So, Voltage Inc. just put out a new free to play mobile app, Liar: Uncover the Truth. Which is a cross between their previous titles, My Forged Wedding and True Love Sweet Lies wrapped in a Phoenix Wright bun. To be honest I’m not a huge fan of freemium games and apps. So I was planning to pass this game up. But like always curiosity got the better of me and here I am once again entangled in Voltage’s romantic snare. I know I am on break, but I couldn’t resist posting this review.*shrugs* I really didn’t expect to fall in love with this game!
Liar uses some of the same interfaces and techniques that made MM so popular, without the real time aspect…and it works! Snoop through your lover’s social media pages, and press him for info to uncover the truth, is your man a liar or is he telling the truth?
Game Details
- Genre: Drama | Investigation | Romance
- Developer & Publisher: Voltage Inc.
- Where to Get the Game: No longer available
Story
Lies, truths, and misunderstandings…
Which of these men can you trust?“Have you been cheating on me?!”
A breakup with your cheating boyfriend leads you…
…straight into the arms of ten gorgeous men?!But beware! Nine of these ten guys are no-good liars!
Just you watch. I’ll find Mr. Right.
These liars don’t stand a chance!
After breaking up with her no good cheating boyfriend, Shizuo Furuya, our plucky MC vows never to be tricked by a handsome face ever again! So, she does the next thing any newly single lady in her situation would do; she participates in a matchmaking event. The event is full of hot eligible bachelors, the cream of the crop and the MC is single and ready to mingle! While there the MC meets ten perfect men. Each more tantalizing than the next. But you never can tell with handsome men… nine of them are liars and it’s up to the MC to weed out the liars and maybe find true love along the way!
The Liars
So, in the game there are a total of ten potential love interests. However, nine of the guys are dirty liars. As the game progresses, the MC will eliminate one liar after another until she is left with her ideal match!
For Individual Liar reviews click: Liar 1 | Liar 2 | Liar 3 | Liar 4 | Liar 5 | Liar 6 | Liar 7 | Liar 8 | Liar 9 | Mr. Right
For Lovers Routes reviews click: Liar 6 | Liar 7 | Liar 8 | Liar 9 | Mr. Right
Gameplay & Features
The game mechanics are typical of most ticket based free to play mobile otoge. As I mentioned above, all characters are available at the beginning of the game. With one character or “Liar” being eliminated at the end of each Liar arc. Liar arcs consist of several small chapters which require tickets to unlock. The prologue and the 1st Liar story can be accessed without the use of tickets. But all subsequent Liar stories will require tickets to read. Tickets can be obtained for free daily at 5AM or through in game micro-transactions (there are various ticket packages to choose from).
Liar arcs are split into three segments: Question, Investigation, and Accusation. Question sections, consist of visual novel segments in which the player gets to interact with some of the love interests in a casual setting (ie. a date). During these segments players will start to notice some questionable behavior from the featured love interests. Which may become more apparent as the player gets closer to the Investigation segment.
In the Investigation segments the MC collects evidence to prove whether or not one of the featured love interests is hiding something. Unlock your inner stalker as you complete the following activities. Snoop through social media posts. Dig through your potential love interest’s personal belongings. Comb through their homes and/or offices Analyze every text they send. And finally take notes on any “suspicious” behavior with your handy dandy notebook!
Finally, after you have collected your evidence, the MC can choose to accuse one of the love interests of being a liar. I kid you not, the Accusation segments are what I imagine Phoenix Wright would be like as an otome game. You confront the Liar about his misdeeds and present evidence to back up your accusations.
If you present the wrong evidence you lose Cool/Savvy points. If you present the correct piece of evidence you gain points. At the end of the segment one of the men will be eliminated and based on the number of points you earned during the Liar arc, you will be awarded a ranking. Achieving the S rank unlocks all Endings for the eliminated love interest (True, Secret, Love, and Scumbag). The lower the rank the fewer endings you unlock. If you completely screw up, you will automatically unlock a separate Bad ending.
In addition to the story specific points system, Liar also features a separate mini game called, Flirt Time, that can be used to earn Cool points. During Flirt Time, players will be asked to answer two types of multiple choice questions: Girl Power questions or Seduction questions. Answering these questions will earn you one of two scores, Super Cool or Basic, which each correspond to the amount of Cool points you earn. The game also has a instant messenger system similar to the chat room feature in Mystic Messenger. However unlike MM there are no dialogue choices. In fact, so far there are no dialogue choices in this game at all. Aside from the Accusation segment of the game.
I’m two liars in and I can honestly say that I’m hooked! The story isn’t complex or especially thought provoking, but the underlying mysteries and the characters are just so damn captivating. I just have to know which guy will be victorious at the end of the game. Even if it kills me. However, I do have one major complaint…. the chapters are two damn short. Come on Voltage, two lines of dialogue is not a full chapter. And it is most certainly not worth a whole ticket (especially when 1 ticket = .99¢).
