Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Hello
everyone and welcome to a new KEMCO title! But wait a moment, this one is
different to the retro JRPGs that you’re probably expecting when you hear KEMCO
from me by this point. Instead what we have is a sort of point-and-click style
visual novel! Something a little new and fresh coming out here!
Decollate Decoration
is the story about a girl (you) and her love, life, and trying to kill the guy
she likes. Yeah, I know that last one is a little weird, but hear me out.
Basically, this girl died and is stuck as a ghost. She can’t bear to be parted
with the guy she loves, so she wants his soul to come with her to the
afterlife. Obviously that means she needs him dead so they can be together
forever! Or does it? You’ll need to find that out.
The short premise
here is that you only have so many days to fulfill your task before your spirit
can’t stick around any longer. Your hubby can’t see or hear you, so you need to
get him to notice you if you want to affect him in any meaningful way. You can
take actions such as talking to him, entering his dreams, causing a poltergeist
phenomenon, or cursing him. Each of these actions drains your power and you
need to wait for it to recharge. You can also check items around his house at
no energy charge. All this is done via a point-and-click style interaction.
There are
six different endings you can get, each ending not taking too long to reach,
and a prologue and epilogue that are unlockable. It’s a short and “bitter”sweet
sort of story that is kinda depressing and heartwarming at the same time,
depending on the ending you reach.
The story
is told mostly through endings and the little tidbits you can glean between
each time you have to act told through a sort of bit-like style with a sort of
up-beat but creepy ish soundtrack playing in the background. It doesn’t take
more than maybe a few hours to get through the entire thing, all endings and
prologue and epilogue included, so make sure you’re aware of what you’re
getting. Thankfully the price is pretty low, so you may want to either grab it
on sale or pick it up as part of a package deal if you’re unsure if you want to
play it.
As a handy
note, there are a bunch of save locations if you want to try different
combinations of actions, and there is a “hint” system built in to tell you what
you need to do in order to get each ending, just in case you’re struggling on some.
Definitely helpful on a second or third go around to make sure you’re on route
for a new ending. It even tells you if you’ve seen the different endings
before! The only real issue I can bring up is occasionally some words in the textboxes aren't separated properly, but that's small potatoes really.
Overall
Decollate Decoration is a pretty interesting but short title that uses a
point-and-choose type of interaction to tell a narrative about life, death, and
what feelings mean to different people. It’s a weirdly introspective story told
in a cute art style about a not-so-cute topic. Definitely worth a go if you have
the chance I’d say.
Score: 9 / 10
