The Reveal / Visual Novels

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• The Ace Attorney series, being all about very dramatic trials, has some major reveals:
  • In the second game's final case, your client, Matt Engarde, turns out to be not the killer, but the man who ordered the killing. The reveal is so awesome because he smoothes back his hair to reveal some nasty scars on his eye, changing his appearance and expression extensively, and then he pulls a glass of brandy out of Hammerspace. In a holding cell.
  • The ending to the third game: even after Big Bad Dahlia Hawthorne has been defeated for good, there still isn't an actual suspect for the murder. After some further testimony and debate, Phoenix accuses Prosecutor Godot. What makes this a surprise is that so far there's been absolutely nothing to even suggest that person was anywhere NEAR the murder as it happened. But it's not out of nowhere; because the player has to prove they've actually been paying attention by answering "Who do you think the witness saw?" just before the Reveal.
  • The first game's final case has two of them, in sequence. Lana Skye has already admitted guilt as your defendant, leading to a lot of suspicion as to: Why would you do that? When investigating a very obviously related incident referred to as SL-9, you must go through the testimony of her younger sister, Ema Skye, to find out what happened. Many players here expect this murder gives the proof and motive to put the real culprit behind bars. The result? You accidentally find proof positive to the real killer in that incident: Ema. This sets up for a bigger reveal later on.
  • Throughout Ace Attorney Investigations the question we've been building up to is whether the Yatagarasu is Kay's father Byrne Faraday, as Kay claims, or Calisto Yew, as Yew claims. In the penultimate challenge of the game, it's told that the answer is neither option. The Yatagarasu was actually three people—Faraday, Yew, and Faraday's partner Detective Badd, putting their respective skills together to commit the thefts. Compared to that the reveal of the Big Bad is almost minor.
  • The sequel to Investigations has, in its final case, the victim being the president of Zheng Fa from the very first case. The reveal is that he's actually a body double who formed a conspiracy with the killers of cases 2 and 4 in which he assassinated the real president and took his place. However, unlike the first game, the Reveal of the game's actual Big Bad — the one who masterminded the death of the body double, the first case's killer, and the capture of the body double's co-conspirators — is just as huge as the preceding reveal. It's Souta Sarushiro/Simon Keyes, the seemingly harmless clown you helped out in the second case and the supposed best friend of the first case's killer. Up until you have to deduce he's the mastermind, he never comes under suspicion, and the game needs to give you huge hints to his identity.
  • In the final case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, it is revealed that the spy known only as 'The Phantom', who sabotaged the HAT-1 rocket, blew up the HAT-2 rocket and courtroom 4, and killed Clay Terran and Metis Cykes, has spent the entire game masquerading as Detective Bobby Fulbright, followed by the reveal that the actual Bobby Fulbright was killed before the game began.
  • In the final case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, Apollo learns that Dhurke has been dead all along.
• ChronoBox: Eden isn't a peaceful island. It's a test site meant to cure people with Multiple Personalities
• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: The corpse found in Chapter 5 is Mukuro Ikusaba's... except she's been dead for weeks now. She and Junko switched places for reasons unknown, and it was Mukuro who attacked Monokuma in Chapter 1 and was killed for it. Her corpse was re-used to make it seem as though she has been recently murdered. And the person behind Monokuma? The real Junko. Making this even funnier is the fact that the followers of the Something Awful Let's Play had been joking about Junko being the mastermind since the end of Chapter 3.
• Double Homework: Dr. Mosely is actually Zeta, rogue scientist who performs illegal and unethical experiments.
• Fate/stay night. In the Fate route Saber is revealed to be King Arthur (or Arturia), the Holy Grail is actually an Artifact of Doom Jackass Genie and that random priest at the very start is the Big Bad. In Unlimited Blade Works route Archer is actually a Future Badass version of Shirou. In Heaven's Feel route Sakura is Rin's younger sister who was given to the evil Matou family and was subjected to horrendous domestic abuse and Training from Hell for eleven years in order to become a vessel of the Holy Grail.
• Higurashi: When They Cry has Miyo Takano being the Big Bad, and the reason why there are so many arcs. There are other reveals though, but most are in the sound novels.
  • The reason everyone goes crazy.
  • Also for the viewer/reader (and Keiichi during Atonement chapter), the big reveal of unreliable narration during the question arcs. Go watch Onikakushi-hen knowing Keiichi is delusional and the girls really are just trying to help. So many little things suddenly make sense. Plus, Rika's dimension-jumping and Hanyuu's existence.