The artwork in Liar is a bit different from the art style in their other games, but I like it. The character sprites look great. I appreciate the additional sprite animations. Though I will admit without an actual voice acting the mouth movements are a little unnecessary. Also, thank you Voltage for not only giving the MC eyes, but for giving her an actual on screen sprite! She is gorgeous!
As for the characters’ personalities, each liar has their own personality traits and quirks that sets him apart from the others. On the surface each guy is perfect. But if the games title is any indication, you’d be foolish to take any of them at face value. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let me say this… this game is 17+ for a reason! Out of the ten potential love interests, I am most interested in IT executive, Haruichi Mamiya; the sexy surgeon, Sotaro Shiga; and the stock trader, Keima Katagiri… what can I say, I have a thing for dark haired men!
But the real MVP in this game is the MC! I don’t know what is going on over at Voltage Inc., but I sincerely hope they keep it up! Not only is the MC a capable career woman, but home girl has a personality as well. She’s intelligent and witty, and she isn’t afraid to call the other characters out on their BS. On top of that, she is such a relatable heroine, there were times when my thoughts and her dialogue were one in the same. I haven’t been in sync with a Voltage MC like this since I played through Astoria Fate’s Kiss! This MC is perfect, absolutely no complaints!!
So, I couldn’t write a review on this game with out addressing the lies. Since they are so integral to the plot. Voltage really went all out with these lies, some vary from mildly amusing to cringe worthy to downright scary and I can’t wait to expose each and every one of them! Sometimes it’s easy to spot the liar, like in the first arc, even though I didn’t know the extent of the lie, I knew right away which guy had… issues. But I’m assuming, that the further you progress in the game, the harder it’ll be to separate the truth from the lies. So I anticipate making some difficult choices further down the line.
When I first saw this game, I’m not going to lie, I had absolutely no intention of ever playing it. But, somehow curiosity got the better of me and I’m glad that it did! I actually really enjoyed Liar Uncover the Truth, even though the game is far from perfect. This is a fun app with just enough comedy and mystery to keep players coming back to it day after day. The characters are interesting and the MC is a by far one of the best I’ve seen in a long time! I definitely recommend this game!!
Looks interesting. And the ‘liars’ are so visually appealing! haha!
It is, lol the game really caught me by surprise! The liars are all gorgeous! I have no idea who to trust!
I thought that I needed to buy every single chapter like the other games that the Voltage inc. made. But, it didn’t! I was glad!
The gameplay is like a visual novel. There are no dialogue options, like you said. Only accusations and investigations. So far, it really peeked my interest! I thought the all the men in this game were _drop dead gorgeous_ and wouldn’t do any harm to the MC or acting out of character.
But…I was wrong.
*Spoiler alert!*
The 1st liar. He was very charming at first. But when you find out the he was a liar. I was….shocked..and amused XD Not only MC HATED Mama’s boys. The first liar is LITERALLY IN LOVE with his own mother! He even said to himself that the MC looks like his mother in her younger years! And after he proposes to MC he invited her to join with his mother and him to take a bath together!
I mean are you insane?! That’s creepy!
That’s why I love this game! The lies are so unexpected and when the men snap they SNAP! I can’t wait to see what happens next!!
I thought he looked like a nice guy too! I was so weirded out… (What’s worse was the feeling was mutual!!!)
Okay, I’m sold! I have to play this now. I’ve been playing Notice Me Senpai and the Shall We Date series games. This one looks extremely interesting though.
Yes!!!
Oh I love Notice Me Senpai, it’s such a cute game!! It’s Neko Atsume with bishies lol.
Yeah Voltage always manages to suck me in over and over again
ahaha I thought the exact same thing about Notice me senpai!
Voltage Inc. make my favourite dating games… Definitely check it out! (P.S. ticket restore everyday so you don’t have to buy them.)
I havent played yet. But i read the spoilers and the 1st liar is a bit… I dont what to say. Well. Time to give it a try.
I know what you mean lol. He was…special lol. But, definitely give the game a try it’s fun!
Since I first saw Liar I thought it would be an interesting change from what you would normally expect from Voltage and it seems I wasn’t wrong. I can’t believe you ended up getting hooked on it so hard. It reminds me a little of Lost Dimension that no matter how you may feel about a character, slowly but surely you are going to whittle them down whether you like it or not. Or maybe one may be given the benefit of the down as you overlook their sins because they are worth it. =3
I think this is going to shook up on my Priority list, past getting round to playing Sherlock properly. I think this will be right up my alley. I wonder what they will be bringing out next?
I know right this game is just so addictive, I just hope I can keep up with it! Voltage still manages to surprise me after all these years and I love it!
I’ve never played Lost Dimension, but if it is has a similar concept to Liar, I definitely need to go check it out! I like the Liar aspect of the game, because if I understand correctly, there will only be one preset guy left standing at the end of the game and I really need to know who that guy is lol.
If you get around to playing it, definitely let me know what you think!! 😀
I want to play Sherlock too, but I can only manage one free to play game at a time lol
Also, I see you finally got around to creating that WP account! 😉
I did ^^ One day at a time.
