I am surprised this game does not have enough attention to be reviewed by youtubers. I played this game in 2016 and I still view this game as one of the most engaging stories ever. As usual when it comes to visual novel games I can't really spoil the entire plot of the story, but I can summarize enough to let you know why you should own this game.


You are Jill working as a bartender, an average person living in a cyberpunk setting. You are not a superhero, you don't fight enemies, there is no saving the world, there is none of that. You are merely serving drinks to average folk and you are living your life normally...I love it so much. I guess because I play so many games about saving the world and just focus on my team or myself, I never stop to wonder about the average Joe in a normal life. I love it because you get to relax in a somewhat quiet setting serving drinks and talking to people. Being a bartender is such a brilliant idea because usually, the "stereotype" of bartenders is that they usually are the people who know people's stories. You get to meet unique characters from the cyberpunk world who you will grow to love alot. You will read Jill's thoughts about each character she interacts with and each line of dialogue is either funny or memorable. Now obviously when I said there is no danger at all in this game it doesn’t mean that mean there is’nt conflict, otherwise it would be quite boring in a storyteller setting. The music is by far one of the best soundtracks to listen to and it never gets old, I absolutely love to listen to it every time and try to set up music where it fits the mood of the scenes....even if some are oddly misplaced. XD

What makes this visual novel unique is that you get to do stuff besides reading. The bar mechanic is a neat way to keep the reader on their toes and active, you get to mix the correct ingredients to make the drink. If you mess it up you have to start over, if you made a drink but not the correct one you will be deducted from your payment. If you keep losing more money you won't have enough money to pay your apartment. The engagement of reading and playing the game is not new, in fact if I can recall Phoenix Wright did it and I love it because it’s always better to physically do something while reading rather than just reading. Some visual novels pull it off with the story because making a visual novel that is both eye-appealing and story engaging is actually hard. With VA-11 Hall-A it has one of the most beautifully written stories I have ever read. The world that Jill interacts with makes me wish I could be part of it, despite how troublesome Glitch City is. Which leads me to my next point; I wanted to explain why this game succeeds in exposing a good world building, while at the same time showing how a dystopian setting is done right from a writer's perspective.


When I say what makes a good dystopian setting I did not mean that all games that portray the concept are all bad. It can work when you just want to play the good guy and be the savior. However, this idea concept of either an authoritarian have been use often recently in video games. Games that show the world being oppress by an all-powerful figure like City 17 in Half-Life 2. The idea is fun,but have been use common recently. When writing a dystopian setting writers usually inspire themselves from the famous Orwellian setting. Whether is a totalitarian or authoritarian it follows an easy premise to the story. The hero will rise from people feeling oppress and you must restore hope, this is fine if you are willing to write a simple plot from point A to B. Although this creates recycle ideas that ultimately will be oversaturate. Making a different type of dystopian story is challenging when you are most familiar with the Orwellian plot. It isn't the issue of try not to use it because of bad writing the issue is, writers will develop a dependent on using this plot point easily laid out on creating a world where you need to fill their souls with hope. Which eventually leads to lazy writing on a boring predictable set piece and slowly discourage new ideas that limits the game to think outside of its usual environment and VA-11 does it perfectly.

To clarify, the game does not really have an antagonist, although I guess you could say the world is your antagonist but it does not directly show that it is against you. The citizens of Glitch City live normally like actual people but they have problems of their own. Actual problems that are similar and portray our real-world situation in reality, where we know the world is not perfect but we just keep calm and carry on with our business. The bar is the place where people unwind their troubles and share their experiences with either Jill or other friends. It creates this sense of we are there for each other where even if life throws us s*** we wipe it off and move on with our life. The dystopian world they portray is more of an independent problem rather than a common problem to everyone. Yet despite their troubles they seem to create this sense of community where they can relate to a problem and try to coop with it. Do they fix their own problems? Not always, but they can comfort each other when troubles are ahead which creates a tighter bond. This is exactly where a dystopian setting is done differently than the rest because you can make different types of dystopian settings where it is not limited to “oh I’m being oppressed." The people around you are believable which makes you relate to them, their world makes it organic which makes it more believable in a dystopia world rather than to argue that a utopian world is more believable. Now I heard this game has a similar comparison to Papers Please so let me clarify a bit on those two games.


While I do understand that these two share similar features on "the average Joe" trying to earn its living by working in a dystopian world I will say yes both share sort of the same premise of how the dystopian world would look like in real life. However, that ends here because I don't get why they say VA-11 is a copy-paste of papers please which let me say this: no it is not. Papers, please has an atmosphere of dread as you work which is consistent with the setting of their world. Va-11 is a more "relaxing" setting when doing your duties. Papers, please has a timer, Va-11 does not, the way it interacts with people is different, the story plays out differently. All in all, it shares some ideas but ultimately it is in their own unique ways different.


If I did the review in 2016 it would have been game of the year stamp no questions asked. In fact, I think by the time this review is out it will be my one year anniversary playing this game. I can see a bit of complaint where the bar mechanic can get tedious, as it does not add more features or difficulty to the gameplay. But I would argue that it is mostly a game to relax and enjoy the experience it provides, Instead of this mechanic being in the main game I feel it should be a bonus feature where you quickly serve drinks to customers without looking at your handbook. That would create a sense of replayability just like Papers, Please did. I give this a score of 10/10 GOTY.

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