VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action (2016)

Great visual novel if your into these type of talking simulators. I rarely if never play VN but the art style and title caught my interest.

VALHALLA is definitely a game best played with your favorite snack and beverage in a lightly lit room.

like any good cyberpunk bartender you take care of clients and hear what they have to say.

Through the game you slowly unravel the main characters story as you connect and talk with the other characters. The game does touch on heavy, controversial and dark subjects every now and then but never to the point where it feels like it wants to get too deep it's mostly just proposing the question for you to think about it. It usually touches on these subjects and then undercuts it with a joke or something along those lines. It's self aware and parodies anime in general, with some wall breaking here and there.

There were some glitches, bit nothing big that it got in the way, the music is nice and the "gameplay" of mixing drinks is only really fun when the game tests you to find the right drink for the specific client. Also the game was way longer than I though it would be, took me about 15 hours for one run.

Overall a fun VN, kept my interest throughout and sometimes I wouldn't be able to put it down, apparently there's different endings and most characters have personal endings you can unlock, some story lines never reach a conclusion if you don't play it right, currently I'm not looking to 100 percent this game but it does add replaybablity if your into that.

Ah, VA-11 Hall-A, the visual novel where you play as a bartender in a futuristic cyberpunk city. There was a lot to love here. Let's start with the visuals. Lovely pixel art of anime-style characters, big sprites, lots of detail, a unique and distinct color scheme. It's all a bit reminiscent of that era of old PC-98 and Sega CD games that worked with varying degrees of cyberpunk settings populated with varying numbers of anime waifus. Next up, I have to bring up the music for this game, and emphasize it as strongly as I can. I am a huge fan of VA-11 Hall-A's entrancing tunes, and found it nice that the game lets you make your own playlist with the available songs each time you start up a bartending session. This is excellent music to study or relax to--at times calming, at times invigorating--but always cool at the same time.

What perhaps stands out most in this one though is how different its style of storytelling is from most visual novels. This one is pretty much 100% dialogue, and telling an intricate overarching plot is not a big priority for it at all. In VA-11 Hall-A, all you do is get orders from customers, make the drinks, serve them their drinks, and then the characters just chat with each other about whatever happens to be on their mind. It's extremely laid-back, and it made for a perfect game to play before bed each night (I played this on my Vita, of course). There are few games that I can think of that are as chill as this one. That isn't to say that there is nothing of consequence that ever happens (we do get some drama sprinkled throughout). In fact, the protagonist herself gets a nice little character arc toward the end, one that I actually found surprisingly touching in its simplicity and straightforwardness. It was legitimately good stuff.

All in all VA-11 Hall-A is very unique, but also very niche. Its slice-of-life style will definitely not work for everyone. One other thing I think is important to get across is how... anime it all is? There are loads of references and jokes that are for fans of anime and other related Japanese media, and much of this will elicit groans and eye-rolls from any non-fans out there. Speaking more generally of the game's humor, I'd say that for me it was hit-or-miss. Sometimes the dialogue would feel natural and get a laugh out of me; other times there would be conversations that felt very forced and designed for the sake of creating a meme. I also feel it was something of a missed opportunity to not have the drink-making game mechanic affect the flow of conversations and subsequent plot beats more--it all felt a bit superfluous in the long run. Not bad, but not as great as it could have been. VA-11 Hall-A's still a solid visual novel I'll readily recommend for its target audience though. If you watch a trailer or two and the game looks right up your alley, then it probably is, and you'll probably have a great time with this one.

I'm letting this one go, had really high hopes and was having a decent time but some tropey characters falling back on sexist stereotypes pulled me out :(

But I'm excited to see how the developers puts the knowledge gained from this one in their sequel and maybe there'll be some more nuance to the character writing on top of a more engaging bartending sim.

Completed the main route in 10 hours. I watched the other endings via Youtube.

I had very high expectations of this game. The style and atmosphere it creates is amazing but if I compare it to bigger VN's like Ever17, I/O or even G-Senjou; VA-11 Hall-A falls short.

Very recommended if you are just getting into visual novels or looking for an unusual kind of game. Also, check Papers, Please.