• The story of The House in Fata Morgana is meticulously crafted. As such, each reveal bears an immeasurable weight for the characters:
  • First door: The White-Haired girl is Mell's half sister. This revelation breaks both siblings.
  • Second door: Bestia is, in fact, a man. A man who has completely lost his humanity, but a man nonetheless. And that other beast, which appears during the story? It was in fact Pauline, who ends up slaughtered by the very man she loved.
  • Third door: Maria is a conniving and treacherous woman who plays both sides in order to make Jacopo's life as miserable as possible.
  • Fourth door: Nothing was real. The entire story is a pure fabrication. The Maid is not the Witch Morgana, the White-Haired girl is not named Giselle, and ??? is not the White-Haired girl.
  • Michel was born intersex and thought to be female until his body developed into one of a man, except for the lack of male genitals.
  • Jacopo, "the Lord", wasn't the same lord as the one who initially bought Morgana as his property and used her in his sabbats: he was in fact the very slave who helped her to escape and who lived with her for a few years immediately after. And he is the same man who would later usurp the position of lord and order her capture. When he realizes he captured the girl who he wanted to make happy in the first place, he finds himself unable to talk with her, as she doesn't recognize him, her traumatic experiences leading her to jump to the conclusion that he must have been the same person who bought her years ago.
  • The White-Haired girl, who share so many characteristics with Michel, including his name, is not him.
  • The painting's identity: it is Georges, Michel's brother, whose soul came to the mansion out of his sheer desire to apologize to his brother.
• No Case Should Remain Unsolved: You are trying to uncover what happened to Seowon, a little girl who went missing, but everything the protagonist remembers is inconsistent and contradictory. What really happened is that there were two girls named Seowon. Kim Seowon died as a baby and her mother Song Minyeong suffered a mental breakdown, convincing herself that her daughter was still alive. She kidnapped Choi Seowon in a delusional belief that this was her daughter. Her ex-husband returned the girl to her father and lied to the police, trying to take the blame for the kidnapping himself. Jeon Gyeong let him go, but left the case open so that Song Minyeong can still believe that her daughter is alive. Finally, the ending reveals that the protagonist is actually Song Minyeong and the Adjudicator is the real Jeon Gyeong, who's been trying to help her work through her addled memories and delusions.
• Sekien no Inganock: Your name is 《Kikai》Porshion, one of forty-one unborn lives.
• EP7 of Umineko: When They Cry has the series' most important reveal. Basically, Lion is an alternate universe counterpart of Beatrice. They are known as Yasu, and their gender is unknown, which unlike most examples of that trope is actually a plot point brought up in the series itself. The game facts don't seem to apply, until you consider the fact that 17 people isn't clarified by multiple identities, allowing for a murderer to exist among a population of 17 fully recognized people.
• War: 13th Day builds up to these beautifully. First, with a healthy dose of Foreshadowing, it leads you to think that it's All Just a Dream. Then, you discover that it's not. Just wait until you reach the ending...
• Zero Escape:
  • Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors has its first major reveal during the Safe Ending, where you find out that Ace is Gentarou Hongou, the CEO of Cradle Pharmaceuticals and the perpetrator of the first Nonary Game. Except he isn't Zero. Zero, as revealed by the True Ending, is June, and that you've actually been playing as her, not Junpei, the whole time. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • There are also plenty of reveals in the endings of Virtue's Last Reward, but also a dramatic one that occurs when triggered as a result of player action. The first time you restore your game and switch route to change your answer in the Nonary Game, but your opponent also changes their answer, you might feel cheated; the second time, Sigma yells at them for cheating in-character, revealing that he's aware of everything you are, including restoring and restarting the game.
  • Then there's Zero Time Dilemma. Fuck, is this a doozy. Well, the most mundane one is that Phi dyes her hair. But aside from that, Zero, real name Delta, is more commonly known as Brother, the leader of Free The Soul, a cult/terrorist group responsible for the Apocalypse Wow situtation of VLR that Sigma, Phi and Akane are trying to prevent. He's a time traveller as well who is trying to ensure the birth of both himself and his sister... who just happens to be Phi, who's parents are Sigma and Diana^note See why Phi dying her hair is so important?.
    • "Q" isn't referring to the kid with the helmet. It's referring to Delta. And the "Kid" is actually a quantum computer.
    • Mira's a Serial Killer, with one of her previous victims being the mother to her boyfriend Eric. As a result of her killing a random woman, Mira is single-handedly responsible for every single major event of misfortune in this series.

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