Norco Review - When home that isn't home anymore

Norco wasn’t a game that I wasn’t partially aware of. I think I saw the cover art and what beautiful artwork it is. However, the decision to play it was partly a coincidence. Over the last six months of 2022, I compiled several lists of mine over the past ten-plus years and said, “I’m going to play all these games in one way or another”.

As such, Norco was randomly selected, and before I knew it, I signed up for Xbox game pass and dived in!

Norco asked, what is it like leaving behind everyone, to leave the place you called home, but when you return, it’s no longer what you remember it being. As someone who’s peering into their 30s with dreed and recently lost the family house, I grew up in due to my parent’s divorce. Returning home isn’t an option outside the town to see friends and family if their still around. But that place isn’t there. In the same way, Night in the Woods, we, the player, are tackling this problem head-on. Things aren’t the same anymore. Time presses forwards, and while we can dwell on the past. Norco makes you face this reality while also processing and understanding what happened to your late mother, who you weren’t there for.

You play as Kay, a young woman who has been estranged from her family for the past several years and over that time, you’ve done a lot while being away, but due to what you did, getting back “home” wasn’t quick. Before coming home, you already knew your mother, Catherine, who was ill, had passed due to a phone call with your brother.

Norco is set in an alternative version of the town called Norco in Louisiana, a place where its creator heralds from.

Kay’s bother Blake is missing when she returns home at the game’s opening. The story is told entirely by point-and-click adventure tropes, meaning the more you interact with the game and seek out little tidbits, the more you’re rewarded. If you want to know more, ask the questions and talk to random NPCs minding their own business. I had a sequence play out where I interacted with a father who just wanted to tell his son he was sorry and that he loves him and wants him to come home, something he had never said before. However, you can only do so if you first acquire the ability to record conversations, immediately leave to go and see him and then not till several hours later can you pass on the message.

The depth of this game is seemingly limitless, and the more I poured over the game and my own recording of my own gameplay, I wondered how much more I might have missed, yet that’s something I admire about Norco, each person will have their own takeaways depending on their own lives. Suppose you’ve not experienced grief or what it means to struggle. In that case, you could have a wholly different and valid interpretation compared to someone that has.

I recommend playing it for yourself to not spoil this relatively short story. It took me seven and a half hours to fully finish, and you see my gameplay at this playlist. Norco uses those point-and-click tropes as previously mentioned but also incorporates some quick time events for combat, top-down, almost Adventure inspired short segments. These additions to the game are just that. Adding to the depth and assisting with the immersion and the world-building rather than detracting from the best parts of the game.

Something not unique but hugely part of Norco is its incredible pixel art style. I’ve added countless screenshots from their Tumbler to my personal wallpaper folder, but what’s even more unique is that depending on where you are within the game, there will be different events that sometimes do or don’t hold much value. Still, it all adds charm to a game. With a slightly larger team, I could see its creator diving even deeper into random events to really make the town of Norco come alive. But I can’t gush enough. This game is breathtaking.

I played the game in three separate sittings due to the “Act” nature of the game, and I was hugely rewarded for it. Even with upwards of 24-hour breaks between these 2-3 hour bursts of gameplay, I was sucked right in thanks to that breathtaking art but also incredible sound design, something that I hope isn’t overlooked. Yes, the music is fantastic. Still, the minor SFXs used throughout really imbued me. I felt like I knew what Key wanted to do, and while I can reflect now that I was on a vague rail and that this is how the game must go, it never felt forced. I wanted to see what was coming next, just like when your reading a book at 2am… just one more line of dialogue.

Norco isn’t a game that I can expect a lot of people to play more than once, but just like the previously mentioned Night in the Woods, it’s going to stick with me. This game made me reflect more on the loss of my Grandfather last year than any other media has. The Human factor, the loss, the fact that if you don’t appreciate the now, that small town you once grew up in won’t be the same and will forget you.

Thankfully the game is available on Xbox game pass. This is how I played it, so if your struggling for cash, this could be a perfect weekend game to dive into and really make you ponder.

I’m also not hugely into point-and-click games. I got a taste way back in the Wii days thanks to Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, and since I played The Walking Dead Telltale game, however, this game isn’t funny. It shocked me. But if you can get over the slight hump, you will need to do a decent amount of reading due to it not having voice acting; you’ll find a gem of 2022! I would love to see some voice acting in the future, but I also appreciate that the costs are far more than just paying a few actors.

I don’t feel partially keen on giving Norco a score. If I had a meter ranging from “Drop it after an hour” to “Drop everything to play it now in one sitting”, I would harken back to my point that if you’ve got a weekend spare for 7-9 hours, I would highly recommend giving this game a chance, it won’t be for everyone, but if you can get about 2-3 hours in, the story hooks might be too great to get away from, they where for me!

As always, you can catch my full thoughts on my podcast Too Long, Just Listen, which can be found on all major podcast platforms!

A small addition, I’m attempting to hold myself to 1-2 posts a month. Let’s see how things go; expect things to come out mainly towards the end of each month!