VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action

I like the idea of this game, but the writing is subpar. The game's start showcases its worst issues, and the rest is a bit better, but it is still not that good. This is a very character-driven story, and I think the biggest issue is how the characters talk. This means multiple things. A lot of the deeper conversations that characters try to have are not good. Especially when these characters try to hand out societal critique. The way they bring up these topics does not feel natural. I get that we are playing as a bartender listening to drunk people give their life woes, but it still does not work. Furthermore, these conversations themselves are painfully surface-level and make me cringe. When the characters are not speaking like teenagers who just became conscious that the government does bad things *gasp*, they are really all over the place in quality. At worst, they are just really forgettable or defined by these shallow conversations. At best, they have actual fun dialogue, but nobody really struck me as that interesting or well-written. I also think this game really misses with its humor. It's trapped in the time it was made, a relic of mid-2010s internet humor, and I find it more obnoxious than funny. This also took me out of the parts of the game where you read forums because it felt so stuck in the past. Ironically, though, this leads to the two funniest bits of the game for me, YIIK being an acclaimed masterpiece in the future and an out-of-nowhere Lil B reference. I hate to be prudish, but the sexual humor in particular just feels really unoriginal and repetitive. This game tries to say some things about sex and commodification, but I do not think it is ever truly witty enough to go anywhere particularly meaningful to me. To give it some grace, this is meant to be a mostly cozy game, and maybe I am expecting something deeper (not just with sex, but everything in this game) than it is willing to give. However, it just does not make the characters likable or funny enough to hit the cozy territory either. Last thing I want to talk about regarding sex is how some of the female characters talk about sex with each other, and just how male gazey and unnatural it feels. This was another thing that felt the worst at the start. After the pretty weak introduction, I think the game peaks at the end of its first chapter and the start of its second chapter. Something big happens, and we get to see how the people of this city respond. I get the point of the game is not to focus on the politics of the setting nor high-stakes drama, and I have no problem with the idea of an early climax. However, due to the issues stated, the game lacks the strength to pull off messing with traditional structure and storytelling. Instead, this section just stays the best part of the game. After this big event, the story mostly focuses on our main character's internal struggles and relationships. There are some nice things sprinkled in, but the writing is painfully ok, and by chapter three, a lot of the game feels stagnant. There aren't many egregiously bad scenes in the final chapter, but there are not many great scenes either. Admittedly, the ending is really cute, but all my issues before and the continued amateurishness even into the better parts just left me feeling conflicted. Lastly, there is the gameplay. I think it needed more of a difficulty curve. Some moments require you to remember your previous interactions or to answer more vague requests, but they are rare. Because most of the gameplay is just making drinks exactly as you are told, it ends up feeling really repetitive by the end. It is not totally pointless, since how drunk you get characters affects dialogue, and your performance affects the endings you get, but I still think it needed more depth as the game progressed, or even better, the game should have been trimmed down. I've been really critical of this game, and despite how bitter I was towards it at the start, I don't have total animosity towards it. I don't like it, but it could have irked me a lot more, and there were some alright moments throughout it all. The end of chapter 1 and the start of chapter 2 had me genuinely hooked even if it had its own issues. Another thing I praise it for is that I am a big fan of the art; the PC-98 inspired aesthetic is really fun.