If being a sensational hit is one thing for a celebrity, it certainly sucks when their fame is tarnished with the stench of a murder mystery. In developer Lilien Games and publisher WhisperGames’ latest visual novel adventure title ‘The Real Face of a VTuber’ (“RFoV”), players take on the role of one Mr. Justin Truth—a prosecutor at law—as he delves into the heart of a small agency that handles the day-to-day operations of a “VTuber” named Kuripa. The head of the place, a Mr. C (or “Chicken” for short) has had his neck slashed wide open and besides the killer making things excruciatingly difficult to narrow down, Justin himself also opens himself (reluctantly at first) to the virtual world as he learns more and more what VTubing means to the streamers, the fans, and the people who work hard to platform their model stars.
I walked into The Real Face of a VTuber with a bit of a curiosity that I hoped would be satiated. I hadn’t actually come in for the murder mystery, but to at least get a grasp of the subculture that dominates a corner of the known universe amongst us human beans—because it’s always cool to see what gets people together and I don’t really know anything about all this business. Oh, in this case, VTubing—or “Virtual YouTuber” for short–are talents that take on a virtual identity to sing/dance/talk away the day while playing games and the like.
By the end of the game I walked away a happy camper. I got a fairly good understanding of what people love about VTubers, a bit of terminology in, and all-the-while engrossing myself in an entertaining story with good visuals and music that sadly does have its own set of pitfalls.
(Lilien Games/WhisperGames)
The Real Face of a VTuber is a serious story told through frantic action and lighthearted imagery and moments that can heavily contrast one another. Here, we have six candidates to the murder of Mr. C (our goofy chicken above) and through pressing and collecting evidence, you’ll be tasked with accusing a defendant and pursuing them in court. Every character is unique in their own way and this oftentimes causes clashes within the VTuber agency that they all work at. It’s because of these highlights that this game can carry a serious story all the while tempering the suspension of disbelief that it asks its reader to uphold during its eleven-hour long runtime.
I quite love this initial scene, actually, with the discovery of this body. The player is likely expecting to find a gruesome, bloody scene—but only half of that is true! It helps set the tone for the rest of the story and can even cause a bit of mixed feelings when you discuss life problems with the suspects to a critical point only to remember the image above is why we’re all here. I sure felt that way, at least. But this does also inevitably pose a problem with the game’s story telling when RFoV attempts to joke or break the forth wall one-too many times. I know it can be difficult to keep the right balance between tense discussion over murder without stressing out your audience, but going out of character the number of times this game’s script occasionally broke my connection to the game’s universe and that’s not something I enjoy in a good read.
Another frustrating aspect of RFoV are some localisation goofs and giving the player an idea of the “bigger picture”. These two sort of go hand-in-hand, the first of which can occasionally cause confusion on who said what or just outright having Hanzi characters being left in the script. Also, because the game doesn’t quite use “flashbacks” enough, sometimes it’s easy to miss critical details that could help with your investigation or bout of words. Thankfully, there are no fail states (only bad endings) and RFoV will be more than happy to point you in the right direction if you ask. Still, there were times where I struggled to follow along.
Also also also, you can’t advance text with the spacebar. Only the enter key works here. The enter key! Seriously?! Who uses the enter key to read visual novels?!
But I digress—The Real Face of a VTuber’s cast ensemble is quite entertaining! If not memorable, which I don’t get to say that often. They keep the player on their toes by constantly changing their stories, antagonising each other, and doing everything intentionally (and with the “un-” prefix) to keep you second guessing who the real killer is. It feels like a real interaction with a dysfunctional company and RFoV even caught me off-guard when I realised that all my guesses on who the killer was were wrong. Even with the game’s lack of fail states, I would hesitate with my answers in court and when objecting to the defense (who felt more like the prosecutor at times, funny enough) because I didn’t want to be wrong, not because I worried the game would slap my hand. Which, funny enough, works better to immerse me than any point system the ‘Ace Attorney’ games use.
(Lilien Games/WhisperGames)
Touching base with the VTuber side of things here, it’s not just here as an interesting premise but is a central part of the problems happening within the circle of coworkers here. Over the years, I’ve heard of agencies creating issues for their VTuber talents (and vice versa) and you’ll find bits and pieces of inspiration here that flow well with the murder mystery at hand. As the game’s narrative progresses, some of the cast members develop into better versions of themselves which is always grand to see and that is complimented by the VTuber subculture and references ingrained with the game which will please fans of these idols from all over the globe. The developers have even gone as far to make their own VTuber character and model who acts just like a VTuber would. Now that’s dedication!
And like Justin, I found the entire cast to be utterly exhausting and the man read my mind when he said, “I hope I never have to see you lot ever again” (paraphrasing this one but the idea is there). There’s beauty in that though—it’s not often I remember a cast of characters post-credits, but The Real Face of a VTuber and that’s what makes me think of this as a great visual novel. I just wish it would have leaned into its own strengths more. ■
The Real Face of a VTuber
Played on
Windows 11/Bazzite-based PCs
PROS
- Lovely art, visuals, and music.
- Solid introduction and world building.
- The mystery is engaging!
CONS
- Suspension of disbelief is pushed to its limit.
- Translation goofs and
