Publisher: Raw Fury
Developer: Geography of Robots
Year: 2022
Platform: Windows, Mac, Xbox One, Xbox Series, PS4, PS5

Rating: 6

Norco is a real place, a highly segregated (but mostly white) CDP that was renamed in 1911 after the New Orleans Refining Company was established. Part of “Cancer Alley,” Norco refines 10 million gallons of oil per day and regularly spits pollution everywhere and very notably during two catastrophic explosions in 1973 and 1998 and also during Hurricane Ida in 2021. It’s three square miles and is home to about 3,000 people.

Norco the game takes place in an alternate future, still dominated by the petroleum industry but somehow darker, bordering on apocalyptic. The U.S. government is barely there, parts of the country are in civil war, and organized crime is everywhere. Androids are also common as well as a relevant technological advancement of being able to upload memories onto computers. Norco well establishes a gritty atmosphere, a city where complex humans are doing their best to make their home a livable place. Unfortunately, the narrative occasionally takes a hit thanks to some occasional obtuse puzzle design and a story arc that becomes a little grandiose at the end.

Norco is a first-person point and click adventure, somewhat reminiscent of the old Legend games but without all the frames. You play as Kay, who has begrudgingly returned home following the death of her mother from liver cancer to handle the family affairs, especially since her brother (who is now missing) is kind of a screw-up. You will also play as Kay’s mother Catherine in the weeks before her death as she investigates some shady goings-on that may impact the future of all Norco citizens. At the end of each chapter you switch between them. Eventually, Kay is able to track some of her mother’s investigation, putting herself in hot water as well.

The first design choice that took me out of the narrative is a Kay’s mind map which you access on a separate screen. Like a detective map, names of people will be added to the map as Kay comes across them, with brief descriptions of what she knows about them and lines drawn between characters that are closely tied. There’s no puzzle here but rather just a reference point. While it did occasionally help remind me of who’s who, Catherine has no such map and it didn’t completely stop me from confusing various characters and how they relate to each other.

Otherwise, most of the game is dialogue heavy, with interviewing other characters being the primary mode of play. The dialogue is often sharply written, each person imbued with a distinct personality, even if you have but one conversation with them. Nobody feels shoehorned into the story for a puzzle’s sake and nobody feels like an afterthought in the script. And while a good portion of the game is asking pre-scripted questions and reading dialogue, it never feels excessive. While there’s disappointingly no voice acting (at least in part due to budget constraints), the dialogue is so well written that the game comes alive anyway.

Inventory puzzles exist, though they’re often quite simple and there mostly for story-building. One highlighted exception is a voice recording app on Catherine’s phone which helps her infiltrate a cult by patching together conversations and using the recordings to trick others. While a bit contrived (I mean, who bases all of their decisions over a recording a stranger took rather than investigate things themselves?), the solutions here are quite entertaining, requiring advanced planning without any hand-holding. You can’t get yourself stuck, but you also can’t solve most things by click spamming the screen.

Two significant missteps include the game’s arcade-like sequences. At several times you will need to fight other characters (often guards), and you do so in awkward turn-based sequences that require reflexive mouse clicking and a Simon-style quick-time-event. There’s no way to use puzzle-solving to avoid the fights and there’s no way to makes the fights harder or easier. Ultimately, they feel like filler that adds nothing to the story. The other arcade sequence involves using a boat on an overhead map to patrol a bayou looking for clues; while it initially captures the imagination, controlling the boat is awkward, slow, and repetitive, as if you’re playing Cobra Triangle on the NES without the ability to make a mistake.

The pixel-art graphics are incredible, the color palette of oranges and grays evoking the bleakness intended and the city design capturing the corporate and mafia influence that is everywhere. The designer noted Midgar from Final Fantasy VII being an inspiration for the atmosphere and it certainly does it justice. The synthesized music (by Lousiana artists Thou and Gewgawly I) complements the graphics by eliciting feelings of dread and lost hope.

I was ready to score the game higher until the endgame. Kay eventually figures out who many of the key players are that stifled her mom’s investigating and are threatening the well-being of the town’s citizens. Kay enters the lion’s den, but what should have been a gripping, tense sequence of events feels like a whirlwind. Loose plot threads start explaining themselves quickly and frequently, with little time to breathe outside of the lame and repetitive combat sequences that do their best to kill the mood. While Norco blurs the line between a grounded real-world experience and more fantastical elements, the sharp spike in near supernatural occurrences at the end threw me, and a lack of denouement after the climax left me feeling cold and bewildered.

Norco is apparently intended to be part of a trilogy. The game has been very well-received by critics and players alike, so hopefully future offerings will be buoyed by a larger budget as well as more restraint on the arcade elements. I certainly enjoyed living in this world and with these characters for several hours and will definitely sign up to do so again.