Norco

Worth a playthrough, with some substantial flaws. Very well done vibes, sense of place, and general atmosphere, in a haunting setting that I haven't seen featured much in video games. The writing is beautiful in parts, sometimes very funny, and occasionally drops into the purple and pretentious. A lot of other reviews compare it to Kentucky Route Zero and Disco Elysium -- it's a similar weird and surreal vibe, but I don't think NORCO is as consistently well-written as either. The story is pretty good, though I found the ending abrupt, and the decision point to get the best ending is surprisingly far back considering how simple and linear the rest of the puzzles have been. A lot of interesting plot threads are dropped on the floor leaving mostly an emotional resolution, which can work or can feel like they weren't sure how to tie up the actual plot and therefore decided not to. The artwork is amazing, though sometimes I wished they'd chosen a style other than pixel art just because some of the scenes could've looked even more bonkers with greater levels of detail. The music is unobtrusive but well suited to the vibe. The gameplay is not great, and the game could probably have dropped a lot of the pretenses at mechanics and gone full visual novel. There are various minigames, especially for combat, which are easy but kind of tedious and feel a little tonally jarring. The game is way too eager to hold your hand about the puzzles and the next steps in the plot, which takes a lot of the fun out of the puzzle segments. With such a strong setting, letting the player wander around looking for next steps a bit more might not have been a bad thing. There's an "Expert Mode" which turns off some of the most obvious hints, but as far as I could tell it doesn't change the script, so a lot of your companions' dialogue is still wasted on telling you explicitly what to do next. This dilutes the writing, which is especially annoying when most of the characters are simply (but otherwise well) drawn. Similarly, the mind map is a cool idea, but we almost never see the main character make new connections in it -- it's more just notes for the player on what you've just heard. The game isn't really long or complex enough to need this, so it feels like wasted potential, especially when you get the green dot saying "new" things are in the mind map, only to read a recapitulation of the dialogue you just read. All in all, since it's a fairly short game it's worth the play through for the vibes, the good parts of the writing, and the feeling of visiting a place you won't forget. I just wish it had been a bit better as a game.

This is like, one of the most disturbing, funniest, and heartfelt games I've ever played. It's like if they mixed Disco Elysium x Night in the Woods x Cyberpunk x LISA: The Painful. Definitely get it. Damn.

Melancholic. The future, nothing but a stretch of oil refineries and never getting to say goodbye to your loved ones. The more things change, the more they stay the same. As someone that hasn't played point-and-click adventure games very often, this game stuck with me in ways I couldn't have expected. All it took was good word-of-mouth to finally give it a shot. Shorter than I expected [though refreshing in a world where every other game feels like 15+ hours long even if they aren't], but the story engrossed me in a way that made every minute count. It's a real gem, this one. Well worth my time, and hopefully yours.