VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action

1 адельгид и 9 кармотрина, и получается стопка этилового спирта с ложечкой сахара

While I am biased due to my love of the cyberpunk genre, this is a phenomenal game. I had never played a light novel game before and I am glad this was my first. Immediately when I opened the game and it said "This game is best enjoyed with a drink and some snacks and possibly a blanket" I went and made a tea and grabbed some snacks. This genuinely elevated my experience with a game and I still think about how this game informs you to do that to this day. The story is good and the bar mechanics add a nice level of engagement for the player. Though its strongest point for me personally is the soundtrack, it genuinely has one of the greatest soundtracks I've ever heard in a video game. Not to mention, the fact you get to pick and choose what songs you want to play on the jukebox at the start of each day or "level" was another factor of immersive engagement that I enjoyed.

Tl;Dr (CW: p*dophilia and inc*st mentioned) if you came looking for a cozy game, just be aware of the fact there is a character who is [spoiler] literally a robot with the body of a 13 year-old who is a s3x worker who in your first interaction w/ gratuitously solicits s3x from you and alludes to the details of s3xual acts people engage in w/ her. There's apparently also a character who talks about how her dad pretended they were dating on a night out and that it was fun, to which your character responds by saying "your dad sounds cool" [/spoiler] Gives "men writing women" in the derogatory sense. If this sounds icky, which I hope it does lol, stay away from this game. I've had a fondness for this game for almost 10 years. I've somehow spent hours on this game, even though I only made it to Night 2 just today (though I have beat both of the add-on chapters in another life). Something about the aesthetic, and oh god that wonderful music which I've listened to for countless hours - even though I hardly progressed in the game ever, has offered me so much comfort over the years. Just seeing that little desktop icon and knowing I've got a cozy game to come back to whenever I need. So with all this praise, why would I leave a negative review? Well, like I said, I finally committed to finishing this game and finally made it to Night 2. On Night 2, the game introduces us to the character Dorothy, a character which appears as a small teenage girl and is canonically confirmed to be a robot with the body of a ~13 year old. See next paragraph: CW: P*dophilia [spoiler] Dorothy is revealed to be a s3x worker and solicits you the player and other people for s3x with really gratuitous dialogue, and even admits that people hire her because she looks like a teenage girl [/spoiler] This is totally unnecessary and quite frankly disgusting. This is the kind of content that can trigger people's trauma responses and brings up all kinds of sh*t if you've been through something like this or know someone who has. No kind of content warning is given, and she gets comes in right off the cuff with some really egregious dialogue. This is unacceptable. From what I've heard it's a reference to the young girl from Lolita and is meant to make the player uncomfortable. Even with that being the case, I still feel it's unnecessary to have this be so explicit, especially when she makes comments that seem to be played for laughs. A writer has a responsibility to balance these kinds of topics with care, which this game does not do at all. There's also a character later in the game who describes her dad taking her out on her 21st bday and tells our character, CW: Inc*st [spoiler] "he told me to dress well enough that he 'looked like my sugar daddy'. It was a fun night. We pretended at times we were dating..." [/spoiler] to which our character, who is a woman and would probably never say this, responds with - "your dad sounds like a cool guy." No he doesn't. Please don't buy this game.

Honestly don't get why people like this game so much, humour and dialogue was rather cringy

эх а вот бы думскролить каждое утро, работать до поздней ночи и испытывать депрессию можно было бы и в реальной жизни

十年前的神作，完美预言了当时来看十年后的诸多社会问题

The ten year anniversary of this game's release is next month and I still love it. I love the characters, I love the music, I love the art. Still hoping for that elusive sequel N1RV ANN-A. (Total playtime is unreliable; I bought this on every platform I could.)

Время смешивать напитки и вершить судьбы.

At first blush, this game has all the essential ingredients of something I'd really like: cozy visual novel, chill soundtrack, nice pixel graphics and art style, cyberpunk setting, Except for one glaring flaw: the WRITING. Holy cow, I was not prepared for such juvenile and cringy writing. It gave me whiplash almost immediately. I wonder if, at the time of this game's release, the reviewers were too charmed by all the other novel elements that they overlooked the most important aspect of a good visual novel. This game feels like it was written by sexually frustrated incels. Most of the characters are extremely creepy for no reason. When they aren't creepy, they're just tedious. The "humor" is painfully unfunny and tries so hard to be edgy. Yikes. Anyway, Coffee Talk Tokyo comes out soon so there's that.

The one good thing about this game is it taught me that I do not like visual novels and I won't be taking any chances on any others. This review is for those who saw an "overwhelmingly positive" score and "cyberpunk bartending action" and might have gotten the wrong idea. There is almost no actual gameplay to speak of in this game, let alone action. You make drinks by combining ingredients from a recipe and that's it. The rest of the game is reading dialogue. I didn't find the story that compelling either, but seems most other reviewers disagree. I guess I just have a cold, dead heart.