Norco é um adventure com uma bela pixel art e muito bem escrito, sendo um jogo cheio de contrastes. Apresenta um mundo familiar o bastante para ser reconhecível, mas com suas próprias estranhezas para ser interessante. A jornada de Kay, voltando para sua casa numa decadente Nova Orleans após a morte de sua mãe, é uma história muito pessoal sobre relacionamento familiar, memórias e crenças, desenvolvida num mundo colapsado por mudanças climáticas, exploração extrativista e depressão econômica. Após um começo com uma narrativa pesada e triste, é curioso o quanto de (bom) humor existe nesse jogo. Textos genuinamente engraçados e descrições e situações surreais são separados por puzzles investigativos e até um sistema de combate, que de tão simples parece quase contextual. O aspecto realmente fascinante de Norco é que, mesmo com todo o cenário apoteótico que a conclusão da sua jornada apresenta, os maiores impactos nela são feitos a partir de pequenos gestos, porque no fundo, a história contada aqui é estranhamente humana.

Set in a technologically advanced near future, Norco is a hauntingly beautiful pixel art depiction of Norco, Louisiana; a town run through by the oil industry, robotics, and mother nature. And while I did like a lot of the humor and general craziness of the game, it's ultimately the somber moments that really stand out, offering some of the best bits of writing in any game this year.

I do think the game probably could have used some reworking to better drive home its themes and ideas, but I also kinda don't care. Because those few sobering moments of inevitability will always stand out to me. And whenever I think about Norco, I will see those oil refineries burning a hole through the night sky. I will hear those synths and horns crying out for a better day that won't come. And I will immediately be brought back. And to me, that's more important than worrying about all the details.

I feel really conflicted about this one. The writing itself is great but the story goes some really weird places. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it goes from 0 to 100 insanely quickly and it feels like, at times, the devs were more concerned with creating some cool imagery (the art in this game is absolutely gorgeous) than telling a cohesive story. It's pretty thought-provoking and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, though, so it's definitely something that will stick with you.

NORCO garnered my interest initially due to its setting of a sci-fi magical realist Louisiana ravaged by capitalism and the unquenchable greed of oil companies. It reminded me of two of my favorite games, Kentucky Route Zero and Disco Elysium, which have become common comparisons to NORCO. NORCO definitely initially feels like it’s trying to follow in the footsteps of those games and their mix of fantastical elements and grounded themes pertaining to our current world, and initially it does a real quality job as the world is an enthralling and resonant one. The game’s graphics and aesthetic are beautiful in their own beaten down, grungy way, and bring the setting to life. The prose is also mostly of similar quality to KRZ and Disco and be quite evocative and got me into the game pretty well. The puzzles are fine; there’s not a lot of them, but they fit with what you’re doing in the narrative so they’re not moon logic-y. The game also has a combat system where you have to match symbols or time your clicks right. Combat in a point and click adventure game usually ain’t the best idea but it’s mostly alright.

Unfortunately the game gets more and more nonsensical as it goes along; it loses the thematic strength and character writing it had started off with and the whole final conflict just feels so far removed from the initial one of the protag’s mom investigating the oil company’s shady dealings. Both KRZ and Disco had surreal endings too, but they still reinforced and were grounded in the real world themes both games had been building the whole time and tied into the arcs of the main cast wonderfully. NORCO’s ending feels like the devs just ran out of time and ideas. The ending just also throws a bunch of the combat encounters at you in quick succession too which also makes think it was rushed. It is actually frustrating because I feel the game was close to being great, they just really needed a second pass on the third act.

Overall NORCO is still a quality adventure game worth your time but I really can’t help but feel its “The Kentucky Route Zero we have at home” as it were and it could have been more.

A game I just loved the whole vibe of, from the melancholic moments to the more humorous situations. I was immediately enamored by the sci-fi dystopian swampy Louisiana, a setting I did not see before. All presented with gorgeous pixel art and equally good sounding music. Unfortunately with continuing playtime the game started to fall a bit flat for me. I liked the intimate first part more than the second, where spiritual elements begin to dominate the story. And albeit ending in a picturesque feverish dream, which I won't forget, the game kinda lost me. Still highly recommended.

ethereal and epiphanous; hauntingly religious, and ominously intriguing. Norco dares to tell a story that feels unlike any game before. its near-future pseudo-cyberpunk setting depicts the very-real city of Norco, Louisiana under the regime of the very-real supercorporation, Shell. its so grounded such that its dystopic themes and outcomes feel... possible, and acts as an exaggerated account of the real-life experiences of people living in the shadow of a domineering corporation, effectively in charge of many aspects of their lives. different from the fantastical and paradoxically compelling setting of "traditional cyberpunk", whose themes are understandably lost on most.

as the mystery unfolds - non-linear and often enigmatic - we approach the absurd. a government conspiracy, a religious cult, a biological abomination. thematically, the game deals with life and truth under an extreme capitalist force, and mankind's panic and response through religion. to seek a way out, to seek salvation, or maybe just seek quick answers in a complicated world.

gameplay-wise, its reminiscent of Kojima's SNATCHER, even the puzzles are the same style of cryptic. a great game, but sometimes obtuse. Norco can be obtuse, but not as bad.

in summation - Norco is a WEIRD game. it is FREAKY and FUNNY. it's not for everyone, but if you liked anything that I said, I recommend CHECKING it OUT.

