Adventure Gamers - Forums

Lots of places have been comparing it to Kentucky Route Zero and Disco Elysium, but it’s definitely its own thing. Plus there’s the similarity in setting to Gabriel Knight.

In any case this game was probably my most anticipated game of the year and did not disappoint. The only negatives were the rushed ending and qte / combat elements that didn’t really add much. The setting, art style, music and the writing are all top notch so it’s definitely another strong contender for some Aggies this year.

Playing through another game right now but I’m glad to hear this one turned out well. Been looking forward to it for a long time now.

Yeah, I finished the game and I would say that statement (and some other reviews like it) are overstating the case. NORCO is a great game for sure, and a very well written one. One of my favorite games this year, even. But calling it “a landmark moment” is a stretch.

Some of the reviews I’ve read seem to betray a lack of familiarity with the genre’s best. It feels like they just haven’t played games that are impressive in similar ways. Plus NORCO is has some noteworthy flaws. The hand holding is far too excessive in certain moments, to the point where it undercuts the design of puzzles the devs took time to create.

I am happy for the good press NORCO is getting, though. I’d love to see more from Geography of Robots in the future.

PlanetX - 13 April 2022 04:05 PM

Yeah, I finished the game and I would say that statement (and some other reviews like it) are overstating the case. NORCO is a great game for sure, and a very well written one. One of my favorite games this year, even. But calling it “a landmark moment” is a stretch.

Some of the reviews I’ve read seem to betray a lack of familiarity with the genre’s best. It feels like they just haven’t played games that are impressive in similar ways. Plus NORCO is has some noteworthy flaws. The hand holding is far too excessive in certain moments, to the point where it undercuts the design of puzzles the devs took time to create.

I am happy for the good press NORCO is getting, though. I’d love to see more from Geography of Robots in the future.

I tried the demo off of your recommendation and we usually see eye-to-eye but after about 20 minutes I just turned it off. I don’t get the hype. I didn’t like anything about it besides the background art, and I love pixel art, but the faces with the happy or sad look are terrible. Then a qte with a stuffed bear made me groan out loud. I read my brother’s computer in the game and rolled my eyes a full 360. Speaking of the writing i found it very amateurish with overly flowery language to try to convey intelligence but it just made me feel like I was reading bad 8th grade poetry. The writing in general reminded me of a VERY poor man’s version of disco Elysium. I truly hated everything in this game including the interface. I’d give it like a 2 out of 10, of what i played.

Of all the descriptions of this game I’ve read not one of them mentions that it’s more of an interactive novel with static screens with the only animation in the dialogue being a close-up of the relevant speaker. As far as I’ve got, it’s text heavy & most definitely not a typical point & click adventure & therefore should not be marketed as such!

Once I’d got over that & got along with the text-heavy presentation of the story with the static screens to accompany I came to like what I was experiencing in the demo & am now tempted to buy the full game.

As far as I’m concerned PC Gamer has over & over proved that they have no idea about AGs in general, the review misses out on essential details & the enthusiasm of one reviewer out of context with the entire genre should not be taken seriously!   

I guess it is all perspective, even though i strongly disliked what i played, i found this game to be more of a point and click than a newer telltale game. Telltales new star trek game looks great narrative wise, but a dumpster fire gameplay wise to me.

Basically every review and all impressions I’ve read mention that the emphasis is much heavier on narrative over gameplay. So even though I think there’s hyperbolic praise from some outlets, I haven’t seen them misrepresenting the kind of game it is.

NORCO also uses the label “narrative adventure” accurately on the Steam page. Which is slightly watered down because it’s come to be used liberally, but originally it was a subgenre label meant to describe a new crop of adventure games with more emphasis on story and less on tough puzzle solving. Which has been a prominent style for over a decade now, even longer if you take the full context of games outside the west. So even saying it’s not a “typical” adventure game at this point is a dated notion to me.

Plus, even by the standards of narrative adventures NORCO is fairly traditional. In terms of presentation and gameplay it’s basically a simpler version of a MacVenture title like Deja Vu.

Jdawg445 - 13 April 2022 05:26 PM

I tried the demo off of your recommendation and we usually see eye-to-eye but after about 20 minutes I just turned it off. I don’t get the hype. I didn’t like anything about it besides the background art, and I love pixel art, but the faces with the happy or sad look are terrible. Then a qte with a stuffed bear made me groan out loud. I read my brother’s computer in the game and rolled my eyes a full 360. Speaking of the writing i found it very amateurish with overly flowery language to try to convey intelligence but it just made me feel like I was reading bad 8th grade poetry. The writing in general reminded me of a VERY poor man’s version of disco Elysium. I truly hated everything in this game including the interface. I’d give it like a 2 out of 10, of what i played.

Reading your post, some of it strikes me as a rush to judgement. Specifically the comment about the brother’s computer because I’m not sure if you’re taking that to mean the game has a heavy handed/one sided POV, as with LiS 2. That’s not the case. Was that your gripe or was it something else entirely?

