Catherine:

It starts you off imediately on the 1st stage with blocks in your way and a monster coming up from below wanting to kill you. The premise is this... push pull & move the blocks out of your way or use them to make stairs leading up. All the while trying to maintain a good steady pace and grab money and other items as you race to the top before the monster kills you. Stage 1 is fairly easy and basic, stage 2 requires a little bit more thinking. At the end of a stage you get extra bonus safety points.

These points are calculated up by how far away the monster was from you by the time you reached the top & what diffuculty you are playing on. You also go though a scene in the diner where the main character chats with 2 buddies of his and on the news a mysterous death gets reported. A lonely man has died during the night. Looks like your cell phone will also be playing a role in the gameplay (I don`t know japanese so I didn`t know what was said sorry).

You get a text message from Katherine and then a few hours later run into Catherine at the diner and after stage 2 ends you wake up with her in your bed not knowing how or why. The game is more of a puzzle/adventure game from my experience so far. I enjoyed it and can`t wait to play more.

PS: If anyone who knows japanese can help explain some things in the demo or Students of the Round please post on here. :)

1st impressions of Students of the Round:

You start off with a basic battle against a ghastly creature. Your choices are Attack, Guard, Items & Spell. Battles take place in a first person view. Just like an old school jrpg. After the battle you discover you are in a castle. Movement is controlled using the left thumbstick & also takes place in first person view.

After doing a little searching around the dungeon you run into a man with long white hair that resembles a knight. He ends up joining your party and soon after you get into another battle with even more ghastly creatures & a large stone creature. You can select which enemy to attack by moving the left thumbstick left or right. At this point you have 3 party members: A girl in a hood, a long-haired male knight & a purple haired girl that I imagine is a mage. Seemed to be some kind of mini boss fight.

After it was all over the stone-like creature went nuts and shattered into pieces it seemed. Thats basically where my demo ended...however, it had me pick one of two choices right after the fight and idk if that cut my demo short or not since I can`t understand japanese. Game seemed fairly basic but the art style and perhaps with a bit more understanding the story as well. To hard to gauge whether the gameplay is just easy or if this was a very early battle helping you get used to the basics. After you finish the demo you make a character that can then be used in the full retail game. choosing between 3 different male/female variations and adjust their stats to your liking. Wish more games did things like this.

Edit: I was wrong...after you make your character you get transfered to a different dungeon on a grassy plains. Imediately go into a battle against mice-like vermin. You now also have a new option available in battle; Escape. You are also fighting by yourself this time. After the battle a mysterious blue-haired girl girl appears. Wearing what looks to be a maids outfit. The young girl takes you to a village and you come across a young man who seems to be yelling at an elder.

The girl then talks to the elder briefly and I am not sure exactly what happens here...but you talk with the elder and the girl and earn some item of some sort. You then transport back to another grassy plains dungeon and run into that young man who was arguing with the elder earlier. He is being attacked by some flying insects. He joins up with you and you go into battle. After the fight you talk to the young man who seems grateful for your help. You then go off a few yards and coem across an elven mage. It appears that while having conversations with certain people, you get dialog options that can raise or lower what appears to be their stamina gauge.

You are now moving through an old wooden fort. You come across a large rat king and his minions. My demo ended here though because I died in battle and couldn`t figure out how to refill mana.

As of right now both Catherine and students of the Round are both still on my radar and were fun to try out.

Are they in english or japanese?

i was disappionted in the Catherine Demo.

What i had hoped to be something like a Japanese Heavy Rain, seems to be just a stylish action puzzler with horror elements.

Meh, could be an interesting game but let me know when there's an English demo.

Did you seriously just ask this? Come on man! Just reading the first sentence in the thread should give that away. Plus I mentioned numerous times that I couldn`t explain the story due to not knowing japanese. Thanks for overlooking all my work. :(

Thats what it has always looked like. Not sure where you got a Heavy Rain vibe from. ..?? 

Catherine seems to be a nice change from what games typically go with. U can certainly tell that it is made by the same creators of the Persona series. The art style and feel of the game just gives you that same feel as the Persona games had done previously.

Other than not understanding the story...playing the japanese demo is a must if you are even remotely interested in either game(especially Catherine).  You still get a good feel for the gameplay mechanics and a look at the game in motion with your own 2 hands. Playing both demos made me keep an eye on these 2 titles even more than before. I have a good feeling both games will be localized though. :)

well free members can play this two games tomorrow