Il Gloria's dream diary It is displayed in his apartment. When interacting with it, Gloria defines it this way: "It was a nice idea, but now it's just where I write the shopping list." On the eve of her thirtieth birthday, the dancer wonders where her lifelong dream has gone: to become a famous dancer, acclaimed in cabarets around the world. The Decarnación opens like this, a sign of the ambitions and vanity of a young woman who, from the beginning, finds herself constantly confronted with the male world: intrusive admirers, bosses convinced of knowing what is best for her, sculptors who portray her . but they consider it little more than a starting point for her sublime art.
Decarnation lives and feeds on the intrusive gaze of men towards the body of a young woman, exposed and treated as merchandise, destined to be thrown without praise into a spiral of horror from which it seems practically impossible to escape. Unfortunately, it is true that the narrative, except for some drops in pace and an excessively long ending, is undoubtedly the strong point of the production, in terms of interaction and playability. Taller QDB he failed to do a coherent and convincing job.
We tell you in detail in ours. Decarnation Review.
From cabaret to hell and back
Paris, 1989. The sculptor Petrus, after discovering the dancer Gloria in a cabaret, uses her as a model for a bronze statue. The dialogue between the two lays the foundation for the entire plot and themes of Decarnation: the power dynamic between artist and model recalls the violent reading of the relationship between these two figures given in Immortality (and explored in depth in our special on Immortality , the crucifixion of the muse and the painting by Francis Bacon, of which, logically, a painting is exhibited in the museum visited in Decarnación). Petrus reflects on the rapid and cruel passage of time and shows no respect for Gloria when, a few months later, the statue inspired by her.
During the visit to the museum, Gloria sees with horror that a man touches the bronze statue that reproduces her features. From here on, Decarnation sinks into a endless horror, suspended between the reality lived by the dancer and her nightmares, full of symbols and metaphors of her experience. Giant eyes open and swallow the young woman, catapulted into a parallel world visibly inspired by the films of Satoshi Kon and David Lynch. However, in our opinion, the reference made in the game's promotional material to Lovecraftian poetics, now used as a catalyst for public interest, but often emptied of its real meaning (a bit like what happened recently, similarly, in The Last Case of Benedict Fox).
Gloria's fears, regrets, and idiosyncrasies fuel monsters, puzzles, ghosts that populate his dreams, increasingly disturbing as the adventure progresses. Don't expect excessive and bloody terror: Decarnation focuses entirely on clean pixel art and a staging that is more disturbing than terrifying and surprising, with very few scares and a lot of psychological horror. In our opinion, the narrative is excessively dilated at some points, and the adventure would have deserved a more concise and incisive ending; Overall, though, Decarnation is certainly interesting for the way it tackles difficult and uncomfortable questions, taking its protagonist on a journey of lasting self-awareness and analysis. about five hours global.
Violence, oppression and ballets a bit like that.
The gameplay of Decarnation - title with a strong narrative traction, and with a considerable amount of text, is based mainly on small mini-games, some of which are repeated throughout the adventure (such as the parts dedicated to dancing), intended to intersperse the sections dedicated to reading the dialogues. In fact, these interactions are little more than parentheses, poorly integrated into the fabric of the video game as a whole, and often created in a rather clumsy manner.
To give an example, I the ballets of glory They are carried out by pressing the keys indicated on the screen: you must press them when they reach a box located above the dancer's head. It's a shame that they don't arrive on time with the music and their sound effect (both in case of success and in case of not pressing the button) interferes a lot with the soundtrack. On this last topic, we generally found the pieces by the French band Fleur et Bleue pleasant, but the game's sound design is not always appropriate for the moment and the situation. Not to mention that in the Nintendo Switch version we tested there are numerous sound glitches and errors which affected the overall experience, forcing us to restart the game several times and rely on autosaves (not always frequent), in the absence of a manual save option.
In some cases, interactions manage to clearly express Decarnation's message, but for most of the adventure this is not the case. Atelier QDB fares much better from a visual point of view, managing to create nightmarish flashes that will remain etched in our minds for a long time. pity for him lack of translation into Spanish: Its absence makes it impossible for audiences without a good knowledge of the English language to enjoy the game, given the considerable amount of text.
Conclusions
Tested version Nintendo Switch digital delivery Nintendo eShop Price 14.99 € Holygamerz.com 6.0 Readers (2) 8.8 your voteDecarnation lives suspended between carefree French songs and disturbing melodies from a disturbed world, between reality and nightmare. With a similar dualism, the work done by Atelier QDB presents peaks worthy of consideration from a narrative and visual point of view, but insufficient in terms of interactions - which often translate into mere parentheses between one dialogue and another, devoid of meaning. own. meaning and technical realization. In this last aspect, in fact, the version for the Nintendo console is riddled with bugs that, in several cases, have seriously affected the enjoyment of the experience. And it's a real shame, because Decarnation has a lot to say about the themes it deals with, but sometimes it seems to forget that it is a video game, and not a purely visual experience.
PRO
- interesting plot
- Visually impressive in some passages.
AGAINST
- Poorly focused and often meaningless interactions.
- Relevant technical problems on Nintendo Switch
- Sound design is not always in focus
