VA-11 Hall-A Cyberpunk Bartender Action Review

Yet another game (and genre this time!) that I take a gamble on because I have a little bit of money left on a gift card.  It was recommended by Steam due to Deus Ex being a cyberpunk game and this is a cyberpunk visual novel/bartender sim.  The full name is VA-11 Hall-A Cyberpunk Bartender Action.  I like cyberpunk stuff, I liked my bartending jobs, and I love me some action so...why not? That mouthful of a title will be referred to as Valhalla for the rest of this post just like the characters do in the game....."game"?  AH YES, am I going down this road again?  No.  I'm not.  Just, let me call it whatever.

Valhalla is a bar the protagonist, Jill, works at as a bartender.  Over the course of the game you mix drinks and talk to guests, most of which become regulars or already are regulars before the story starts.  The game has a bunch of anime style storytelling (it's a slice of life story...more on that later) and light anime art style.  I say light as it's more in the style of Cowboy Bebop than Sailor Moon with many western influences.  It also kind of lacks a main story, kind of, and instead focuses on character driven sub-stories that sometimes intersect with one another as they meet each other in the bar.

Sometimes you meet a ghost....don't question it.  

I have NEVER played a visual novel before and after playing this I can say it's not really my thing but....I LOVED this one.  I'm willing to check out more but I know this style of....uh....game will be really hit or miss for me, mostly leaning on miss.  I think what helped this particular game is that I personally have worked several bartending jobs and there is just so many relatable moments to my personal experience in those jobs that I honestly think the creators of the...uh...game (two of them) worked as bartenders in real life.  It's spot on capturing that vibe, the lifestyle, the interactions with guests, the closeness with co-workers, and the bizarre moments that every bartender has been a part of.  It's magical.  

Jill was a great character to play as since she is kind of the same bartender I was.  She can barely make ends meet, she has a high tolerance for the shitty parts of her job, is really close to her co-workers, sometimes wants to go to work because she is bored (and her friends are there), likes and befriends some of her clients, has this dry wit that she can unleash on guests she doesn't like*, and can almost do a different personality depending on the person she is serving.  Also, not really like me, but kind of if I go back far enough, she has a deep regret about her non-breakup with her ex-girlfriend.  That story is this...uh...game's main story even though that barely qualifies.

This is me.  

*This is not a humble brag.  Every bartender ever has a dry wit they can turn on after enough practice on the job.  It gets to a point where you can insult a guest or regular you don't like without them even realizing it.  Sometimes the guest will double down and say something even shittier only to make the insult funnier.  

Most of the character sub-stories are about guests overcoming something, having a fun story to talk about, worrying about another character, and some have no story at all.  They just come into the bar and chat about whatever, then move on.  The...uh...game uses a ton of humor for every sub-story and can dip into sadness from time to time.  It's like working as a bartender.  One moment you have people who wanna have fun and party, the next you get somebody depressed who wants to drink their life away.  

The characters in Valhalla are solid.  Jill's boss Dana is apparently a badass and who I think Jill has a crush on.  Your other co-worker is Gillian and he is a fuckboy* who has some sort of mysterious past that seems mostly fake.  Guests include a douchebag newspaper editor, a weirdo who hates the bar, a pretentious snob who orders drinks cryptically, a shy white knight (sorta police officer) who is also a badass, a cat lady, a robotic pop singer, a robotic sex doll, several others, and talking dogs.......

And one Twitch Streamer-like character is obnoxious....but kinda funny.

*It's a running joke in the game since Jill and Dana constantly prod his personal life.  This too is true to bartending jobs.  

Oh yeah, the cyberpunk stuff.  

The bar is in a city called Glitch City (fucking christ that name is awful) where crime is rampant, AI robots called Lilim are everywhere, a super hacker is causing a ruckus, white knights are deployed as police/paramilitary, augmentation is a thing (Jill's boss has a robot arm plus some guests have robot parts) and the city officials are corrupt.  There is a super corporation who secretly controls everything and nanomachines are used to try to control people but that is important cause ghosts.  Yeah.  That part is weird.  

Most of the world building happens in Jill's apartment where you can read the newspaper and a 4chan clone*.  Other than that, everything else happens in the bar where characters may or may not have anything to do with anything.  All those stories in the world have little or nothing to do with the characters in the bar.  Some of the guests can give insights, but that is usually it.  Only a handful of times do the overall world building stories effect anything.  I like this about the game but it does leave me wanting to learn more.  More I know I will never learn.  

*There isn't that much honestly, but there is some 4chan humor in the game which was eye roll inducing.

Reading 4chan memes.

The slice of life style story is why that world building, with no conclusion, is okay with me.  This...uh....game is a snapshot of these peoples lives.  We learn some backstory, but not much.  We see what happens at this particular time and that is it (December).  You don't see this kind of snapshot storytelling very often and I enjoy it even if it feels non-conclusive.  But hey, these stories resonate because they are more true to life.  Life isn't a 3 act arc.  There is no happy ending here.  Just, an ending to this section, and a new one about to begin.  

As for the bartending sim part?  It's kinda lame.  Somebody orders a drink, you look it up in a recipe book, then pour with the right amount of ingredients.  Sometimes you need to age the drink, put it on ice, mix really well, or sometimes make *GASP*, two drinks at once.  I got bored with it.  Occasionally a guest will ask for something vague by style, taste, or literally ask for whatever.  One character will ask for specific things only as cryptically as possible and fuck that guy.  These shenanigans only pissed me off because I remember REAL people who did this shit and they can go fuck themselves.  However, just like in the...uh...game, those people will usually drink whatever you give them even if it's wrong.  

Before every shift in the bar you can set the jukebox and I gotta hand the game credit here in the "rarely talked about music part of any...uh...game review I write" section.  There are a lot of great tracks on this game.  In fact, I'm listening to it right now as I write this.  

Again, I loved Valhalla, but there are a couple of dumb points.  Two characters are more Sailor Moon than Cowboy Bebop in cat lady and robot sex doll.  Cat lady is fine as a character but her mere design is dumb (she is half cat).  The robot sex doll is actually a really, really, really good and funny and happy character that I liked even when she sometimes crossed the line into annoying comic relief.  But....why does she have to be modeled like she is 12 years old?  The game brings this up, she knows she looks like a 12-14 year old yet her mind is 24 years old-ish but come on.  It's that part of anime that creeps me the fuck out.  If you wanna have a robot sex doll character, fine, GREAT, just make them look of age for fucks sake.  And no, there isn't any sort of social commentary here that could justify it.

Why?

The other dumb point is with a character only Jill sees.  It isn't fully explained but something, something, nanomachines.  It's weird, especially because it's ALMOST explained in one of the endings but it feels like a scene got cut.  There was a build up and a resolution, but no reveal.  It's just weird.

That said the....UGHHH I'll stop this running joke...."game" is pretty great for a very specific reason.  Wanna watch a story with a little interactivity and drink some alcoholic beverages?  This is perfect.  The beginning of the game actually recommends grabbing some snacks and some beers before playing.  It was chill dudes.  Chill as fuck.

So that is VA-11 Hall-A Cyberpunk Bartender Action.  I had good times.

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I had no idea how to end this post.