Regardless, given the fact that you hated the game’s writing so much, I doubt it would make a difference at the end of the day. I completely disagree with your take on the game’s prose. I found it to have wonderfully placed emphasis much of the time, giving your imagination just enough to chew on. Disco Elysium, while not terrible, overshoots the mark often for me, actually.

If you ever do play it I’d be curious to see your reaction to rancid hotdog guy’s story because that part had me laughing hysterically. Seems like it’s not the game for you, though.

PlanetX - 14 April 2022 01:47 AM

Jdawg445 - 13 April 2022 05:26 PM

I tried the demo off of your recommendation and we usually see eye-to-eye but after about 20 minutes I just turned it off. I don’t get the hype. I didn’t like anything about it besides the background art, and I love pixel art, but the faces with the happy or sad look are terrible. Then a qte with a stuffed bear made me groan out loud. I read my brother’s computer in the game and rolled my eyes a full 360. Speaking of the writing i found it very amateurish with overly flowery language to try to convey intelligence but it just made me feel like I was reading bad 8th grade poetry. The writing in general reminded me of a VERY poor man’s version of disco Elysium. I truly hated everything in this game including the interface. I’d give it like a 2 out of 10, of what i played.

Reading your post, some of it strikes me as a rush to judgement. Specifically the comment about the brother’s computer because I’m not sure if you’re taking that to mean the game has a heavy handed/one sided POV, as with LiS 2. That’s not the case. Was that your gripe or was it something else entirely?

Regardless, given the fact that you hated the game’s writing so much, I doubt it would make a difference at the end of the day. I completely disagree with your take on the game’s prose. I found it to have wonderfully placed emphasis much of the time, giving your imagination just enough to chew on. Disco Elysium, while not terrible, overshoots the mark often for me, actually.

If you ever do play it I’d be curious to see your reaction to rancid hotdog guy’s story because that part had me laughing hysterically. Seems like it’s not the game for you, though.

 

You actually read that right, I just have the sneaky feeling that the brother either joins this Cult in the mall or is kidnapped by the cult in the mall. they took every stereotype that’s on message boards and forums and turned it up to 11, in the writing. As far as writing goes I guess you’re right, I enjoyed disco Elysium’s writing but hated it here. Every single item had this ridiculous over-the-top description. Plus I feel like the Qte were there, just to say we have some type of game play here… and when it was implemented for the first time, it was for a ridiculous reason to me.

Jdawg445 - 14 April 2022 07:04 AM

You actually read that right, I just have the sneaky feeling that the brother either joins this Cult in the mall or is kidnapped by the cult in the mall. they took every stereotype that’s on message boards and forums and turned it up to 11, in the writing. As far as writing goes I guess you’re right, I enjoyed disco Elysium’s writing but hated it here. Every single item had this ridiculous over-the-top description. Plus I feel like the Qte were there, just to say we have some type of game play here… and when it was implemented for the first time, it was for a ridiculous reason to me.

Well, aside from going into spoilers about those two predictions, the conversation on your brothers laptop is specifically a take on imageboard/chan boards, you can see that the posters are labeled anonymous with associated id numbers. If you’re not familiar with the typical discourse on chan boards you’re among the lucky, but NORCO’s invocation of them is not turned up to 11. It’s actually a tamer version of it.

In any case, it’s not there to be a trendy dig at the conversation’s participants. NORCO has a lot of rough, flawed, and abrasive characters, but most are given more than one side to them, and don’t exist merely as punching bags (although of them are just jokey side characters). Nor did I ever get the impression that the game was trying to serve me a moralistic lecture. Which is a feeling since confirmed from reading interviews with the dev.

Yuts, Polygon Interview -

] I can only add my own personal feeling about it, which is that I tried to write it from a place of honesty. I didn’t want to write something prescriptive. I wanted to write something that spoke to the reality of Louisiana as I had experienced it. As I do experience it, which, in many ways, there’s not much room for optimism. But there are glimmers of hope, glimmers of humanity.

A lot of it is written straight from experience and having conversations with people. My dad and his fishing buddies are encoded in the game. And so there’s a lot of very intimate relationships that are reflected, at least to some degree, or have inspired characters in the game. And there are so many fascinating people. There’s also moving through different worlds in Louisiana. The punk stuff was always such a stark contrast to the more familial relationships that I had in the river parishes outside of New Orleans, or friendships I had developed with people who didn’t have any of the subcultural baggage. I wanted to explore that range of personalities.

This strikes me as basically the exact opposite of something like LiS2, who’s developers have no authentic connection to American culture or it’s politics, and offered their cheap and predictable commentary on those subjects because it was the fashionable thing to do.

Yuts, on the other hand is trying to give a honest, if stylistically embellished, portrayal of a place he is deeply connected to. And there’s aspects of fear and criticism, but also belonging and care. Whether or not that comes across to you in 20 minutes, or even the full game is another story. Also whether you felt it was competently executed, which I’d say not since you hated the writing, is a separate issue. But I think the author’s POV is different than what you assumed.

As for the QTEs, yeah, they’re shitty. They just didn’t bother me enough to spoil the experience.