VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action

VA-11 HALL-A is a cyberpunk gem ! The art, music & story remind me of the classic anime & movies of the 80', the on point dialogue, with rough humor, sass and unforgettable one liners, make the characters very charismatic and fun to deal with. The atmosphere of the game is absolutely enthralling.

Amazing dialogs (some are a bit boring though) and a cute story. Beautiful graphics and memorable characters.

Definitely not worth the $15 price. I bought this at like 10% off and if I had to buy it again I wouldn't even buy it at 90% off. Some have compared this to a visual novel, so I bought it thinking it would have some choice or decisions that you had to make along the way. After I found out the only choice in the game that you get to make is how you mix drinks, I thought fine, as the implication was that how you mixed drinks would decide what route in the story would take place. It does not. They story is exactly the same no matter how you mix drinks. There is suppose to be 6 different endings, but it appears that the story stays the same, then at the very end, one of the six endings is just chosen at random. So nothing you do in the game (and the only thing you can do is mix drinks) really matters. It isn't very long story (i.e. the game is short) Has no replayability. The story and conversation in the game does not change at all, no matter how differently you try and play the game (i.e. mix drinks). The only thing the main character does is mix drinks. People have commented on the music. I didn't like any of the music. all of it sounded like techno rubbish that didn't fit the game at all. You don't get to change the music any time you want. you only get to change it at save options, which don't occur often. The only thing the main character does is mix drinks. All of the characters except maybe one, are either lesbians or bisexuals. You could say that this is a graphic novel targeted for the LGBT community. There are quite a few innuendos in the conversations, but nothing provocative or erotic that the main character gets to say or do. All she does is mix drinks. Did I mention that the only thing you get to do in the game is mix drinks? There are a few times where you get to buy stuff for your apartment, that have absolutely no effect on the game, which is exactly the same effect mixing drinks (the only other thing you get to do) has.

This game doesn't have a lot of gameplay, but the story is AMAZING got addicted instantly!

Sounded like a unique idea so I gave it a shot. Full disclosure: I'm not a weeb, but I don't think that should be a factor in whether or not a game is any good. The 'game' is just tediously dragging colored cans around the screen to make drinks, usually several times per ingredient so it wears thin after about the first drink. There doesn't even seem to be anything clever or unique about the drinks, they're all just made from the same 5 interchangeable ingredients with nonsense names thrown into a mixer. They somehow made a video game about mixing drinks less fun than actually mixing drinks. That'd be fine if, as I understand it, the drink mixing is meant to be secondary to the writing, but the writing may actually be the worst part. The dialog mostly varies between painfully flat, uninteresting, or repetitive. It has that sort of classic video game scroll, so you can really feel the pace as you're pounding through 10 lines of a journalist explaining that he likes money so he writes articles that make money, because articles make money, and that’s what he likes. Game seems to think that if they write a character into existence, I’ll instantly find them adorable (kawaii?) and be super interested in them and their relationships, despite having no reason to do so. I can overlook a bit of that, but this game really comes at you hard and fast with it, which just leads me to wonder who this game is meant to appeal to… plucky toddlers who are inexplicably into dystopian bartending? The obvious answer is “weebs” but I have to think even they have better standards. This game got as far as having a neat concept and then phoned in the rest.