Welcome to Valhalla! What can I get you?
I recently had the pleasure of playing the game "VA-11 HALL-A" for the first time and it was both a truly enjoyable but unexpected experience.
For starters, the game isn't really a game, but a visual novel. So you're not actually going to do much stuff like in other games, it's more of an interactive story. The game itself tells you that right at the start: "This game is best played getting comfortable. Grab some drinks, some snacks, and enjoy!". So just chill and enjoy the experience of knowing more about the world and its stories!
VA-11 HALL-A is set in a dystopian cyberpunk future that has gone through a technological revolution and the world is now run by a powerful, greedy corporation. You play as Jill Stingray, a bartender who works in a small bar called VA-11 HALL-A (Valhalla). You get to serve drinks to a diverse range of clientele, from a cyborg police officer to a brain-in-a-jar.
The whole point of the game is chat with the clients and the other workers of the bar (your boss, Dana, and the other bartender, Gil) in order to gain insight into their lives and their stories.
Graphics and Soundtrack
The visuals of the game are beautiful, with a mix of detailed pixel art (that I personally love) and a few 3D models here and there. The aesthetic of the game is reminiscent of a classic cyberpunk anime mashed with synthwave/retrowave, and it really sets the tone.
The soundtrack is just superb and obviously one of the main strengths of the game. It's almost as the game was designed as an excuse for you to enjoy the top-notch soundtrack. Not a single one of the more than 70 tracks is boring or bad, with a mix of electronic, synth and rock, capturing the vibe of the game.
The graphics, the sound design and the music really help to create an unique atmosphere that, in more than 20 years of gaming, I honestly don't remember having a similar experience anywhere else.
Gameplay
As for the gameplay itself, it's focused on the dialogues with your customer than actual bartending. The "actual" gameplay ("clicking around to do something") is basically making and serving drinks each 3-5 minutes, which is a very easy process that you do in a few seconds anyway.
The drink-making is quite straight-forward, and if you're paying attention to the game there's no room for making mistakes or errors, as 90% of the drinks are asked directly by the customers (like "Give me a Moonblast!" or "Why don't you make me a Sunshine Cloud?"), and the rest of the 10% have obvious instructions (like "I want something non-alcoholic and with sugar").
The game, as I said before, is an interactive story, so you're here for the dialogues. But there is no dialogue choices for you, the player: you just read the conversations between you and the rest of the characters. The dialogues can be as simple as asking them about their day, or as complex as getting them to open up about their deepest secrets.
The conversations are quite amusing and well-written, and the characters are all interesting and unique. As you progress in the game, you learn more about each of the characters, about their stories, and about the whole cyberpunk world you're living in (like the corrupt Prime Minister that's making Glitch City poorer than ever, and that the Moon got blasted by mistake a few years ago...)
It's the story of VA-11 HALL-A what really makes the game stand out. Everything is so interesting, doing a great job of drawing you in and making you care about the world. You want to know more about what's going on. You want to discover more about this crazy, futuristic world where autonomous robots lives side-by-side with humans and cybernetic augmentations are common. You want to find out what's going on with each and every character that gets into the bar.
One point that IS important and that I have to bring it up here is: the story is VERY mature and adult, including almost all of the taboo topics like sex, homosexuality, death, depression, poverty, mental health, politics and suicide. There's drama, there's angst, but there's also comedy and fun moments. The story shows how we cope and live with problems, how we find ourselves a resolution, how we forgive our past errors, how we live knowing that there's things that we'll never fix or be able to solve.
If you're not comfortable with any those topics, it's better to refrain from playing VA-11 HALL-A.
Conclusion
I had a great time playing VA-11 HALL-A. To be honest, it's been a long while since I felt this good while gaming, without stress or anything else, just enjoying the motions.
The game is unique and interesting, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an engaging experience.
If you're looking for something different and interesting, and for a great way to spend two or three evenings, then this is definitely the game for you.
Thanks for reading this post, and until next time!
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