VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action

Genre: Visual Novel / Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

VA-11 Hall-A is a game that fits somewhere in between a Visual Novel and a Graphic Adventure. There are gameplay elements here, such as your drink-mixing and your upkeep of your apartment and your phone apps in-between, but for the most part this is a game where you’ll be chatting with the various citizens of a cyberpunk city as they stop off at your bar to down some drinks.

The game’s controls are a bit odd, segregating the left and right sides of the screen and making you use a buttons to toggle between your use of them. It takes a lot of getting used to, but once you get a feel for it, it works well enough.

As for the gameplay… well, don’t play this game for the gameplay, because there isn’t much. As long as you can follow directions and take an obvious hint when it’s given to you, you should be able to fill out drink orders fine, at least after you figure out the difference between “shaking” and “blending” drinks. However, these drink orders are largely the punctuation in between long conversations between your bartender character and the various people that walk into your bar.

So, with the focus clearly on this game’s story, how is the story? It’s… fine. It’s fine. I would say that the level of writing here feels a bit on par with games of the 16-bit era, in that it’s perfectly understandable, even a little clever in areas, but also kinda’ awkward, like the language barrier wasn’t quite overcome by the localization effort.

Oh, also, a bit of a warning for those who might be triggered by this – characters in this game talk quite a bit about mature topics like sex, sexual assault, and rape, and the somewhat amateurish localization paired with these heavy topics may leave a sour taste in your mouth.

Despite that the story isn’t quite all it’s cracked up to be, the game does at least do a good job with its atmosphere, thanks to some really good anime-style pixel art, and a decent soundtrack (and you even get to choose the “jukebox” of a dozen songs the game will cycle between for the majority of the game). The anime art and the somewhat imperfect localization does a good job of making this kinda’ nostalgic 16-bit era feeling, which is probably the best thing this game has going for it.

I suppose I should address what is, at least for me, the elephant in the room. I am reviewing this game after the similarly-themed The Red Strings Club, a game that is also about a bartender in a cyber-punk setting, and so my view of this game may be shaded by how impressed I was with that one – after the absolutely stellar writing and plot of Red Strings Club, as well as its inventive bartending elements, it feels like a step backward to be playing VA-11 Hall-A. However, that’s not to say that this game has nothing to offer – it has a charm all its own, and fans of cyberpunk should be delighted that they have two solid games to choose from in this genre this year.

VA-11 Hall-A manages to have a nice 16-bit style charm to it that pulls it through some problematic localization and less-than-engaging gameplay. Fans of the cyberpunk genre looking for something a bit less experimental and a bit more traditional compared to The Red Strings Club, and who aren’t fazed by this game’s poor localization or immature treatment of some rather mature topics, will probably find this to their liking.

tl;dr – VA-11 Hall-A is a game that fits somewhere between Visual Novel and Graphic Adventure, and has a delightful 16-bit-style charm to it that carries it through a somewhat lacking localization and story, as well as less-than-compelling gameplay. Fans of Graphic Adventures who like the Cyberpunk genre and anime-styled art should definitely give this one a look.

Grade: B-

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