YMMV / Saiko No Sutoka

• Annoying Video Game Helper:
  • In Yandere Mode, Saiko goes about guiding the player through the game's mechanics indirectly, which isn't particularly annoying... the first time. But after dying enough times to understand the mode, waiting through the long stretches of walking and inspecting classrooms becomes rather tedious as you wait to get the key to the office from her, which isn't helped by her looping voice lines and her tendency to get stuck if the player winds up walking too close to her while she's walking.
  • In Normal and Hard Modes, her Yandere state tries to hover around you to give you medicine to heal your injuries. She also chokes you if you turn your back, locks you in rooms, shoves you down stairs to slow your movement, steals keys from you, and reminds you every couple of seconds that she doesn't want you to leave and that she will never hurt you. It's enough to make you miss her more bloodthirsty mannerisms, though her murderous state comes with its own problem.
  • Mercifully, some of these issues were fixed as of 2.2. Saiko now has more voice lines, leading to less concentrated dialogue repeats. She also checks only three rooms in Yandere Mode before handing over her key as opposed to the six or seven she used to.
• Common Knowledge: "Yandere Mode is the easiest difficulty" is a common belief held by people who play the game. This is really only the case if you're actually going for the bad ending. If you want the good ending, you'll have to contend with gas bombs, false passwords, and limited healing items, all of which set the mode between Hard and Yangire in difficulty.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Saiko seems to be suffering from a mix of three disorders:
  • Dissociative identity disorder (DID): She has one side that's obsessive and possessive but outwardly friendly, and a "Him" personality that is outright menacing (with a much bigger and more sadistic-looking smile to boot).
  • Sexual sadism: Saiko experiences sexual arousal in response to the extreme suffering she puts Akira and Shinji through, all while in a hushed tone. She's perfectly okay with self-harming herself by walking on glass shards.
  • Borderline personality disorder: Saiko would follow around kill Akira if he doesn't give her attention.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Saiko is a violent Soft-Spoken Sadist and a stalker who is trying to murder either of the player characters for most of the game, all while taking her sweet time because she likes watching you struggle and suffer. Even her "nice" state has no qualms about pushing you down stairs, drugging you, or insulting you while stealing keys from you. Despite that, looking at the comment section of many play-throughs of this game (and some of the videos themselves) will reveal that there are still fans of the game that find her adorable, want to date her, and hope that she has a happy ending where she gets with Akira.
• Memetic Badass: Saiko is considered one in the fanbase due to her ability to kick down doors, being able to sprint and keep up with Akira and Shinji both nearly non-stop in older builds, deftness at setting up traps, apparent understanding of medicine and poisons, and her ability to knock both Akira and Shinji over or break their necks with great ease. It's also not uncommon to see jokes that she is able to use Instant Transmission to find you.
• Misaimed Fandom: The premise of the game is that a deranged female classmate has held you hostage, killed at least another person, and even at her "nicest" is always looking for an opportunity to strangle you while brandishing a bloody knife at you. Many fans are apparently unbothered by this, with a sizable amount of the YouTube population claiming they want her to have a happy ending.
• Tear Jerker:
  • If Akira grabs the key and escapes in Normal/Hard Modes, Saiko is shown pursuing him. As Saiko shatters the glass on the front door in an attempt to get around its lock, she accidentally impales herself in the torso while trying to slide through. Before collapsing, Saiko does a Futile Hand Reach to Akira and begs for his help, but he runs away instead. Nightmare Mode indicates that this ending will be canon as Saiko will haunt Akira in his mind as part of his PTSD and lingering regret that he didn't save her in hindsight. From what the developer has revealed regarding the Nightmare Mode, she keeps on asking Akira why he didn't save her from a tragic death even though she accidentally killed herself.
  • Should Akira manage to take the exit key in Normal/Hard Modes, Saiko will pop up to steal it back. Returning the favor causes Saiko to strangle him, only for her to realize how much pain she's caused him and voluntarily lets Akira escape. What becomes of her after that is currently unknown, but this could change in future updates.
  • Another way of obtaining the exit key is Saiko's diary, which would allow her to give the code once Akira collects all the pages, which are scattered throughout the school. It contains rather disturbing drawings made by Saiko, which revealed that she was ostracized and bullied when she was younger. Also, what's driving her Yangire side is the Split Personality she developed over the years as a coping mechanism, something which is eating away her sanity. Also, Shinji was the one who stole Saiko's diary, ripped its pages out, and posted them around the school just to ridicule her.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Akira is mentioned by Habupain to not be entirely innocent in the matter and is possibly (although likely unintentionally) responsible for Saiko's deteriorating mental health and is a bit of a jerk as well. However, due to the lack of supplementary material and in-universe information on him as well as his predicament in the game, he is currently presented as nothing more than a victim of Saiko's obsession, being kidnapped, near fatally drugged, his best friend brutally murdered, and then hunted down purely by virtue of having the misfortune of being Saiko's object of affection. His only shown crime thus far is an understandable desire to get the hell away from the person trying to make Swiss cheese out of him with a knife and Saiko only gets angry at his ever-increasing fear over her violent tendencies despite recognizing that she has been continually harassing him, upping the intensity of her attempts at thwarting or harming him in both her Yandere and Yangire states. Hell, he even regrets not being able to save her from death in Normal/Hard mode, despite it being entirely her fault.

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