Examples of Love Triangles in visual novels.
- Two in A Profile. Miou and Rizu love Masayuki, who used to date Miou until they broke up and starts out somewhat in love with Rizu. Messy, that. The other triangle is Kaine loving Miou loving Masayuki. Since both triangles together only contain four people, everything is settled once Masayuki starts dating any of his three options.
- Amnesia: Memories has this in the Heart World/Shin's route. He and Toma are childhood friends with the heroine and have been both in love with her for years. Shin confessed and he and the heroine have entered a relationship, leaving Toma to keep his unconfessed and unrequited feelings inside of him. This actually leads to Toma injuring the heroine while blinded by jealousy.
- Gets messy in Aselia the Eternal - The Spirit of Eternity Sword. First, Kouin loves Kyouko loves Kouin, but Yuuto more than him. Yuuto is oblivious. Turns out surprisingly okay. Kotori also feels jealous of how close Kaori and Yuuto are since despite her rather blatant hinting he still hasn't caught on yet. This one doesn't end very happily until both Kaori and Kotori's memories get erased anyway though not exactly terribly, either.
- There are two different ones in the Science Fiction visual novel Bionic Heart: the first is between the android Tanya, Luke, the main character, and Helen, Luke's girlfriend. The second is between Luke, Helen and Tom, Luke's best friend.
- Canvas 2 has Yanagi, Kiri, and Hiroki. Yanagi loves Kiri loves Hiroki, who loves her back but pretends he doesn't to support his friend. Five years later, Elis and Kiri love Hiroki, who is completely oblivious and can pick from five other heroines instead.
- Sakura and Nemu in Da Capo form the game's real triangle with their adamant refusal to accept Junichi pairing up with the other. Both say more or less that they'd be perfectly okay if he would pick any other girl, like Mako or Kotori or even some catgirl maid. Who... really does show up later.
- The situation in the prologue of Chrono Clock. Miu likes Shuuji, who likes Michiru, who loves her brother Rei to a worrying degree. Rei discovers Miu's feelings, by happening upon a botched confession, and helps her overcome her social anxiety in order to confess properly, by talking and doing couple-like things together, but in the process develops his own feelings for her, thus completing what he calls a "love rhombus". She also starts to like Rei, but he tries to prevent that and pushes her to go ahead with the original plan.note
- In the School Mode of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, going to the piano room and bringing up Sayaka to either Mukuro or Kyoko will net the player a bad reaction from Mukuro and a worst possible reaction from Kyoko (heavily implied to be spurred on by jealousy in both cases).
- In don't take it personally babe, it just ain't your story, Alpha Bitch Taylor wants her ex-boyfriend Nolan back, but he has started a relationship with Akira. In true Alpha Bitch fashion, Taylor, already a homophobe, starts harassing Akira.
- Extra Case: My Girlfriend's Secrets: According to Seira's diary, she started treating Sally coldly because she was jealous that Sally dated John, who she also had a crush on. She wanted to tell Sally and John the truth in order to reconcile with them, but died in a car accident before that could happen.
- Flowers has an all female version. Rikka likes Suou. Mayuri likes Rikka, but also ends up falling for Suou. Suou can end up with either, but Mayuri is her canonical love interest.
- In Higurashi: When They Cry, though Mion is the only who showed clear romantic interest in Keiichi, there is a sort of minor love triangle between her, Keiichi, and Rena. In the last episode of Rei, Rena confesses to Keiichi, though it may have been exaggerated by the magatama's power. It's still heavily implied that she loves him without the magatama.
- Katawa Shoujo: Hisao is interested in both Misha and Shizune, but Misha wants Shizune and Shizune doesn't return either's affections. What makes this situation particularly interesting is that one bad choice on Hisao's part (when the unfortunate Misha comes to ask Hisao for "comfort") can unravel all three's relationship.
- The Letter:
- Sasami's route in Little Busters!. Kengo and Riki are Childhood Friends, and throughout the route, Riki starts to develop feelings for Sasami, who likewise starts developing feelings for Riki. However, Sasami already had feelings for Kengo before the start of her route, and Riki starts out trying to play The Matchmaker between the two of them, which develops into a Matchmaker Crush. Kengo admits that he is aware of Sasami's interest in him, but he rejects her feelings when Riki pressures him into admitting how he feels about her.
- While OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos is only about Akuru and Ren, in it's sequel ~Love･or･die~, Akuru has (without knowing) to compete with Ren's friend Aira who is also in love with her.
