I realized the other day that I owned this on steam, for some reason, and decided it would be funny to see how awful the censored version of Saya no Uta is. In the end I just patched it anyways and did a normal reread because i thought maybe I would like it more now around 7 years since I originally read it. Well, my thoughts have barely changed. It still mostly sucks. For what it's worth, the beginning of this vn is a great hook, and conceptually it's really not all that bad. At it's best the ideas here are a little reminiscent of Clive Barker's horror short stories. You've got the sex and intense gore, and the core idea of people going crazy because a demon made them see the world as a pulsating meat dimension would be right at home in Books of Blood. Where Saya no Uta falls off completely is in the execution. I liked Madoka Magica a lot, so I don't think Gen Urobuchi is a bad writer, but he clearly learned a lot since he made this. Even if the ideas here were handled better I doubt it would save the story, which suffers from a short runtime and tonal issues as well. You don't have any time to get attached to the characters before they die or go insane, and everything involving the crazy doctor character is pure schlock. It's more fun than the Saya/Fuminori stuff, don't get me wrong, but it's incredibly stupid and it doesn't help that the Lovecraft-inspired (I say that as loosely as possible) tone feels entirely unearned. I don't mind authors alluding to works that inspired them, but the plot here doesn't mesh with Lovecraft's works whatsoever and the lore dump near the ending over-explaining the monster and it's goals robs the narrative of any potential mystery. However, despite my numerous issues with the story itself, I actually found myself liking all three of the endings this time. The first and second are the most thematically fulfilling, but the third is still sort of fun. It's probably not worth suffering through the rest of the vn to get to them, but oh well. And, as everyone who hates or loves this game already knows, the presentation is great. The soundtrack is incredible and the backgrounds and sound design set the tone perfectly. I get why people love Saya no Uta, there's a lot of quality here, but ultimately almost none of it makes it's way into the actual writing. Too short and far too focused on shocking the reader to say anything meaningful.