[HEADING=1]
So I felt like doing a review but I'm too lazy to review Ever17 at the moment so you get this instead. Trying to review that without spoiling anything is the equivalent of trying to do math without using any numbers. This is a lot easier to review since it can be summarized in one picture, and the game is even nice enough to include that picture for me(it's the only nice thing it ever did).
There ya go. Review over. If you want your face to look like that then get this game right now.
Or continue reading. Ha ha ha, I already insulted my review so if you insult it again it wouldn't be near as funny. Take that would be trolls!(and people with good taste in reviews)
[HEADING=2]Story[/HEADING]
Saya No Uta is a game about a guy named Fumonori with the second worst medical condition in the history of anything ever after Naoto's little "monsters from another dimension keep ripping their way out of my skull" problem in FLCL. Everything he sees, touches, hears, smell, or tastes is horrifying. People are oozing, abominable lumps of flesh, everything is covered in gore, speech is an incomprehensible gargle, and everything smells like rotten eggs or poop. Because if something smells bad it is ALWAYS one of those things. Needless to say this has made even simple things like going to lunch with friends pure torture and he's almost completely cut himself off from society as a result. The only reason he simply doesn't kill himself is becausea story that started with the main character offing themselves wouldn't sell very well he has one bright spot in his miserable life. The knowledge that someday humanity will clone dinosaurs and he'll be able to ride it to work and train it to eat that smelly guy in the office who always stealing his pens. Oh, and a cute, innocent, orphaned little girl named Saya who's currently living with him. For some reason Saya appears completely normal to him, an oasis of normality in a world that's gone horribly wrong. They work together to find a cure for his illness and he learns a valuable lesson on enjoying the beauty found in everyday lif-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, no. Things turn ugly faster than something that turns ugly extremely quickly.
Yes, Saya No Uta is a horror game. And not the "shock" horror that relies on stuff jumping at the screen IN 3D! and showing you your gas bill or the creeping dread "Oh crap oh crap there's a bee in the room, I know it's in here, I can hear the buzzing noise, it's getting closer and closer, please someone save me, oh wait, it's just a fly. Hehe for a second there I was really scar-ARGGGHHHH I'VE BEEN STUNG" kind of horror.
Instead it focuses on horror of the "sick and wrong" variety that makes you wonder what you've done to deserve having such thoughts inflicted upon you and why someone was thinking about them at all in the first place. Gore, while present, isn't really the point, and most of the mystery surrounding is largely removed. Saya No Uta achieves horror by examining the deranged, insane characters up close and personally while letting the player see things from their perspective. Other, relatively normal characters do feature as the perspective occasionally, mostly to provide exposition and to give a sense of reality and weight to what would otherwise be an experience so surreal as to largely lack any meaning. Oh crap, I went like a whole paragraph without a pathetic attempt at humor where the only joy to be derived from reading it is to have a laugh at my expense. Okay, what does a cat say when you step on it's tail? Meowch. Oh don't worry, that's not the joke, I'm not that pathetic, the real joke is that you wasted your time reading it and there's no way for you to punish me for making such a terrible joke by beating me within an inch of my life like I deserve.
[HEADING=2]Characters[/HEADING]
There's 5 characters of note, none of them particularly deep, partially because the game is pretty short by visual novel standards. However they are all characterized well enough to serve their intended purpose. We feel sorry for characters we're meant to feel sorry for, characters that are supposed to disgust us totally do, blah blah blah. I would of preferred a bit more time with them but for the length it runs it does very well, and hey if they were good enough to catch my interest enough that I actually wanted to see more they're already better than 90% of the characters in existence so good job game developer people(showing disdain for the majority makes me classy and superior right?). Probably the best thing they did is keep the "evil" characters from turning into that supervillian "I'm being a dick and I know I'm being a dick but I'm going to keep being a dick because I find it hilarious and good is dumb" type of evil. They remain understandable/relatable and their actions vaguely resemble normal human behavior, which just makes them all the more disturbing.
