The video game industry has been a very prolific one in the last 35 years, in territories such as Japan, China and the United States we see more and more independent studios and AAA being born and dying. It is no coincidence that these countries are economic and political potentials and that other territories with fewer advantages have fewer video game developers.
Unfortunately, Latin America is one of those places where video games are a very expensive hobby, let alone making them. For this reason, something special arises from our people, we must celebrate it, talk about it, witness what seems like a miracle.
Staging
VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action is a title in which we play the role of Jill, a bartender who finds herself adrift in her life, but she still doesn't know it. The idea of the game is to serve drinks to the customers of the bar VA-11 Hall-A (called "Valhalla" by its regular customers) so that they loosen their tongues and we learn from them until our shift ends.
The year is 2069 in Glitch City, one of the few cities in this cyberpunk universe where you experiment with citizens, artificial intelligence, humanoids, and nanomachines. The city is known for its rampant corruption, food shortages, and high price to pay for quality of life.
Latin American conception
Valhalla was conceived and designed entirely by Fernando Damas and Christopher Ortiz, two Venezuelans who started their project with an anime and otaku culture blog. At some point during development they managed to get out of Venezuela and finished the project with the help of Ysbrid Games in 2016 after several preliminary demos and prologues that were liked at the Itch.io Cyberpunk Game Jam.
In the process they hired Michael Kelly, known as Garoad, and it was he who composed the soundtrack for the entire game. The musical element is important, but we'll talk about that later. For now the point is that only two people designed, wrote and programmed the game with the Game Maker software, while a third party composed the entire soundtrack.
Given the political situation in Venezuela, and given that the members of Sukeban Games themselves celebrate having fled Venezuela on their blog, one might believe that their game would have many very strong political opinions. But this is not the case, Valhalla does have social criticism, but it mainly focuses on the individual, their characters, their decisions, their regrets and goals.
passive interaction
Valhalla is mostly played by pressing a button, one that simply tells the game that you're done reading what you were told and want the next line of dialogue. That's what we'll do most of the time, until someone asks us for a drink and we have to check our bartender manual to know how to prepare it.
There are 5 items to mix drinks with: Adelhyde, Powdered Delta, Bronson Extract, Flanergide, and Karmotrine. Our manual tells us how much of each element to mix, if we should let it sit, if it will be on the rocks, and if we should mix or shake it. Doing a single step wrong means that the preparation fails and we have to start over.
However, you can throw away that bad drink and try again, there's really no pressure to prepare it quickly, so you can read the instructions several times until it comes out right. Delivering the wrong drink won't get you to game over, you'll just lose some money, so you won't be able to buy trinkets in the shop, but they aren't necessary to advance either.
Generally speaking, Valhalla can't be "misplayed", you can't "die" or anything like that. The game is inspired by the visual novel genre that became popular in Japan in the 90s with the PC-9800 personal computer, so as the name suggests, you watch and read. And a little more.
The value of the characters
Right now some may see “red flags” that take you away from the game. And of course, everyone's tastes must be respected, but let us tell you that Valhalla is certainly not a traditional title with challenges and enemies, however, its enormous value lies in interpersonal relationships and the script.
Each client that enters the bar has a very marked personality, something interesting to tell and they are narrative tools that move the story forward. Jill at first seems like an entity without personality that only serves drinks and serves as a mirror for customers. However, the merit of Fernando Damas, the writer, is to hide for long enough that Jill is emotionally broken and that she is not quiet to listen but because of a depression that has stopped her for years.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, we will not make spoilers, it is a story that each player deserves to discover for himself.
Relationships in Valhalla
In addition there are many other characters: Mr. Dawson, a cynical editor of The Augmented Eyed, a tabloid newspaper that must bow to the demands of investors; Dorothy, an android who works as a prostitute and uses her underage figure to attract clients; Dana, Jill's mysterious boss and owner of the bar, possesses a bionic arm and is respected for a past that is a mystery to the player.
More to go: Alma Armas, digital security advisor; Streaming-chan, a content creator who constantly streams her entire life in order to pay the bills: Sei, a White Knight (the city police), who lives to save innocents, among several others. According to the latest studio survey, all characters have at least one player who prefers them.
And it is that Sukeban Games decided not to focus on the clear parallels between any Venezuelan city and Glitch City, but on happiness within the chaos and disaster that is the life of each character. As you progress through the game, made up of 19 days, you learn more about these characters, their tragedies and fears, and it is very difficult not to empathize with them.
