VA-11 Hall-A is a unique experience that borrows some design elements from games in the past, such as Carmen Sandiego, that features solving problems through natural dialogue with ambiguous clues. The additional narrative to it is captivating at times, though some dialogue can get way too long in the tooth. The additional money-making motivation and customization options help to sell the experience a little further beyond its initial design.
Transparency here — IRL, I couldn’t successfully make a drink if my life depended on it. I would probably ruin opening a beer. That’s how bad I am at making drinks. Thankfully, VA-11 Hall-A eases that pain of drink making embarrassment with clever gameplay techniques to make drink creation fun.
VA-11 Hall-A is an interesting game that I didn’t know much about prior to reviewing it. The concept of the gameplay seemed simple by design. You play a bartender that is trying to make it in the world or at least enough money to cover your rent. You’re given drink orders, you read your drink manual, and then you attempt to make the drink. I would say that ‘it’s just that simple’, but honestly it’s not. The gameplay is divided into several measuring sticks of success:
1. If you can make the drink successfully, then you will make money
2. If you make money, then you can unlock customizable items
3. If you can guess what the customer needs or doesn’t need without getting it wrong
4. Progress the narrative, which can be taken to very odd places
The four elements here make this game incredibly interesting, as well as incredibly difficult at times.
Starting with number #3 on that list, there will be times when you have to translate what a customer needs through their dialogue, which is abundant during your adventures through bartending. Each drink has a special something in it, with instructions that read like clues from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Particular drinks are made for potential emotional scenarios, which you have to take note of when you’re going through the game. What this means is that a customer may chat you up, tell you their mood, and simply request an unknown drink that matches what they feel they emotionally need. For example, there was a customer early in the game that approaches the bar and asks for a drink to calm them down (they are very out of sorts and paranoid of being roofied). To ease their pain, in the Field of Dreams sort of sense, you have to flip through your drink book until you find the best type of drink to calm their nerves. If you pick the right one, then you get the best results. If you pick the wrong one, then the game goes a different direction. Again, it’s just like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego because it drops hints as you’re reading the dialogue, which points towards an answer that is the most right. I love the concept so much, as it does keep the game more interesting.
The opposite side of this gameplay design is that the customer will simply tell you what they want, which is a lot easier than guessing. Then you would simply look up the recipe, put together the ingredients, and done. This portion is intact for when the game needs to release the difficulty valve a bit and get you back in the mood to play. I can dig that because it’s a stress reliever, and it helps you to continue in progressing the narrative.
As for the actual drink making portion of the game, it’s a bit strict.
You’re simply not just putting in certain ingredients to make the drink, you’re having to time the shake of the mix to successfully make the requested alcohol. This is probably the hardest part of the game, as you’ll need to read the recipe to the fine print to get everything right. For example, early in the game, you might be asked to make beer. This involves taking ingredient A, C, and E, then mixing it all together. During the mixing process, which begins when you hit ‘R2’, you have to count out ‘MISSISSIPPI’ until you get to almost 6, then you serve the drink. One second before or after, and you run the risk of ruining the drink. If you ruin it, then you have to reset everything and start again.
Since #2 on the list is to make money, you have to do everything right to get the goods. The more time you waste and the more dissatisfied you make the customer, the less money you earn. While I love the demand for accuracy in this portion of the game, getting down the timing and the order of operation for mixing drinks was incredibly frustrating to the point where the game almost lost me. Thankfully, I gave it more time, stuck with it, and found a flow of accuracy, but the learning curve is not fun at first.
To help keep you motivated, and to further point out #2 on the above list, you can purchase and customize your homestead with the money you earn from bartending. You can buy posters and such for your room, and even change the look and feel of it. Again, it’s extra motivation for the gameplay, which helps to keep you going. There are other narrative advances with this, and without the money, but anything helps to make it more than just a bartending game (and I was satisfied with just bartending).
Once the game gets going, then it gets going, and you might be hooked. I enjoyed it very much and understood the simplicity of the gameplay. Having monetary goals to achieve, as your character’s story requests you make money to progress and survive, helps motivate you to keep going. It’s simple motivation, but healthy motivation nonetheless.
Now to #4 on the list. My only real huge knock against this game, and it’s painful typing this because I love exposition so much, is there is so much dialogue. If you’re not a reader, then you’re going to be unhappy with the narrative. Every client you meet in the game has a story of their own. Kind of in the same way as you would find with a Phoenix Wright game, minus the stop/go of dialogue choices. You may find yourself skipping a lot of dialogue just to get to the drink mix, which works out some, but the personality of the client is lost if you do this. Depending on what you want and how much narrative you want to take in will determine how much you enjoy this element of the game. Honestly, I found myself trying to get to the end of the dialogue at times, which, again, makes me sad inside since I love narratives so much. I know that some of the dialogue led to a bigger story ultimately, but I just wanted to interact so badly with the game that I didn’t appreciate it enough. Love the story elements of this Cyberpunk adventure (gave me the Snatcher feels at time with some Akira sprinkled in), but just wasn’t in the mood to read a book.
Beyond that complaint, the game is solid. It works in what it wants to do and the difficulty will certainly challenge you, once you get into its flow.
On the presentation side, you’re looking at some 2D-anime pixels that are a perfect fit for this gameplay style. It borrows heavily from old-style games, such as the aforementioned Carmen Sandiego game. It also does cross over to that Phoenix Wright style of animation, but not nearly as crisp and fluid. It lies somewhere in-between both titles and that’s just fine. The graphics might be the simplest aspect of its design, which I will take any day of the week. They worked for the cyberpunk moniker.
Overall, VA-11 Hall-A is a unique experience that borrows some design elements from games in the past, such as Carmen Sandiego, that features solving problems through natural dialogue with ambiguous clues. The additional narrative to it is captivating at times, though some dialogue can get way too long in the tooth. The additional money-making motivation and customization options help to sell the experience a little further beyond its initial design.