Lost Dimension is an action RPG where 12 of you are in a tower and all have special abilities. In the group however is one traitor and as you go up the tower, you need to vote and kill off whoever you think the traitor is. However it is randomized each time you play so no guide can give you the answers and auto saves ALL the time so once you make a choice, you can’t take it back, You have to switch party players, check their comments at the end of combat and can even mind probe them to confirm if they are the traitor. I had to kill the party healer off and that was hard. It’s an extremely overlooked game, it needs more love.
I will definitely play it as soon as I’ve finishing crying to all the Mystic Messenger after stories. I wonder if there will be one innocent soul at the end? I wonder what happens if you pick wrong D= Are you gonna do another write up once you hit the end?
That sounds like an awesome game, I’ll definitely add it to my list. I’m trying to get into rpgs…my copies of fire emblem have been collecting dust all summer lol.
Oh man I hear losing a healer is brutal! But, I like high risk games like that!
I need to get back into MM, but I’m enjoying my sleep a little too much lol
Me too! I am dreading making the wrong choice especially since this is a ticket based game. If I make a mistake, I feel like I have to start all over again and I dunno if I can handle that.
I dunno, I’ll probably do follow up posts on each of the liars as I eliminate them but I want to wait until the game has been out a little longer, so I don’t spoil too much for ppl playing the game.
Gasp! I saw abs. I saw a hot bishie naked from the waist up. Gasp! I saw abs. . .abs. . .abs. What is this madness. Abs. . . .
. . .you temptress.
Oh yes, I wouldn’t be a good temptress if I didn’t include a nice shirtless pic or two…. Mwahahahaa
Ahahaha! I should’ve known. You have mastered the “hook”—namely, naked guys to bait innocent, AHEM, victims like myself.
It should said “MM is like this game” because Liar (or Japanese name is Doubt) out before MM did (in Jap version of course)
You are right, but since the game was released in English after MM I decided to go with that order instead. But thank you for your input.
I think Mystic Messenger is like Liar 2.0. Because this game have been out for a while before the world know what is Mystic Messenger
LMAO, I feel so dumb! How did I manage to miss this article?! T_T Now I look and sound stupid for commenting previously that the player should be more involved in exposing the liars. Doesn’t sound too difficult, but at least there’s a bit of something to it rather than just reading what happens passively (which I thought was what was going on for some reason)! xS
Man, I wish the PC/PSV games had something interesting like this. I’d also wish for a port, but mobile-to-PC/PSV tends to suffer. Makes me wonder if Otomate’s upcoming Variable Barricade will be something like this to a much lesser extent- the guys all want the prettiful protag-chan but seem to be hiding stuff.
Looking forward to reading up on more scumbags. ;P Keep up the great work!
LOL, I do that all the time! I tried to link it at the beginning of all of the individual liar reviews but I just kind of snuck it in there under the radar.
Yes! The MC goes into full snoop mode in this game; social media pages, text messages, magazine articles, personal belongings… nothing is sacred in her quest to uncover the truth lol.
Oh yeah I saw the trailer for Variable Barricade and it looks like more companies are picking up the “mysterious” love interest premise. I like it, I need a bit more drama with my otome games!!
I’m really glad you like my posts, thank you for always reading, commenting and retweeting! I really appreciate it! 🙂
I have one more liar post coming out this week and then after that I have to catch up in the game. So there will be a bit of a gap between the posts for Liars 8 and 9
Haha, aside from snooping the personal belongings thing, everything else is still in the realm of “not crazy”, as long as she’s not hacking accounts or accessing the guy’s mobile, computer, etc. (without his permission) to get the “evidence”.
Yeah, Variable Barricade is easily the next Otomate game I’m most interested in.
And you’re very welcome! I’m happy to spread the word of great content I come across. =)
I’m very much looking forward to liars 8 and 9! Surprise twist: 10 is a liar as well and Ms. Protagonist ends up alone but becomes a famous private detective.
So far no mad hacker skills from this MC, she sticks to social media stalking though. lol
Aww I really appreciate you saying that, it really helps motivate me to write!! 😀
Oh man I can’t wait to see who the next two liars are… I have my suspicions, but Voltage might pull a fast one on me in the end…
LOL That would be the best end of all! Oh, and she occasionally works with a certain spiky haired defense attorney 😛
Bigger surprise twist: Mr. Wright is actually Ms. Protag’s “Mr. Right” (I’m SO clever) and is the super secret 11th character… The game’s real tagline is “10 wrongs make a Wright.”
Lol, I love it! Now I am going to be disappointed if Phoenix isn’t in this game!
We must write Voltage at once!! 😛
What would happen if you chose the wrong guy to accuse of being tht particular liar? Does it just take away points or do you get to play out accusing tht guy or what?
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you! Okay, so if you choose the wrong guy, after you run out of evidence, the guy brushes you off and you are taken back to the Liar selection screen. I’m not sure if you loose points for that or not. I know you lose points for every bad choice you make so it makes sense that you’d lose points for picking the wrong Liar. I really hope this helps!
That’s EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT TOO! Totally getting the Pheonix Wright vibe so that’s what got me sold for this game xD i immediately bought a few chapters even lol