Walkthrough for NORCO

NORCO CRITICAL PATH WALKTHROUGH

ACT ONE

1.1 - “KAY 1”]

SUMMARY

This walkthrough describes the steps for the player to proceed through the introduction and early sections of the game NORCO. The player will meet a character named Million, acquire a fuse from a gas station, and give it to Million. They will then take a ride on a motorbike to a bookstore and speak with a character named Erica. The walkthrough also mentions an optional mini-game with a cat. The player will then transition to a new section of the game called "Catherine 1"

• Proceed through the introduction.
• Explore your house. Please take a look at the monkey on the table, and pick it up to add it to your party. You will play a tutorial before you can continue.
• Access your mind map by clicking on your icon on the left side of the screen. Read about your past, and think about your mom and brother.
• Talk to Million. She is in the backyard, on the tailgate of the truck. Ask her about the phone calls and where to find the fuse.
• Go to Dimes Discount. Try to enter, but Troy will block your path. You have two options:
  • Option A: Choose to fight Troy. If you win, you can enter the store, grab a fuse (it's on the left shelf), and purchase it by dragging it to the price scanner in your inventory. If you lose, go back to your mom's house and get the pills from the kitchen counter. Bring the pills back to Troy to receive the fuse.
  • Option B: Choose not to fight Troy, and follow the same steps as option A to get the pills and give them to Troy to receive the fuse.
• Return to Million, and give her the fuse. Take a ride on the motorbike.
• Go to Sarpy Books. Speak to Erica inside. You can choose to play a mini-game with the cat Crouton (this is optional and does not affect the core story -  succeeding the mini game
  unlocks the achievement “Félicette”)
• Leave Sarpy Books. Million will talk to you before transitioning to “Catherine 1”.

1.2 - “CATHERINE 1”

SUMMARY

In this walkthrough section, the player will experience memories, receive an item from a clinic and a task on their phone. They will visit the French Quarter, interact with NPCs, make choices and complete objectives, including an optional mini-game. They will recruit a new party member, Dallas, and move forward in the story by visiting Fat City and entering a warehouse where they will watch a cutscene.

• Continue through the game's memories, using the option to save or delete them as needed to progress.
• Visit the clinic lobby and speak to the attendant to receive a headdrive.
• Exit the clinic.
• Check your phone and open the QuackJob.
• Go to the French Quarter and attempt to enter the Curious Duck.
• Speak to the hotdog vendor and agree to help him find a customer.
• Head to the overpass and watch the puppet show. You will have two options here:
  • Option A: Talk to the gator on the left and agree to bring him the fisherman's head. Go to the fisherman's hotspot on the right, kill him and take his skull. Return the skull to the gator.
  • Option B: Talk to the fisherman on the right, and agree to kill the gator. Go to the gator and kill it. Return the skull to the fisherman. There are optional hotspots in the lake, the one nearest the gator provides the Gator phone case.
• Speak to the man sitting on the truck and convince him to go eat a hotdog.
• Return to the French Quarter and speak to the hotdog vendor. Learn the secret knock for the Curious Duck.
• Use the secret knock to enter the Curious Duck shop.
• Speak to Rosie.
• Exit the shop, speak to Dallas and recruit him as a party member.
• Open the rideshare app, and go to Fat City.
• Enter the warehouse and watch the cutscene.

ACT TWO

2.1 - “KAY 2”

ROOMS

• Use overworld to go to Floodgate Tavern, go inside.
• Speak to Leblanc, get Fatboy a drink.
• Speak to Leblanc, get Fatboy another drink.
• Speak to Leblanc, get Fatboy food.
• Complete objectives in either order:
  • Click the Kay icon to go to the mindmap, click the Duck mindmap node, then proceed through the dialogue to remember where he lives.
    • Go to the new location (Dimes), go inside.
    • Turn on the lamp, speak to Duck until the cancer cutscene plays.
    • Tell him you need help getting into the refinery, he directs you to his office/library.
    • Enter the office, interact with the computer and complete the puzzle (move 3 drones into the rightmost section and as many as you can into its only neighbor from section A and A's rightward neighbors)
  • View the TV in the bar to learn about Lucky (optionally if you attempt to invade Shield with just Million and come back, Leblanc will point TV out to you).
    • Go to Batture to speak to Lucky, he tells you about his dog.
    • Go inside the Gas Station and interact with dog food to buy.
    • Go to Sarpy Books and interact with dog to give food, dog Pots joins party.
    • Return to Lucky to have him join party.
• With Lucky in party, head back to your mom's house to fix the truck.
• Speak with Lucky, then Million
• Use overworld to navigate to Shield Entrance
• Defeat guards, prioritize using lucky as much as possible for a quick win

2.2 - “CATHERINE 2”

