While Va11-Hall-A emphasizes style, it's so much style over substance. As a visual novel, this is a game in a genre that lives and dies by writing. Unfortunately, my diagnosis for this one is a case of internet poisoning, in which a couple game developers hung out on fora and let that guide style, character, and humor.

Even so, there are still some interesting things about it - the insistence on setting up the jukebox before each shift, the main character's narrative arc that's centered around grief and fear, the way the world's events unfold around the bar rather than within it - so I would say it accomplishes some of what it means to in terms of storytelling

The bartender mechanic is one of the weakest of the genre, though, and it doesn't stand up particularly well next to the convenient puzzling of Coffee Talk or the more active and varied effects that drinks have in Red Strings Club. Honestly, the game was a little more fun on the days where I let the main character be "distracted," which meant that I at least had to remember drink orders myself. There are a few moments in each shift where there's some variability in terms of what you can serve, but it doesn't lead to much more than a small difference in dialogue or, at most, the appearance of an optional character.