Norco (or NORCO) is a point-and-click adventure game, or if you wish, an interactive story released in 2022 by an indie game studio from Louisiana called Geography of Robots. Perhaps it's not by chance that the narrative is also set in the same space, albeit in a different time, or at the very least in an alternate universe, although maybe not that different from our own.
Norco explores the very same type of Lynchian themes as seen in Kentucky Route Zero or Disco Elysium1. The main character returns to her hometown only to find an environment that seems to be disintegrating, along with her mother (expectedly) dead and her brother missing. As she starts peeling layers off the changed place, the situation takes a mystical science fiction/realist fantasy turn that I must admit, has gotten me quite engrossed for the four hours or so that I spent with the game.
Do you know, by the way, what game, despite also being released in 2022, hasn't gotten me engrossed? The latest Monkey Island game. I'd heard it was made by the great Ron Gilbert himself so I tried playing it, but I put it away after two hours, which wasn't the case with this Norco game made by some folks that I've never heard of until earlier today. So here's to Return to Monkey Island, a game that deserves at most one paragraph within the review of a similar game with a lower production budget.
So getting back to Norco: I won't talk too much about the almost tragic plot that reveals itself to the player as the game advances. I'll observe however that, much like other Lynchian titles, the supporting environment is full of little pieces of social commentary. Take for example the corporation that will stop at nothing to gain some pieces of land and some power, reminding me about Chevron's Pungești affair over in Eastern Europe; or the various losers who get sucked into various types of congregations; or the stray archetype, who can never find his or in this case her place within the world. Norco combines all these elements in a relatively coherent manner, but with many ends left loose. I can't quite comment on the authors' mastery of storytelling, but I sure hope they don't get the idea of making a sequel, because I can tell from now that it will suck.
As far as the visual aesthetics go, I found the game very pleasing and quite interesting even! For example two of the game's characters, one of whom is also the main protagonist, have indefinite faces, drawn as simple chalk emojis. I suppose this is part of a trend to depersonalize the main character in order to let the player fill in the gaps with his own traits, especially given that the game has multiple endings2; while on the other, it's part of the same "let's leave some loose ends" trope which I'll take as more of an Eastern influence3. In any case, I understand that the pixelated art style may not be for everyone, but I sure as hell enjoyed it. Pixelated or not, whoever drew this gave a very fine level of attention to all sorts of details, say, the "magical orb" that appears throughout the game, to name but one.
The audio aesthetics are so-so; the music is nice but I can't say that it's blown me away. The lack of voice tracks isn't an impediment, especially given the comparison with Monkey Island above: I'll take a good story over professional voice acting anytime. Especially, especially since the writing more than makes up for it: the replies are so well built that for a moment I thought I was in the heart of Louisiana and not in Berceni; and the one moment of meta-humour on the matter was all the more appropriate.
Other than that, what can I say... there's some sort of puzzle/battle mechanics that on one hand is too fast-paced for my taste; and on the other it has a few moments when it's extremely well integrated within the story (e.g. the gas station dude), while in other moments (e.g. the battle inside the Ark) I'll be damned if it made any sense to me. Fortunately it didn't bother me all that much; I hope it was because at some point during the QA cycle, the level designer sorta figured out that it could have used a bit more work, so he ramped down the difficulty.
So if you've got fifteen bucks to spare and an appetite for a nice dystopian cyberpunk/mystical story, give Norco a try.
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I haven't reviewed this one, but I've played it for a bit after it was recommended to me by one of my esteemed readers. He got me, I have an inclination towards this kind of games, so maybe I'll review DE at some point too.
By the way, we can add the Blackwell series to the same list too. And why not Gabriel Knight, which coincidentally also takes place in Louisiana. I suppose I've accidentally hit upon a sub-genre, haven't I? ↩
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I know, I know, it's a role-playing element, but this ain't Daggerfall or Fallout 2, okay? There are maybe three or four situations involving choice in the whole game, which is why I named it "interactive storytelling". But that's true of most point and click "adventure games" that I've reviewed so far. ↩
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Just to be clear where I come from: I've had my share of anime and manga in my youth and one of the most annoying features of such storytelling was the lack of any sort of closure to the main plot. I mean no I'm no expert, but I'll gather that Asians, and especially the Japanese, like this thing where they start a story somewhere only to end it nowhere in particular. Death Note was maybe an exception, and even that one!... But take Cowboy Bebop for example, or Final Fantasy VII if you're into that sort of gaming genre. ↩