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Review of Saya no Uta

SubjectSaya no Uta
ByHelpfulness: 12
Vote: 2
joner on 2021-01-23
ReviewAs a fan of cosmic horror, Gen Urobuchi's other works, and adventure games as a medium, it was inevitable that I'd pick this game up at some point. Had really high hopes for it, too, after hearing it being referred to as "one of the best horror VNs of all time" and "Urobuchi Gen's greatest work"; based on my tone here, however, you can probably guess that at the end of it all, I was not thrilled.

First, I'll briefly mention the things I actually liked about the game. The beginning, specifically the first scene, certainly left an impression on me. I like it when stories just jump headfirst into pure insanity as soon as you press the start button, it catches you off-guard. Another thing I appreciated was the inclusion of "blur the gore" and "dim the gore" settings; always a welcome addition, in my opinion, even if I personally do not use them. And, of course the main menu and the UI are gorgeous, although I found the rest of the game's art to be average at best. The music was pretty good, too.

The characters in the Song of Saya felt flat and one-dimensional, and their actions and development were entirely too predictable. If you've read one Lovecraft book - or, hell, consumed any other cosmic horror story - you've essentially played through all of the "good" parts of this game, and can probably guess everything related to the character development (which isn't very abundant, to be clear. The only kind of change any of the characters go through, if at all, is "succumbing to madness", either in an "evil rapist" way or "badass broken hero who knows too much" way. No inbetween. Yes, every "evil" character who gets actual screentime sexually assauts someone, onscreen, which just seems like a cheap attempt to make our morally grey badasses more likable by someone who, it seems, did know how to write up until the early 2010s).

The Song of Saya does not contain the kind of horror that really stays in your head and makes you lose sleep, unless you're squeamish. The game may have made me genuinely uncomfortable a few times, but if I just wanted to feel uncomfortable, I could have just visited e-hentai and read some works marked as "offensive for everyone", for free, and it would've done a way better job at it, too. For the most part, the horror relies mostly on gross-out (including a LOT of rape) rather than anything truly "psychological" in nature like the Steam tags suggest, unless you count the protagonist finding someone who looks exactly like a child, even by his own admission, insanely sexy as "psychological horror" (although the sheer amount of sexual CGs of Saya, the length and detail of the narration in the sex scenes, and just how keen the narrative seems to be on framing what she and Fuminori have going on as a sort of tragic love story make me question the creators' intentions). I, for one, think this kind of "horror" is incredibly cheap and a disservice to the fans of the genre. I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my mind around how, exactly, this game came to be recognized as one of the best horror VNs.

Want some cosmic horror with meat-covered rooms and sentient flesh mounds, themes of body horror, nutcase researchers, characters who become metaphorical monsters once they see the world in a new light, eldrich romance, and actually morally grey, complex characters that aren't just genre tropes? Listen to the Magnus Archives. Want a horror VN experience with two bad people who end up feeling detached from the rest of the world and fall in love WITHOUT the onscreen rape scenes that take up a very significant portion of the game's playtime? Play Raging Loop. Or, hell, just go ahead and pick up one of H.P. Lovecraft's books, if you don't particularly care for modern-day settings. Honestly, there is nothing good the Song of Saya has to offer that hasn't been done better by some other work at the time I'm writing this review.
12 points
#1 by Koinoyokkan
2022-06-02 at 01:27
< report >Saya no uta is hilariously dogshit
#2 by nirvaren
2022-06-02 at 01:36
< report >This review made me never want to play Saya no Uta so I'm thinking based
#3 by Dtaz
2022-08-20 at 17:19
< report >Brother, the game was released in 2003. A bit unfair to compare them to the big shots from the modern era.
Raging Loop wasn't released up until 2015 and 2016 for Magnus Archives.
#4 by pisscrowns
2023-02-07 at 14:17
< report >I just finished it and feel the same way :/
#5 by nirvaren
2023-02-20 at 00:40
< report >#3 Raging Loop has tons of flaws, I wouldn't call it a big shot
#6 by anonymous
2023-02-20 at 10:48
< report >I agree that Saya no Uta is overpraised. No question there.

I'd like to point out 2 things: The first is that you should take the duration of the VN into account. Many of your arguments fall a bit flat, when you factor in how short the VN is.

The second is that some self reflection on what a 2 out of 10 actually means, is probably in order. At any rate, the review was written a long time ago. Who knows if the OP take is still the same.
#7 by Vr1skaas
2023-03-29 at 02:48
< report >way too much weird scenes and i wish saya turned out to be more evil
#8 by joner
2023-07-25 at 11:17
< report >Hi! OP here again bc I finally have free time again lol. I recently replayed the game on call with a group of friends, and still hold the same general opinion. Definitely agree with Sumiok0dai though, the game is actually fucking hilarious when you're playing with someone else.

Dtaz, you realize I also compared it to the works of H. P. Lovecraft, right? Besides, a decade really isn't that long when it comes to the history of an established genre like cosmic horror. Even if it was, I believe a good work will stand the test of time.

I definitely agree that Raging Loop is far from perfect lol. Still, in my opinion, it handles the romance between Haruaki and Chiemi well, and made me actually invested in it - hence why I mentioned it. Maybe I should've clarified that the actual plotline of the game leaves a lot to be desired, though.

Tbh I really don't think the duration of the VN matters as much as commenter #4 thinks it does. Though I don't play a lot of short VNs, if a standard 12 episode anime series can get me invested in its characters throughout a span of 4-5 hours, I don't think it's too much to ask of a visual novel with no gameplay to be able to accomplish the same within a similar timeframe. And I really don't see why you're taking so much issue with me giving a 2 to a visual novel the writing of which I did not at all enjoy. Think it deserves a higher score? Make a VNDB account and give it a rating.
#9 by cheekyman07
2023-07-25 at 13:41
< report >#8
Don't worry about that person (#6), they are gone from this site now. Mainly because people started taking issue with the toxic advice they would dish out constantly to peoples reviews. Once confronted in a thread about this the reaction they had to that was to delete their own account lol.

What they would do is strawman peoples reviews. Make a load of bullshit claims on how x or y is wrong, bad, or incorrect and give 'advice' out to fix said conjured problems, and no one would ever get an explanation on why they think that, since they would just post something and never come back to it or reply to any return questions. They only ever replied to posts on their own reviews, the dude was toxic as hell. Posted a whole bible below one of my reviews and never followed up on it when I called bs on it.

The point on voting they made is a pretty typical opinion of voting based around the majority of user ratings or the avg ratings rather than on a 1-10 scale. That is ofcourse subjective and personal preference, and to argue for or against something like this for no other reason would be pointless.

Like for me personally I kind of float around the average rating of a title and deviate like upto 3 below or above, but that's just how I do it and im not about to tell you to do the same since it has nothing to do with me.

Well that and also I pretty much agree with everything in the review and did not like this title that much either.Last modified on 2023-07-25 at 13:46
#10 by pisscrowns
2023-10-02 at 19:12
< report >Thanks for recommending Magnus Archives, first season was really good.