Since I said I was going to do it…
VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action, since I can’t be bothered to call it that every time, lets stick to Vallhalla from now on.
Since this VN turned 10 years old this year, and it had some impact on the scene, here we are.
Let’s do some transparency first, for once, I cover a VN I don’t care about, do I like Vallhalla? No, do I hate Vallhalla? If I really hated a VN, it will never get an entry, regardless of its popularity or impact in the medium, for Vallhalla, at most I tolerate it.
I liked it when it came out, but, its one of those that the more I look back, the more I realize it didn’t mean anything to nor clicked with me.
I also prefer my cyberpunk more along the lines of Shadowrun, technology alone is boring.
At The Bottom Of A Glass
The year is 207X, corporations have taken over all aspects of life, the people are infected with nanomachines meant to keep them under surveillance, oppressive military police keep the people obedient, the rich get richer, and everyone just tries to make it through another day.
But, this story isn’t about that.
VA-11 Hall-A, a little hole in the wall located somewhere in Glitch City, the city where all the corporations test out their latest human rights violations, and social experiments.
We follow Jill, a bartender working in this humble bar, even though its nearing its closure, that doesn’t mean there is no work to do.
All manner of clients visit this establishment, each with a story to tell, each carrying a weight that can only be alleviated with alcohol.
Living in a neon colored dystopia has a habit of making you thirsty after all.
Its time to mix drinks and change lives.
But, this story isn’t about that.
VA-11 Hall-A, a little hole in the wall located somewhere in Glitch City, the city where all the corporations test out their latest human rights violations, and social experiments.
We follow Jill, a bartender working in this humble bar, even though its nearing its closure, that doesn’t mean there is no work to do.
All manner of clients visit this establishment, each with a story to tell, each carrying a weight that can only be alleviated with alcohol.
Living in a neon colored dystopia has a habit of making you thirsty after all.
Its time to mix drinks and change lives.
Cyberpunk Bartending Action
Vallhalla was originally made as an entry for a Game Jam in 2014, the whole idea was to have a game in which the protagonist isn’t a standard hero, instead, what they wanted was to have a bartender listen to the stories of the other characters.
At the end, they liked the concept so much, they decided to expand upon it, eventually releasing the full game a few years later. The demo which started it all, will later be remastered and added to the full game as a free update.
Its important to mention, that the team who made this game, is from Venezuela, and a lot of the writing is inspired by their experiences.
The game is also heavily inspired by PC-98 games, mostly on the aesthetic department. It has a heavy anime influence, some imageboard culture influences (predominantly 4chan), some of policenauts and snatcher, etc.
There is also the obvious Neuromancer, Blade Runner, etc. etc. Influences that every cyberpunk work has.
As for the music, it has a notable influence from vaporwave.
Unlike any other Visual Novel, Vallhalla takes a vastly different approach, instead of making normal decisions as you would on a standard VN, your “choice” is what kind of drink to give the patron, of course, what you give them will determine how the interaction continues.
In some cases, you can unlock special dialogue by getting them drunk, or by remembering little details about them, like, serving them their favorite drink when they are looking depressed, for example.
Whatever you chose, keep in mind that Jill has bills to pay, and random consumerist whims to satiate, so, make sure you do provide a good enough service.
When it comes to storytelling, Vallhalla takes another different approach, instead of having an actual central plot, it follows a very sporadic approach, with multiple events and plot threads just happening, with characters reacting to them as they happen, your main source of information, being what the patrons themselves tell you.
As they say, there are only 2 professions in which the client is honest, doctor, and bartender.
At the end, they liked the concept so much, they decided to expand upon it, eventually releasing the full game a few years later. The demo which started it all, will later be remastered and added to the full game as a free update.
Its important to mention, that the team who made this game, is from Venezuela, and a lot of the writing is inspired by their experiences.
The game is also heavily inspired by PC-98 games, mostly on the aesthetic department. It has a heavy anime influence, some imageboard culture influences (predominantly 4chan), some of policenauts and snatcher, etc.
There is also the obvious Neuromancer, Blade Runner, etc. etc. Influences that every cyberpunk work has.
As for the music, it has a notable influence from vaporwave.
Unlike any other Visual Novel, Vallhalla takes a vastly different approach, instead of making normal decisions as you would on a standard VN, your “choice” is what kind of drink to give the patron, of course, what you give them will determine how the interaction continues.
In some cases, you can unlock special dialogue by getting them drunk, or by remembering little details about them, like, serving them their favorite drink when they are looking depressed, for example.
