the Death of the Video Star

I apparently have the privilege to be the first to review this game on here, which is a bit wild to me. One would think that a very stylish-looking visual novel about killing a she-God would have found its public already. I bought this game pretty much on the strength of its trailer alone and after having finished my main playthrough and explored choices to get as many endings and dialogue variants as possible, I can definitely say that [i]the Death of the Video Star[/i] is a game that merits your attention, if you do not mind the fact that it's A/quite short and B/a bit hard to get into at first. To me, this game is basically the lovechild of [i]Heaven Will Be Mine[/i] and [i]Paradise Killer[/i]: its story is all woven with metaphors and strange names and god-like entities, but at the core of it is the exploration of very human emotions. The main character here is named Worthy Undone, and, well, the whole plot is hinted at in that pun, really. The game engages with pretty broad philo...

Man, it's a shame this game has so few reviews. Don't sleep on it y'all—the writing in this game is sharp and beautiful, an incisive meditation on love and relationships that gently touches on the nature of personhood and the attachments people form to celebrity and deity. The eponymous Video Star was a real hit for me in particular among the characters. She had some amazing stage presence for a ghost of a dead god. Great stuff all around!

I'll say all this as someone who's super picky about visual novel games. Pretty much every scene in the Death of the Video Star was a delight -- to read, to interact with, to look at. The hand-drawn art is bold and bright and I love the maximalist aesthetics of the whole world. The characters are wonderfully written and designed. The cast is very much For the Gays with nonbinary and women characters with interesting queer relationships to explore. Make no mistake, the central plot point may be about Worthy Undone killing her pop star God, but this game will have you investigating questions of identity, self-worth (haha), and above all (at least to me), love. The writing was funny, sad, and sincere in its engagement of those themes in a way that feels rare in video games and really resonated with me. Absolutely worth the purchase. I really hope you give this VN a try.