Fairly early on.
And I was one of the people that got VP1 while it was still available new. Never got the A ending, though.
My A playthrough is mostly done, but not finished. PS1 basically died. It randomly reboots, and being totally unpredictable just makes it incredibly infuriating.
So I pretty much have to play on the PS2, which I've heard exacerbates VP1's crash issues. I don't know if it's actually true(Althena knows gamers make up enough crap about these things), but the last time I tried to play, it crashed three times in a row. That turned me off picking it back up pretty fast.