Whatever you chose, keep in mind that Jill has bills to pay, and random consumerist whims to satiate, so, make sure you do provide a good enough service.
When it comes to storytelling, Vallhalla takes another different approach, instead of having an actual central plot, it follows a very sporadic approach, with multiple events and plot threads just happening, with characters reacting to them as they happen, your main source of information, being what the patrons themselves tell you.
As they say, there are only 2 professions in which the client is honest, doctor, and bartender.
The whole idea for this approach, was for the player to actually feel immersed in the world the character’s inhabit, slowly piecing together how everything works via what they hear from other characters, and what they read on the forum Jill visits, and the Augmented Eye, the newspaper Jill reads.
The player is limited to Jill’s perspective, and to whatever they hear from the patrons, creating a more natural way to interact with the world.
There are a 2 major events which do influence the story in some way, the 1st one is when there are riots on the street, the 2nd one is when Jill receives news about her ex-girlfriend. The former changes the behavior of multiple characters, the later heavily influences the way Jill interacts with the patrons.
There are also some extra instances of dialogue outside of bartending, in which the game looks like a codec call, there is also the Truth or Dare mini-game in which you get to learn a little extra info on some characters, and the one mini-game in which you decide how quick Jill drinks while talking to her boss.
Since it would be very difficult, and quite easy to spoil some of the stories, my usual approach of talking about the routes will have to be done in a slightly different manner, so, I am going to cover the ones I remember.
Starting with favorites.
First, Dorothy, she is a Lilim (an android) who works as a prostitute, she takes advantage of the fact that she looks like a kid to appeal to those of peculiar tastes. I like her the most, since she is the funniest character overall, with her crazy stories and sex jokes, but, she also gets some moments of levity, like when she talks about her guardian, or when she has her existential crisis.
Next, is Jamie, a bounty hunter who sports quite a lot of augmentations, although you don’t get to interact with him much, he has a lot of interesting things to say about his work, and what he thinks about life, and its value, very interesting character.
Then, there is Gil, the other bartender, although he doesn’t have much screentime nor interactions, he is a very interesting character, just a chill guy who’s clearly hiding something, he provides some interesting commentary on occasion, and has a lot of funny moments.
Finally, there is Rad Shiba, he is a dog, who wears sunglasses and a Hawaiian Shirt, how cool is that?
The player is limited to Jill’s perspective, and to whatever they hear from the patrons, creating a more natural way to interact with the world.
There are a 2 major events which do influence the story in some way, the 1st one is when there are riots on the street, the 2nd one is when Jill receives news about her ex-girlfriend. The former changes the behavior of multiple characters, the later heavily influences the way Jill interacts with the patrons.
There are also some extra instances of dialogue outside of bartending, in which the game looks like a codec call, there is also the Truth or Dare mini-game in which you get to learn a little extra info on some characters, and the one mini-game in which you decide how quick Jill drinks while talking to her boss.
Since it would be very difficult, and quite easy to spoil some of the stories, my usual approach of talking about the routes will have to be done in a slightly different manner, so, I am going to cover the ones I remember.
Starting with favorites.
First, Dorothy, she is a Lilim (an android) who works as a prostitute, she takes advantage of the fact that she looks like a kid to appeal to those of peculiar tastes. I like her the most, since she is the funniest character overall, with her crazy stories and sex jokes, but, she also gets some moments of levity, like when she talks about her guardian, or when she has her existential crisis.
Next, is Jamie, a bounty hunter who sports quite a lot of augmentations, although you don’t get to interact with him much, he has a lot of interesting things to say about his work, and what he thinks about life, and its value, very interesting character.
Then, there is Gil, the other bartender, although he doesn’t have much screentime nor interactions, he is a very interesting character, just a chill guy who’s clearly hiding something, he provides some interesting commentary on occasion, and has a lot of funny moments.
Finally, there is Rad Shiba, he is a dog, who wears sunglasses and a Hawaiian Shirt, how cool is that?
I also liked Taylor, but he is a one-off character, so I won’t say anything else about him, the same can be said about Nacho.
As for the rest I kinda like, they too have some interesting things, like Sei being so nice I feel like she doesn’t fit in a cyberpunk story, her friend Stella who is a cute catgirl who says interesting things on occasion, Virgilio some guy who likes to pretend he’s The Riddler, Alma who is Jill’s hacker friend and provides some good insight at times, Dana is Jill’s boss, who is pretty cool and has a very crazy past which only gets crazier the more you read, Mario is an interesting guy, but doesn’t get much screentime.
Depending on who you ask, you can get a different answer as to who their favorites are.
