I’ve heard about this game before while browsing certain crevices on the internet and never really understood or took the time to learn about this game. Yes this is another Visual Novel write up much like my old Clannad one. However unlike clannad, the whole story is pretty devoid of any humor and fun to make way of a pretty dark theme along with a few adult scenes. If you are disturbed eaisly then this isn’t the review or even game for you as there are some images within that may be creepy to younger viewers. I’ll give you a moment to see if you really want to read on or not…

Ok so some of you are still with me I see. Lets continue. First up we will talk about a few major points about the game before anything else. This is by no means a game like Clannad. There is a small handful of adult orientated pictures and moments scattered throughout the story, there is really only 2 or 3 moments where you get to actually select a path (each leading to a seperate ending of possible 3) and is actually kinda short for a game in this genre. Then again its size is roughly 1/6th the size of Clannad. Anyway so all those things side we can talk about the plot.

PLOT

Fuminori Sakisaka was a regular guy. He attented medical school, had friends, a family and a potential girlfriend who confessed to him. This changes though when he and his family get into a traffic accident that only he survives from. Even then he required brain surgery to survive it and wasn’t expected to live. Despite the doctor’s doubts of survival, he does indeed recover but is no longer the same person. Now everything Fuminori sees is like something from a nightmare. Buildings, trees, cars… even the sky looks like they have been covered in guts, organs and blood. People no longer look or sound normal and are walking piles of flesh and puss that have rather demonic alien sounds as voices. Even food he tries to eat is horrible and nearly inedable. Fumonori slowly loses his mind in hospital and as he thinks about suicide one night in bed, he meets a pretty young girl by the name of Saya. However unlike everyone else he sees, Saya is a normal, pretty girl. She looks, sounds and even feels like everyone used to be. She is quite surprised that he isn’t scared of her and in fact, Fuminori quickly convinces Saya to visit him every night as they become friends. Thanks to her Fuminori is able to become discharged from the hospital where he finaly asks Saya to live with him. After returning home, he finds Saya in the house already and she agrees to live with him. From here on the story is about Fuminori coming to terms with himself, his new perception on life and about Saya.

Saya no Uta Menu

CHARACTERS

Due to the games short length, there is really only 2 main characters, and 4 supporting character so listing them all is no problem (thanks again wiki!). There is mabye 1 or 2 more but they don’t play much of a role or I can’t mention them due to spoilers.

Fuminori Sakisaka – The protagonist of the game. A medical school student, he suffers a near-fatal traffic accident which kills his parents and leaves his perception of life permanently altered. As he wades through the “world gone berserk” of flesh and blood, he seeks the affection of the only thing he sees as normal — a mysterious girl named Saya.

Saya – The only person Fuminori sees as normal. She has become Fuminori’s pillar of support in the crazy world he sees.

Koji Tonoo – Fuminori’s friend. After Fuminori’s accident he has been trying to help Fuminori’s life get back to normal.

Omi Takaha – Koji’s girlfriend and Yo’s best friend. After Fuminori’s accident she has become worried for Yo’s sake.

Yo Tsukuba – A friend of Fuminori’s who has a crush on him. Since his accident she has been worried and heartbroken at his sudden change of attitude towards the world

Ryoko Tanbo – The physician in charge of Fuminori’s condition. She becomes suspicious that Fuminori has been hiding something during his routine checkups after he recovers from his injuries.

Fuminori in a hospital bed shown through his vision

Gore

As you can see from the pictures, this game is quite visual with its gore factor. This may be a rather big turn off for some but it does play a big part in the story itself and all has a purpose. So it’s up to you wether or not you can deal with this sort of thing or not. It doesn’t bother me really so had no effect on my final oppinion of the game.

Audio

This part is usualy what either makes or breaks visual novels for the most part to me. Most of the time you are spent reading what is happening so music is always needed otherwise you feel as if you are just sitting and reading. I know that IS really what you are doing but you know what I mean. I’m happy to say the music for this game is pretty great and OST itself is a great listen. The 1st track Schizophrenia really sounds like a Nine Inch Nails song which cannot suit the demonic landscape any better. Really. This track is brilliant.  Even better are the voices in the game which there are plenty of. Each character seems to be done rather well and sound at least plausable which is always good. However the real treat to this game, at least to me, was when the game shifts over to Fuminori’s point of view and you are subjected to the grotesque sounding noises of people talking. Along with the great sound track this is rather eerie to listen to and really creeped me out a few times. Well done. 

Fuminori again

FINAL THOUGHTS

Well this game was rather enjoyable to read and unravel the story within. If you can ignore the… er… “adult” scenes of which there are mabye 3 or 4 of, then you have yourself an even better story. This could, and should very well be turned into a 13 episode anime and could be done with great effect. The dark themes (insanity, murder, cannibalism for example) are pretty well engrained into the story to the point where you don’t feel they are there just for the sake of being there. Every character has their place and about half way through, depending on your choice, you can really see the changes in personality. Again it’s only a short game so at the very least, it will provide you with 2 – 4 hours of entertainment. The game too is fully voiced so considering the size of it is rather impressive I thought. One last thing about the game is that there is no offical english translation, so a newly released fan translation is required but should prove no problem to find, for those who want to enjoy this game. All in all this is a great game that only adults should play due to the few naughty scenes. If it wasn’t for those I could recommend this to more people.

Saya