Guile Heroes in Visual Novels.
- Ace Attorney:
- Mia Fey combines this with Stealth Mentor, often delivering cryptic clues to Phoenix about the weaknesses she spots in the witnesses and prosecutors. Phoenix himself turns into one by the time of Apollo Justice, pulling off a truly impressive and long-running Batman Gambit.
- The Player Character, no matter the installment. You play as either a defense attorney or a prosecutor and bring criminals to justice only with wits, rhetoric, and evidence.
- The protagonists of the Danganronpa franchise are of this type. Makoto Naegi of the first game and Hajime Hinata of the second game often have to defeat their opponents with their minds since, well, the circumstances make physical resistance foolhardy at the least. Then in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Kaede Akamatsu is able to lie during Class Trials about the evidence she has and give false information in order to get the culprit.
- In Higurashi: When They Cry:
- Keiichi has a remarkable gift for knowing exactly what motivates people and how to convince them to do what he wants; see the Atonement finale, where he successfully persuades a psychotic would-be murderer to realise the evil of her crimes and seek help.
- Mion is easily bored by academic studying but is a genius leader and strategist (…who once led a team of about seven teenagers to victory against a crack team of trained government agents, using only a friend's well-placed traps, knowledge of the terrain, and a small modicum of martial skill). Interestingly, the gaming club she formed tends to attract these kinds of people — probably because, in said club, cheating and anticipating how others will play is explicitly the only way to win, because everyone else is cheating too. And since humiliating 'punishment games' are always assigned to the one who comes in last, no one wants to lose.
- Majikoi! Love Me Seriously! has Yamato Naoe, who is one of the most forward protagonists in visual novels, mainly through manipulating and outsmarting people.
- Marco & the Galaxy Dragon: Marco, the galaxy’s greatest treasure hunter, is an ordinary girl in a galaxy full of superhuman aliens. While she can hold her own in a fight, she’s more likely to solve her problems through trickery or persuasion.
- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors:
- Junpei, the Player Character, can influence the other characters into doing what he wants with rhetoric. The most prominent usage of his cleverness is when getting people to go through the numbered door he wants: infamously done (if the player so wishes) with Door 3note , and also the voting for the third set of numbered doorsnote . What's more, Junpei tricks a murderer into confessing with bluffs in one of the endings.note
- June, AKA Akane, AKA the person who kidnapped all the characters including Junpei, looks like a harmless Cloud Cuckoolander with occasional fever bursts, but gets Ace to murder his three business partners just by predicting how he would act when given the chance and means to kill them and giving said stuff to him. These victims, along with Ace, nearly got her killed 9 years ago, and accomplishes all of this without getting her own hands dirty.
- Shall We Date?: Ninja Shadow:
- Ritsu is a mix of Intrepid Reporter and Knowledge Broker who really, really want to play this role. His biggest goals are to expose Suetsugu's evil and find out the identities of the Vigilantes.
- Few would've thought that Zeyo Sakamoto would be able to play this trope straight, judging by his first apparitions, but his route gives him the chance to be this through and through since his biggest desire is to end with the Shogunate without starting a bloody revolution.
- Yoshinobu Tokugawa is also portrayed as this, as the closest to a Big Good in the cast and a Reasonable Authority Figure who never loses his cool. It's next to no wonder that he and Sakamoto become fast friends in the latter's route.
- While not nearly to the same level as her friend Seiji, Kaoru from Spirit Hunter: NG shows a surprisingly devious streak despite her bubbly personality; she subtly threatened her manager to cover for her when she sneaks out at night, she knows secret routes to skirt around police, and she's fine with sneaking into prohibited areas or bluffing her way into them.
- Battler Ushiromiya graduates to this in Episode 6 of Umineko: When They Cry. And both he and Beatrice take it Up to Eleven in Episode 8.
