VA-11 Hall-A
Playtime: 11.6 Hours
Played it on the Steam Deck - mouse controls were a bit awkward since the pad & trigger configuration didn't feel great, but thankfully the controls for adding and mixing ingredients are all bound to keyboard keys too so I mapped the controller buttons to them, made it so much more playable. Didn't play around too much with the drinks; I know there's different dialogue & event branches if you give certain "wrong" drinks, but for the most part I just gave what each person asked unless it wasn't clear. In that case I just looked it up :P
Finished the main game achieving Tim's, Dorothy's, and Alma's individual endings on the way to the Good Ending. Also went and finished Anna's demo & START chapters (only once - note there are dialogue options), plus the prologue. There is a NG+ save if I want to make more money to grab the rest of the achievements, but I'm not sure if I want to do it since most of the game will be the exact same.
The name's a mouthful, isn't it? This is a visually retro-styled VN that gained a ton of popularity about a decade ago, but I never really bothered to play it until now. For a while in the 2010s, and even now sporadically in the 2020s, there will be the occasional VN that just gets a huge surge of popularity from the general public seemingly out of nowhere; this is one of them. Generally speaking, they never seem to be particularly special aside from maybe matching the cultural pulse of the internet slightly better than their contemporaries, and I feel like that applies relatively well to this game as well. It's just that VNs happen to be a very niche genre, and most people understandably wouldn't be interested in diving down that rabbit hole when more lively media like anime or consistent media like manga exist. That said, this game was very competent, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. Also the music is amazing.
There isn't really that much to the bartending minigame, though it could be worth mentioning that it is still significantly more interactive than the vast majority of other VNs which are completely kinetic outside of a few dialogue options. Mixing drinks is a simple matter of following directions, and there's no time pressure and little decision making that you're required to do; the most is the occasional request for a "regular" drink or a random trivia question for which you have to correctly guess which drink to make. With this being the only real interaction you have with other characters, certain drinks served at crucial moments in the game serve as the markers to unlock certain endings or events. Beyond the core minigame, every day begins in Jill's room where you can read up on the latest news & gossip, or go shopping for random knick-knacks to put around her apartment. Throughout the game, Jill has to pay a few bills (porn subscription, electricity bill, and rent) that limit the spare amount that she can spend on random stuff without getting a bad ending, but the game will also ask you to buy certain things per day to keep her "focused". I always had enough to keep on top of things so I don't know what actually happens if you fail that (outside of missing an achievement).
The atmosphere is probably where the game shines the most; the retro-futuristic styled designs and graphics do a really good job of selling the cyberpunk world and the overall slow & relaxed pace of the game is very cozy, perfect for playing a bit at a time late at night. Adding to this, casual inclusions of robotic limbs, AI characters and talking animals help distinguish this universe from our reality - defining the feeling of a "normal" life in this world. Despite all of that, the characters and personalities still feel quite relatable, with the majority of the story focused primarily on personal events and less on major happenings (outside of one event, anyway). While the characters do change and open up over the course of the 19 days you play through, everything happens in that one bar so Jill doesn't get stuck in the middle of any world-changing events or whatever BS that happens in most other games. That balance is probably one of the bigger draws of the game in quite an ironic twist - with the entire storyline being so small in scale (and dare I say boring), the casual tone of the dialogue meets with the intimate atmosphere of the tiny bar for a perfectly laid-back experience.
I wouldn't say the game is perfect by any means - sometimes I did feel like the random cursing in the script felt a bit too juvenile, and in general I feel like there are several customers that you interact with so infrequently that their presence feels almost entirely insignificant - but after playing this game I feel like the entire design was centered around nailing a particular feel for the game (including the transience of a few characters), and nailed it just about dead on. I can't say that I'm particularly inclined to play this again, as it's hard to drum up interest in reading the same inane gossip twice, but if a sequel does end up coming out tomorrow I'd earmark it for a purchase in another few years.
