BAHHHH first review. ;; Please be gentle, for I'm not good at this...
So. Saya no Uta. A somewhat short game by the highly-regarded company Nitro+,
known for its gory and oftentimes creepy content, as well as a highly compelling storyline.
This review may contain spoilers...I'll type them in white though so you have a choice NOT to read them and get mad at me.
Storyline:
Sakisaka Fuminori's life has been absolute shit lately. He got in a car crash, his parents died, and the surgery to save him cost him a good bit of sanity.
Why?
He doesn't see the world as we do. The procedure done to keep him alive made him see the world as a horrifying mass of gore, entrails and Eldritch creatures that don't speak as much as they do gibber and screech while oozing from their disgusting orifices and...bluuugh.
Unfortunately, Fuminori even sees his (former) friend/neighbors/medical school colleagues as these disgusting forms, making him take on a rather asshole-y attitude, as the player will see in his mean-ass shotdowning of his almost-girlfriend, Yoh. Whom will actually be more relevant later on.
However, Fuminori has managed to find a small saving grace in this world, in the form of an innocent-looking loli named Saya, whom is the only thing that takes a recognizable and appealing form in Fuminori's twisted world. He decides to dedicate his life to Saya, and she becomes his..."wife", I guess. Together they find small things to enjoy, such as a strange, succulent food Saya finds out of "nowhere", attempting to paint their livingroom into a palatable color, and...fucking. A lot.
But in real life it's obvious Fuminori has gone through a rather disturbing metamorphosis. I don't want to give anything away, but I'll just say it's not pretty
And is the sweet, angelic Saya really what she looks like...?
I make it sound rather uninteresting, but it's really quite gripping. I just don't want to give away too much, but there's a reason this is one of the more highly-regarded VNs.
Storyline rating: 10/10
Art:
Second in line for what usually makes or breaks a VN is visual impact. And in this case, Saya no Uta certainly delivers.
The backgrounds are in CGI, and while lush and well-rendered, are also grotesque and freaky. But the good thing is they're supposed to be. The background when out of Fuminori's guro-vision mode aren't really anything to gawk at, just typical background fare...
The character sprites are also rather nice, done in a sketchy style to fit with the rather unhinged style the game gives off.
But, I must comment on the awkwardness of certain poses, particularly the ones the other male protagonist, Kouji gets. He has a major case of derpneck in what would otherwise be well-emoted poses. orz
The CGs are very..."pretty". I know it's a funny word to use for this type of game, but a lot of them, mostly the ones considering Saya, and the True End CGs, are very well-drawn and colored...Saya's hair looks really silky and pretty btw. ;; I want to pet her. [/creeper alert]
Art rating: 9/10
Sound:
Last on my list of key factors is sound.
The BGM tracks can vary from sad to frightening to beautiful in a depressing way...obviously there's nothing light-hearted about this game.
My favorite track has to be Scare Shadow, I have a huge weakness for creepy audio, as much as it frightens me more than images seem to.
The voice acting is another one of the game's strong points, each character is distinctive and has a fitting voice, from Fuminori's stressed, angry tone to Saya's sweet, carefree voice.
But, much like the character sprites, the voice acting can border on Narm in some cases, particularly when a character screams. Kouji in particular could give Hank Hill a run for his money. ;;
Special mention goes to the voice filter in the guro-vision segments, it truly does sound monstrous. The tones and...shall I say..."squelchiness" actually made me slightly nauseous at some points, and this was when I got used to the horror CGs.
The two theme songs that play over the end credits, Garasu no Kutsu (shoes of glass) and Saya no Uta (Song of Saya, lol title drop) are both beautiful and fitting, with lovely vocal accompaniment by Kanako Itou.
Sound rating: 9.5/10
Ero:
Yes, I'm including a section on this in my reviews that require it.
The sex scenes in this are few and far between. And although at first you may be attracted to Saya, a plot twist will make sure you don't enjoy it properly unless you like tentacle-monster on dude consensual sex.
A tidbit about the ero-scenes though, I didn't see them as being done for titillation purposes in the first place. It's obvious Fuminori's out of his gourd and is looking for whatever he can do to pass the time and feel like life is worth it, and Saya's clinging to him tends to rub one the wrong way...especially aft-- *shot* I'm sorry I keep doing that cop-out thing, but...I...orz
I can't say for the other routes as I've only done one, but in the one I did, Yoh eventually ends up in Fumi and Saya's..."activities" as well. And it's pretty fucking wrong.
Ero level: Low quantity, Medium depravity, High emotion
Interface:
Typical NVL style, with a leaf representing the "go to next sentence" thing, and a strange...thing acting as the "page turner."
The save/load interface is also nothing much, right-click bring up a dropdown menu where you can...well, save and load, as well as fiddle with the configuration and go back to your previous choice.
On the "title page" there's the typical CG/Music rooms, but no scene recollection, sadly...although I doubt they'd opt for putting in the more meaningful scenes in there, seeing as scene collections are usually just for ero. ;;
Interface: Normal? ;;
Overall:
I...I love this game.
I'm really not doing it justice with my derpass review, but just...get this game somehow. Buy, download, however you can. If you can stomach the content (and if you can't there's an option to blur/darken the gurovision), I highly recommend it. The story is fascinating, the characters are well-done, the art and music are superb...if you're looking for loli-guro-porn I'd go elsewhere, but if you want a good, chilling ride with very little in the way of flaws I'd check this out.
Overall rating: 9.5/10
Additional:
The English patch has been taken off TLWiki due to copyright...things from Nitro+, but you can easily find it pretty much anywhere else.
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