As for the ones I kinda don’t care, Donovan says the obvious about journalism, at least he can be funny sometimes, Art is alright but doesn’t add much, the characters which are YIIK references made me cringe (specially knowing how trash YIIK is), Ingram is ok when you get his full story, I didn’t really care about Kim, Streaming-chan is funny but that’s it (I did like the detail of the niconico style chat showing up on screen when she shows up), Betty and Deal are fun but they aren’t that interesting (although I did like them in the prologue), Norma doesn’t do much, and its the typical teenager who wants booze, Gabi is whatever, Kira Miki is ok, I don’t really care about idols, you can read her blog as well.
And that’s all characters I remember, well, I suppose there is also Fore, Jill’s fat cat whom you see when she’s at home.
There are a few secret characters you can get if you serve a special drink to specific characters, but, that’s for you to find.
As for the rest I kinda like, they too have some interesting things, like Sei being so nice I feel like she doesn’t fit in a cyberpunk story, her friend Stella who is a cute catgirl who says interesting things on occasion, Virgilio some guy who likes to pretend he’s The Riddler, Alma who is Jill’s hacker friend and provides some good insight at times, Dana is Jill’s boss, who is pretty cool and has a very crazy past which only gets crazier the more you read, Mario is an interesting guy, but doesn’t get much screentime.
Depending on who you ask, you can get a different answer as to who their favorites are.
As for the ones I kinda don’t care, Donovan says the obvious about journalism, at least he can be funny sometimes, Art is alright but doesn’t add much, the characters which are YIIK references made me cringe (specially knowing how trash YIIK is), Ingram is ok when you get his full story, I didn’t really care about Kim, Streaming-chan is funny but that’s it (I did like the detail of the niconico style chat showing up on screen when she shows up), Betty and Deal are fun but they aren’t that interesting (although I did like them in the prologue), Norma doesn’t do much, and its the typical teenager who wants booze, Gabi is whatever, Kira Miki is ok, I don’t really care about idols, you can read her blog as well.
And that’s all characters I remember, well, I suppose there is also Fore, Jill’s fat cat whom you see when she’s at home.
There are a few secret characters you can get if you serve a special drink to specific characters, but, that’s for you to find.
A Different Kind Of Cyberpunk
Vallhalla’s presentation is top-notch, the whole interface and art are pure eye candy, the music is truly the best part about it, it is even nice enough to let you pick the playlist at the beginning of the day.
Having the option for scanlines is the best.
But, that’s the best about Vallhalla, presentation.
The bartending aspect, although cool at first, quickly becomes monotonous as you get used to it, and most patrons like to order the same things anyway.
You can spice things up, and get some quirky funny dialogue on occasion, with the risk of missing out on potential info about how the character’s story thread is progressing.
The approach is novel for the medium yes, but it also has the downside of feeling unfocused with very little to actually tell, like it would be in a slice-of-life VN, for example.
The perspective is as limited as it is in most first-person focused VNs, yet, even in those, they will switch perspective to give more context, Vallhalla doesn’t have that luxury, either you get info from the characters themselves, or you don’t, making the conclusion to some events feel unfulfilling or underwhelming, for example, to me, the ending is very underwhelming.
Should you read Vallhalla? Sure, its not too long (including the prologue and the demo), and it has a good presentation.
The writing can be very hit or miss, but its novel.
At the end, Vallhalla did speak to enough people for copy cats to emerge.
It just didn’t speak to me.
Who knows if Nirvana is ever released, I might cover it, if you guys ask for it.
Having the option for scanlines is the best.
But, that’s the best about Vallhalla, presentation.
The bartending aspect, although cool at first, quickly becomes monotonous as you get used to it, and most patrons like to order the same things anyway.
You can spice things up, and get some quirky funny dialogue on occasion, with the risk of missing out on potential info about how the character’s story thread is progressing.
The approach is novel for the medium yes, but it also has the downside of feeling unfocused with very little to actually tell, like it would be in a slice-of-life VN, for example.
The perspective is as limited as it is in most first-person focused VNs, yet, even in those, they will switch perspective to give more context, Vallhalla doesn’t have that luxury, either you get info from the characters themselves, or you don’t, making the conclusion to some events feel unfulfilling or underwhelming, for example, to me, the ending is very underwhelming.
Should you read Vallhalla? Sure, its not too long (including the prologue and the demo), and it has a good presentation.
The writing can be very hit or miss, but its novel.
At the end, Vallhalla did speak to enough people for copy cats to emerge.
It just didn’t speak to me.
Who knows if Nirvana is ever released, I might cover it, if you guys ask for it.
