Review: The Real Face of a VTuber — A Memorable Murder Debut
January 13, 2026
Lilien Games may not be a rookie developer, but The Real Face of a VTuber, a murder mystery visual novel centered around a VTubing agency, is a pretty impressive performance out of a team that hasn’t had any other real big-budget projects up to this point. The game is hardly groundbreaking and most certainly isn’t a symbol of perfect quality, but it’s heart is in the right place. There is a clear respect for the player through the story, and that’s all you can really ask for out of a game like this.
The Real Face of a VTuber is a game that wholly prioritizes its narrative above all else. At its best, the game is actually pretty enthralling, with a premise that truly delivers. Outside of the narrative direction, though, The Real Face of a VTuber very much feels like a project coming out of a small developer. By no means is this a polished title, but it’s still one that merits support, especially if the VTubing premise seems interesting to you.
Disclosure: We received a free review copy of The Real Face of a VTuber from PressEngine.
Enjoyability: 9/12 — Mods, Find the Killer
When playing a visual novel, what tends to matter most is how engaged a player is with the action in front of them. While there isn’t much interactivity to The Real Face of a VTuber, it does enough to keep your attention the whole way through. There’s genuine tension that demands more development, which makes it hard to ever just turn away. The game’s mystery evolves in an excellent manner.
When The Real Face of a VTuber isn’t firing on all cylinders, though, it can be pretty boring. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the interrogation system, going through all the characters takes a good amount of time. What you get out of every individual conversation often isn’t worth the effort, but it feels wrong to leave any stone unturned. Finding the right piece of evidence sometimes just feels like a crapshoot, which is truthfully the real issue at hand there. Overall, however, I do feel that The Real Face of a VTuber excels at keeping the intrigue levels as high as possible.
Gameplay: 7/12 — Click, Click, Click
Expecting much out of a visual novel’s gameplay is a foolish endeavor. There’s just not much you can do there with the genre. The Real Face of a VTuber is especially basic in that regard. As mentioned before, there is some semblance of interactivity, particularly in the courtroom scenes, but the game mostly just demands clicking through text with some occasional decision-making. It’s pretty barebones, and there’s not much more to say there.
What I can comment on is how The Real Face of a VTuber approaches its evidence management. How they organize the evidence in-game makes sense, considering how players are generally asked to pick through them, but it would have been really nice to have some sort of summary page for all the characters. As the game progresses, it gets harder and harder to keep track of smaller details. There are some clues that you just can’t retrace and find, which doesn’t feel right for a game like this. Simple facts should be easier to view.
Atmosphere: 10/12 — A Deep Love for VTubing
What surprised me the most going into The Real Face of a VTuber was how accurately it captured the world of VTubing. While the game feels ever so slightly undercooked in a lot of areas, Lilien Games did not cheap out on the star character, Kuripa. Her VTuber model is incredibly well-designed and, though she gets used for mostly shallow purposes, her presence and the dynamics around her are a pure positive for the storytelling.
One topic that feels unavoidable here is the clear inspirations from the Ace Attorney games. The not-so-subtle nods to the series are appreciated, but they don’t do much for the experience. Trying to emulate the same formula just doesn’t quite come out right. The Real Face of a VTuber finds a lot more success by drawing from Ace Attorney’s musical aesthetics. This game’s soundtrack is good. It’s not breathtaking or anything like that, but it fits the game’s moods very nicely.
Design: 8/12 — No Failing Allowed
On a fundamental level, The Real Face of a VTuber isn’t very complicated. There are a few different game states that get reused very frequently. The game only drastically changes towards the end, but, even then, not by much. The game’s simplicity could definitely be criticized, but what affects players in a more substantial manner is the difficulty.
The difficulty absolutely needs to be discussed because I know it’ll be a bit divisive. The fact that there are zero punishments for getting answers wrong will undoubtedly affect how all players approach the game. On the surface, it instantly kills all stakes. There’s nothing to be anxious about. But you also can’t deny that it makes the game flow so much more smoothly. As a reviewer, I definitely appreciate the limited obstacles behind progression, but it kills a lot of the satisfaction that could be there, otherwise.
Direction: 10/12 — Ticket to Ride
To wrap things up, ending with some praise for The Real Face of a VTuber’s story feels about right. Personally, it’s what I would consider to be the game’s greatest strength and what makes it worth checking out. Murder mysteries are usually pretty fun to explore, and this one certainly understands what it takes to create a riveting environment.
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The pacing of the story is pretty good. Despite what I said about the boring down times, the player gets access to new evidence and leads fairly regularly around those interactions. There is always something to think about, even when the game has you sit through mostly useless testimonies. Sometimes the story developments are a little too vague, though, but that only impacts the gameplay demands.
The Real Face of a VTuber knows well what clichés it has to go up against, and how it tries to be different is well-appreciated. This is no simple mystery, but it also doesn’t play too unfair. Some things may be really hard to catch, but the ending feels pretty justified...assuming you can suspend your belief about the legal system in the game’s world. The Real Face of a VTuber dares to tell a pretty unique story, and it certainly makes for a memorable VTuber debut.