[HEADING=2]Technical Stuffs[/HEADING]
Okay, I really only included this section since I'm copying the formatting from a previous review because I'm lazy. There's not a lot to talk about really. Features are pretty much as bare bones as it gets, though with the aforementioned length and the lack of enough choices to make the story difficult to navigate it's not really an issue. The art style is very "love it or hate it" as far as I can tell from internet comments, I personally thought it was fitting with the tone of the story and at least it's something ever so slightly different in an ocean of anime art styles that are terribly generic. Seriously, it's a cartoon people, you can go crazy on the visuals. I wasn't all that impressed with the music, it was fitting enough but it didn't really enhance the experience for me. However I've been informed by multipleelitist pricks music aficionados that my taste in music is shit and I'm less of a human being for it so feel free to ignore that sentiment and instead mock me for having an opinion that is wrong.
[HEADING=2]Sexual Content[/HEADING]
Oh dear, because it wouldn't be a visual novel without porn. I'm just going to come right out and say it, these are the best sex scenes in any of the games I've ever played. Don't get me wrong, they're still painfully unsexy/unromantic, however at least it's intentional for once and serves a point beyond "1. Include sex scenes in game 2.???? 3. Profit!". That point is to solve the overpopulation problem by ruining sex for everyone. Someone get these guy's a Nobel Prize because they succeeded spectacularly. It starts off with pedophelia and pretty much goes downhill from there. In Saya No Uta, even the tentacle monsters aren't safe from being horribly raped.
[HEADING=2]Summary[/HEADING]
I don't exactly consider myself a pansy when it comes to horror, in fact I find most horror rather boring, so I find it pretty rare and remarkable for a work to actually provoke any sort of response. The games unique, doesn't pull any punches, and if nothing else it should keep you interested enough to finish the whole thing even if you don't find it at all scary. However the best(worst?)thing about it is that in the middle of all the depravity it somehow manages to be beautiful.
Saya No Uta
[/HEADING]
So I felt like doing a review but I'm too lazy to review Ever17 at the moment so you get this instead. Trying to review that without spoiling anything is the equivalent of trying to do math without using any numbers. This is a lot easier to review since it can be summarized in one picture, and the game is even nice enough to include that picture for me(it's the only nice thing it ever did).
There ya go. Review over. If you want your face to look like that then get this game right now.
Or continue reading. Ha ha ha, I already insulted my review so if you insult it again it wouldn't be near as funny. Take that would be trolls!(and people with good taste in reviews)
[HEADING=2]Story[/HEADING]
Saya No Uta is a game about a guy named Fumonori with the second worst medical condition in the history of anything ever after Naoto's little "monsters from another dimension keep ripping their way out of my skull" problem in FLCL. Everything he sees, touches, hears, smell, or tastes is horrifying. People are oozing, abominable lumps of flesh, everything is covered in gore, speech is an incomprehensible gargle, and everything smells like rotten eggs or poop. Because if something smells bad it is ALWAYS one of those things. Needless to say this has made even simple things like going to lunch with friends pure torture and he's almost completely cut himself off from society as a result. The only reason he simply doesn't kill himself is because
Yes, Saya No Uta is a horror game. And not the "shock" horror that relies on stuff jumping at the screen IN 3D! and showing you your gas bill or the creeping dread "Oh crap oh crap there's a bee in the room, I know it's in here, I can hear the buzzing noise, it's getting closer and closer, please someone save me, oh wait, it's just a fly. Hehe for a second there I was really scar-ARGGGHHHH I'VE BEEN STUNG" kind of horror.
[HEADING=2]Characters[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]Technical Stuffs[/HEADING]
Okay, I really only included this section since I'm copying the formatting from a previous review because I'm lazy. There's not a lot to talk about really. Features are pretty much as bare bones as it gets, though with the aforementioned length and the lack of enough choices to make the story difficult to navigate it's not really an issue. The art style is very "love it or hate it" as far as I can tell from internet comments, I personally thought it was fitting with the tone of the story and at least it's something ever so slightly different in an ocean of anime art styles that are terribly generic. Seriously, it's a cartoon people, you can go crazy on the visuals. I wasn't all that impressed with the music, it was fitting enough but it didn't really enhance the experience for me. However I've been informed by multiple
[HEADING=2]Sexual Content[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]Summary[/HEADING]
I don't exactly consider myself a pansy when it comes to horror, in fact I find most horror rather boring, so I find it pretty rare and remarkable for a work to actually provoke any sort of response. The games unique, doesn't pull any punches, and if nothing else it should keep you interested enough to finish the whole thing even if you don't find it at all scary. However the best(worst?)thing about it is that in the middle of all the depravity it somehow manages to be beautiful.