There's plenty of well-written games out there. But it's rare to run into amazingly written ones. Games where just the prose, coupled with some great audiovisual presentation of course, can get you so deeply enthralled that you forget everything else and become a sponge, trying to absorb as much of its world as you can. Games where you feel like you everything you do holds its own little meaning.

Norco is one such game, but it's also imperfect, in many ways. None that are immediately apparent, Norco sounds, looks and reads great. But there's a couple things that feel like they don't belong. There's combat, for starters. You'll get in about... four, five fights in the whole game? They're all really easy and not a bother, it's just weird. The story feels oddly paced, disinterested in its main plot at first, only to become much more linear and fast-paced near the halfway point. There's still a good amount of things you can miss, but the freedom of choice that I really fucked with vanishes kinda quickly.

Perhaps the biggest flaw is that the game's themes, as pointed out by others, don't feel as cohesive as they should. The first half of the game is clearly about modern society and capitalism, while the second is more spiritual and symbolic (with a long detour in the middle about cults, which I feel is the worst part of the game). Both of those two halves, taken individually, are executed in a pretty gnarly way, but when looked at in the context of a single story, I genuinely struggle to see a throughline.

And that's a damn shame, because I'm a loser who likes to feel smart, and when I don't "get it", I feel non-smart. It's hard for me to let go of the idea that every game needs to "mean" something. So, let's try, spoilers ahead. I think this is a game about trying to find your own purpose and how difficult and possibly fruitless it is in today's world. The protagonist's mother gives up her past as a free spirit to try and make some dough for her family in her last days. Million, the family robot, can't ultimately escape her programmed purpose (I think? She deserved a better conclusion man, she was so cool and then got killed off abruptly. A fucking crime I tell ya). The Garrets are all looking for some purpose in the most toxic way, first starting some cult and eventually just trying to shoot themselves into space. Superduck is a hive mind of gigantic proportions, bending nature to its will, and is punished with a horrible death. Pawpaw forces all of your family into some preordained Da Vinci Code religious bullshit, with your final action being to just escape from it. It's about trying to find a little bit of freedom in a world that that keeps applying a more and more suffocating stranglehold on to you.

Or you know, it's about something else and I just made all of the above up. Even if I'm right, I don't know if it's supposed to end on a more hopeful note, or a sour one. Norco hurts, because it's so close to being an absolute classic for me, so close to having just the right symbolism. Or maybe I'm the one who's so close to finding the perfect way to look at it to let it blow my mind as it deserves. I don't know.

"We're all trapped in this limbo. A long twilight that bleeds out to the edges of time where even the most fantastic things become banal. This grey blanket of stale time. Stagnant, lonely time. To puncture it... To punch a hole in it. I understand the appeal. I do."

I'm always hesitant about adventure games. I blame some childhood first impression, formed by cheap PC games on Steam in 2011, supposedly beloved by game likers older than I was. I don't know if I would like "Time Gentleman, Please" or the 3D Sam and Max these days, and hell no I am not going back to check, because this is 2022 and we've got fucking NORCO, dude.

Despite its many science fiction anxieties and cultic fascinations, Norco is an example of a hopefully ever-increasing trend of a game trying to share a real experience about living in a real culture in a real place. Even aside from its writing, which refracts elements of 21st century American culture into uncanny technological demons that haunt every character, its audiovisuals bleed sense of place. Norco's bayou feels, at times, like Hotline Miami's Miami-- hot, humid, and claustrophobic.

The writing, though, is wonderful. The characters are memorable, goofy, and heartbreaking, and they expose and resolve the mysteries of the swamp and the city with grace. The game does cool things with perspective as well, and adds new game mechanics, always explained narratively, to interactions as necessary while the plot develops.

Its puzzles are never too obtuse, and usually come together if you're clearly thinking of your goal: to get access to a locked door, for example, or to make a dude mad at his friends. I think I actually avoided a bad ending by doing a few totally optional interactions before the final scene.

so yeah, play norco, it's on sale, worth the money, goty 2022 cause i only played poinpy and vampire survivors this year

Visually and musically an absolute vibe. The tone is fairly bleak but was also shockingly funny. The gameplay is point and click adventure with some light turn based combat. Thankfully you aren't pixel hunting as by default everything you can interact with is highlighted. As for the combat, I really wish there was something more too it. It is so undemanding that I wonder why it was even added.

I would say that the visuals and soundtrack are what I'll remember this game for, rather than any particular parts of the narrative. Chex2Cash is going into a playlist ASAP.

The pixel art in this narrative point-and-click adventure game is some of the best and most intricate I've ever seen. This game understands and parodies internet culture and the alt-right in a way I've never seen in a game before. The story, which starts off very personal, then focuses more on cyberpunk themes and then drifts into the metaphysical, really won me over. Dialogue was wonderfully written, the humor was on point but when the game wanted to be serious, I could take it seriously - a fine line that not every game manages to walk. And the atmosphere of dirty, run-down cyberpunk New Orleans was superbly realized. Heavy themes such as racism and the consequences of colonization also find their place here and are handled with the necessary sensitivity....really great game

Really really love the art and writing in this game. Visual presentation goes hard and sells some of the characters and humor. Can't give it a 5/5 for two main reasons. One, because there were some parts where the narrative dragged and felt like I was just slogging to the next big part of the story. And two, I love adventure game puzzles (within reason), but this felt more like a visual novel with the trappings of an adventure game. Most notably, I never felt for a single moment like I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to do next. Overall, extremely solid indie story game, and I'll be keeping an eye on what Yuts writes in the future.