What is it that I look for in a video game? What is it that I look for in any form of media? The determining factors that can make or break the entire experience for me? When I interact with a medium like this, be it game, movie, or otherwise, I'm looking for a world. A world that I can look into and appreciate, examine, feel every aspect. A world that knows how to pull you in, using every tool it has available. VA-11 Hall-A, and its cyberpunk dystopia they call Glitch City, is precisely what I'm looking for.

This is not a world you are meant to appreciate, though. This is, as stated earlier, a dystopia, run down by the corporations and awful governing bodies that tower over it and its citizens, criminalistic and morally bankrupt at every turn, where dreams struggle to make it out alive or die trying. Yet, despite it all, there's a place of respite. A bar tucked away from the public eye, and a glance into a story that doesn't belong to you, but to a cold, tired woman on the verge of losing it all, whether she knows the full extent of it or not.

Amidst the cyberpunk bartender action, you will meet new faces, a large majority of which are already well acquainted with the game's protagonist, Jill Stingray. Immediately, you'll notice that, in a sense, there is no beginning to this story. There's no need to formally introduce everyone, as this is just another day on the job for Jill, mixing drinks and changing lives as she does for the regulars of Valhalla. Through these customers, you'll soon recognize the depravity of Glitch City. Customers of all shapes and sizes, all different motives and purposes will stumble into the bar each and every day, yet life proceeds as normal for the citizens of the city, and through listening to their story and talking to them, over time, you get used to them. Everyone you talk to has a story, no matter how minor, and those stories can change everything you know and believe. Valhalla gives these characters a place to be vulnerable and speak their mind, giving the player a glance into even more stories, the awful pasts that bring one to where they are now.

But a story isn’t what makes a world. Not alone, at least. A world isn’t complete without its environment and atmosphere, and VA-11 Hall-A nails this aspect stunningly. Michael “Garoad” Kelly’s work on this game’s soundtrack is a damn masterpiece for every scenario, complemented by the jukebox system that integrates the music into the world of the bar seamlessly. To speak a little more personally, this is easily my favorite soundtrack to come out of any video game. Just launching the game and listening to its title screen is enough to get me emotional, knowing full well what’s to come. Making it past that, things only get better with tracks like Safe Haven playing outside of the bar, and the wide list of songs to select during your work, with such beautiful standouts like Synthestitch, Snowfall, and the classic Every Day Is Night, not to mention the way it all meshes perfectly with the PC-98 aesthetic of VA-11 Hall-A’s entire interface. Everything just feels so natural, as it should. The songs that play each day are handpicked by you, the player, at the start of every shift, making it that much easier to immerse yourself in this short glimpse into Jill’s life.

It all comes together to make the perfect world I look for in an experience. The perfect, imperfect world. It is this imperfect world that I fell into so quickly all those years ago. Only starting out as me stumbling across some screenshots a friend of mine posted way back, a silly conversation between Jill and Alma. I laughed, and grew curious, not only by the humor of the moment, but by everything that was presented to me. I still remember that first playthrough. Watching as characters I would grow attached to would disappear for days upon weeks, I would let out an audible gasp upon seeing them again, just to indulge in their casual musings yet again. The sharp twists and turns of this story would break out, and the entire mood would shift dramatically. Characters would grow weary, concerned, Jill herself would lose the cool demeanor her customers had gotten so accustomed to, and the music would become much more somber. All of it, from the brutal reality the protagonist had suddenly been thrust into, to the despondent music I had selected to play by my own hand, it all just felt… natural. Despite the physically unnatural circumstances of the city and its residents, every story I had read felt natural, but I never felt like I was a part of it. Because I wasn’t. It was all just a crucial chapter of Jill’s own story, not the beginning, nor the end. Life went on, for everyone involved, and I found myself holding its precious moments close to me, through multiple replays and reminiscences of the world I had fallen in love with.

And it is in this world, where I can find myself at my most vulnerable. VA-11 Hall-A brings out the emotion in me that few other games can so easily, just as the bar itself does so regularly with its clientele. From day one, I have, and forever will hold this experience closest to my heart, and I will surely do the same with whatever story is to be told in the future with its sequel.

This is my favorite game of all time. The perfect blend of every element I look for in a video game, in a show, in any form of art. This warm and comforting feeling, even in the face of such a brutal environment as this. This is what I would happily call a perfect game. The perfect game.

Cheers to eight years of cyberpunk bartender action.