- Subverted in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies. It's common knowledge at the Themis Legal Academy that Juniper Woods' friends Robin Newman and Hugh O'Conner are both in love with her and competing to see who gets to be with her. This is only gossip though, with neither of them having romantic feelings for her.
- School Days is unique in that it deconstructs and reconstructs the trope depending on player choices. The triangle can end up in massive disaster, but at other times it can either be played straight, become a Love Dodecahedron involving other people, and sometimes even evolve into a One True Threesome — it all depends on what the player aims for and the decisions they take through the story. See also The Anime of the Game under Anime & Manga.
- Another favorite of the Shall We Date? series. The routes may give the player multiple love interests to fight for her affection and put her in unique scenarios. Often times, the player will be a part of a Sibling Triangle.
- Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair has a few. Out of all the main cast of ten characters, only two people are not involved in a love triangle.
- Both Runa and Momoko are in love with Hiro, who briefly dated the former before moving on to the latter. Despite being the winner, Momoko is rather jealous of Runa, and had a rather hostile reaction to Runa talking to Hiro. As for Runa, she claims to be over Hiro, but is blind to his less pleasant characteristics.
- Rie has feelings for Taiko, who has feelings for Raiko. As for Raiko, she feels something for Taiko, but doesn't seem to reciprocate his feelings.
- As for Momoko, while she's in love with Hiro, she's also subject to the affections of Kotoba, as well as her best friend Kamen, who, unlike her, is a lesbian.
- A rather spoileriffic example comes up at the end of the game, and ends up being the main cause of the conflict in the story. It turns out that Hiro never actually loved Momoko either, and claimed to have feelings for Kamen. Kamen, of course, turned him down and tried to warn Momoko about him, only for her not to believe Kamen. After taking a look at Kamen's phone and finding texts from Hiro on it, Momoko concluded that Hiro was cheating on her with Kamen, and plotted to murder him and frame Kamen.
- Starstruck Love uses this for both routes available. Each focuses on two characters (one them including two of The Heroine's adoptive brothers). The player can choose which love interest they can go for and increase their intimacy with the character. Around Chapter 8 or 9, the play can choose which guy they want. Be careful, though. If your intimacy with one of the guys is low and you choose him, you may get a bad or normal ending.
- Sunrider Liberation Day has an ugly one. Asaga (A) and Chigara (C) both love Kayto Shields (B), but Kayto only has eyes for Chigara. This puts a serious strain on the friendship between the two women, which isn’t helped by Chigara overshadowing Asaga’s heroics with her own or Asaga’s growing suspicions that Chigara is a Prototype spy. When Asaga catches the two of them having sex on the eve of an important battle, she snaps and attempts to Murder the Hypotenuse during the battle.
- Sayo, Itsuki, and Akira in the first chapter of Suika. In the second during the alternate route, Mie and Sayaka and in the third route, Akane, Touko and Yoshikazu. Only one of these ends well.
- In Symphonic Rain there's Torta -> Chris <-> Ari from the start and in her route Asino -> Fal -> Chris, who may or may not reciprocate based on your choices.
- The Tokimeki Memorial series is fond of these, as the protagonist usually has a rival for the affections of most of the potential love interests, and befriending both the intended date and the person who likes them will result in said rival becoming quite bitter towards the player (until things are smoothed over and the rival decides I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and tells you to take care of them). Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 3 actually allows the player to set up a love triangle with the datable guys, so that they'll fight over the player instead.
- Can potentially happen in True Love Junai Monogatari, if the Player Character attracts the attentions of both Mikae Morikawa and Remi Himekawa towards himself. In fact, if the PC does not push the Mikae away enough while romancing Remi, the first will get angry enough to completely ditch him — something she does not do if he romances other girls.
- Tsukihime: Arcueid —> Shiki <— Ciel. Technically, there are 8-9 girls in love with him, but this is the set that has the triangle relation to it. In the more or less canon ending, Arcueid wins by default. Ciel's route makes Arcueid scary because she's losing/lost. Actually, Ciel and Akiha can also more or less make one of these as well, as, unlike the above, they genuinely hate each other. A lot.
- War: 13th Day has Wildfire —> Arsenik —> Ambrosia. Depending on your choices, Ambrosia may like Arsenik back or one of the other boys.
- White Album 2, particularly in Introductory Chapter (which the anime adapted), we have Setsuna <—> Haruki <—> Kazusa. No, it doesn't end well for all three characters. Interestingly, you get to have Haruki resolve this in Concluding Chapter and Coda.