Love and appreciation is something that is earned in real life, and the writing of the game, the constant dialogues and interactions, funny or not, lead you to connect with everyone. Especially with Jill, you can read her thoughts and immediately you notice that she is very much in love with Dana, her boss and that she doesn't even know it, since she is deluded into convincing herself that it is her admiration.
Complicated writing
To all these we must talk about a relevant issue for the industry today, the representation of the LGBT community is everywhere. All the characters speak naturally about their sexuality and at least half of them are bisexual or gay, the conversations about it are natural and you will never feel that the topic comes from nowhere or is fan service.
Luckily, Sukeban managed to strike a balance between off-color conversation and character traits. Valhalla never becomes an erotic or sensual game, but it does have a strong emotional charge that, let's face it, is almost always accompanied by sexual attraction and the game does not shy away from the subject.
a simple anecdote
A frequent experience is to see Dorothy arrive and ask you for a Piano Woman, a very common drink. Dorothy Haze is a lilim (an android with highly advanced artificial intelligence) and one day she rejects her usual Piano Woman, so you sense something is wrong.
The girl tells you that she must visit her adoptive human mother from time to time. However, she is afraid that she doesn't feel the right emotions for her mother and that she is using her to fill in the gap left by her dead daughter. The irony of it all is that the character's concern reflects that she does feel, she does love and that she is also afraid of not meeting expectations.
Jill manages to convince her to visit hers and do her best to have a good time with her mother and so she does. Days later Dorothy returns and you find out that everything went well and she orders her usual drink and returns to her uninhibited and happy mood. In a simple story you connect with a character who is not even fully human and there is the magic of Valhalla.
Valhalla and its challenges
In 2016 you could read many reviews that talked about the lack of difficulty and tension and how the gameplay could be boring, some even said that Valhalla was not a video game. And of course, if you want to approach the title in a "traditional" way, it can be, but after what we told you, the truth is that you want to discover each ending with each character and discover the secret clients and drinks.
And that's where the challenge comes in, customers won't always tell you what they want, sometimes they'll just tell you “something sweet” or “the fanciest” you have. Not getting it right will make you lose money and secret dialogues, losing hidden interactions in an interpersonal relationship game is equivalent to not getting that sword you are looking for or not climbing all the watchtowers, a tragedy, of course.
Also, after 19 days you want to know the end of every story, even Jill's which you can miss out on completely if you don't have $10,000 by the end of the month. So yes, there is a challenge and if there are consequences, this is still a video game, only this one knows that its audience does not want the best weapon, but rather to get to know its characters more thoroughly and close that virtual relationship with a flourish.
final tips
Serving all drinks properly, even secret ones, is highly recommended. At the end of the game you will feel better when you find out about Virgil's ending, to give just one example. Similarly, it must be said that it is almost impossible to hit all the drinks in the first game (unless you use a guide). So be prepared that you will surely want to take advantage of the New Game+ where you keep your money and trinkets from the shop.
So we hope that with this we have convinced at least one person to try the game, it is not a forgettable experience, especially if you reach the end. In addition to the above, there are many small references to the culture of 4chan, to Sukeban Games itself and its “waifu games”, to the sick idealization of Japanese idols. We are facing a unique game in the industry that came from two Latin American minds that is also very accessible.
Right now VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action is available on Steam, Itch.io, GOG, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch. At the end of the game you will be able to access a prologue and an epilogue, in addition, there is a spin off and there is already a sequel in development, N1RV Ann-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action, so get ready to enter what seems like the beginning of an extended universe .
latin specialty
Sukeban has been able to build a good community of players thanks to Valhalla, there is no Latin American game that has been able to generate so many emotions to so many players in every corner of the world. There is even merchandise for sale at the official Ysbrid Games store and artists, encouraged by Sukeban, post fan art on their blog and social media, (erotic and non-erotic). The community has responded with a Spanish translation available only on PC and Vita and is installed with a simple patch.
We can't leave without recommending the game's soundtrack either, it's an essential part of Jill's job to choose the music that plays on the bar's jukebox. Michael Kelly composed more than twenty songs that will make you feel in 2069 and, of course, you can always listen to them on YouTube, but everything takes on a different meaning when you enjoy it in Valhalla.