• Click through the Superduck cutscene.
• Use the phone to travel to Kenner.
• Speak to the Garrets at the mall entrance until the "Apocryphon of Kenner John" app is installed on Catherine's phone.
• Go to Parking Lot, then Subdivision (past Keith's car), and use the AR app to scan the first node (1st reading from the Apocryphon of Kenner John; on the left side of the yard).
• Use the phone to travel to St. Somewhere's.
• Speak to the bouncer about the "ditch man".
• Return to the Mall, head to Canal, and use the AR app to scan the second node (2nd reading from the Apocryphon of Kenner John). Pawpaw will appear in the scene during the reading. Speak to Pawpaw.
• Go Downtown, head to City Hall, and speak with the guard.
• Go to the Elevators, Stairwell, and down to the basement. In the basement, go down the left hallway and speak to Garret about a riddle. Visit floors & shake hands according to the riddle (Riddle Solution: Floor 2 -> Floor 5 -> Floor 6) - 256. Make sure you "Reach Out Hand" after feeling around.
• Enter the Doorway on the 7th floor to planning office, get keycard from planner.
• Go to rooftop.
• Look up into the sky (hotspot), scan AR node (3rd reading from the Apocryphon of Kenner John), leave city hall
• Use phone to travel to Kenner.
• Go to front entrance again to find the garrets gone
• Go see Pawpaw at canal who will get you on his boat

2.3 - “KAY 3”

ROOMS

• Read the book in the Guard House to learn about control codes
• Click on the Computer and select DISENGAGE LOCK to unlock the gates, granting access to locked areas of the refinery.
• Enter the refinery.
• (OPTIONAL) You can skip the mover/drone priest route by defeating the elite guards at the HQ gate. This relies a bit on luck (enemies not targeting Lucky) but the best bet is spamming the 2 grenades then utilizing Lucky as much as possible.
• Go to the Mover Platform
• Click on the crane and notice that the identification number of the crane is 016.
• Look up, speak to the Mover
• Proceed to the Catwalk, enter code 2914016 on the control panel
• When asked about the movement path code, enter 0 or anything else, this entry does not matter.
• Fight the drone priest. The drones will block your attacks. To win, you must first take out the drones to attack the drone priest. If you lose, the drone priest will abduct Lucky and remove him from your party. Grenades for a quick win.
• Proceed to Shield HQ (Proceed directly here if won elite guard fight)
• Observe the eye scanner in the Elevator room.
• Return to Lobby, watch the dialogue
• Return to Elevator room, look at passed out man, then interact with him to add him to the party.
• Interact with the eye scanner, this will remove the drunk man from the party.
• Proceed up elevator.
• Proceed to Office
• Speak to Laura.
• Grab box from shelf, leave the room.
• Be teleported back to shield entrance on using the elevator
• (Optional) visit the dimes discount and try to use card
• Return home, interact with Mary statue in the yard if haven't already revealed the slot
• Use card from Shield Office in the slot
• Proceed to Attic, and move boxes to reveal the trap door
• Proceed to Secret Room, interact with computer processor, watch the cutscene

2.4 - “CATHERINE 3”

ROOMS

• Million takes off their mask, and the scene cuts to Catherine, Pawpaw, and Dallas as they travel by boat to the rear entrance of the Promenade Mall.
• Pawpaw informs Catherine that she can use the words of the Garretts against them, and suggests that she install a voice memo app on her phone.
• Upon arriving at the loading bay, Catherine speaks with a character named Gooch and records him saying the passphrase for the door's audio lock.
• Catherine then uses the recorded passphrase to unlock the audio lock and gain entry to the mall.
• Once inside, Catherine encounters a Garrett guard blocking the entrance to a room beyond the atrium. The guard mentions that he has complete faith in his fellow Garretts.
• To undermine this trust, Catherine uses her voice memo app to record conversations with other Garretts and play them for the guard.
• Specifically, Catherine targets the following Garretts:
  • A "gamer" Garrett, who says that real Garretts know what matters most: video games
  • A Garrett near the atrium hallway, who complains about another Garrett's hair
  • A Garrett near the atrium hallway, who requests drugs from Pawpaw. You can get those by:
    • Going to Saint Somewhere's and buying uppers from Bell(with the garrett uniform on)
    • Going to Lafreniere Park and scrape a psychoactive residue from the back of a toilet
    • If you’re in good standing with Santa Claus, you can buy some downers
  • A "Sword" Garrett near the loading bay, who mentions smoking bongs and drinking soda
• After the guard leaves, Catherine can use the keypad. The code to the keypad is constructed using three false readings of Kenner John. The solution is XYZ.
• Catherine enters the cathedral, watches an orb cutscene and then leaves to watch John's sermon, as it devolves into a shouting match.
• Pawpaw tells Catherine to go to his closet as he shouts at John, and his shouts echo through the hall. He is giving her a code (2000131).
• Catherine enters Pawpaw's closet, using the AR app or the orb party member's flash ability to read the note on the desk.
• Catherine then steps up to the Virgin and Child painting, holding the AR app on it for 5 seconds.
• At the end of the dialogue, Pawpaw reveals the word that unlocks the cask: Ephphatha.
• Catherine records the word and plays it for the acoustic lock, causing a very frightened and desperate Garrett to pop out and flee the room.
• Catherine follows the fleeing Garrett's bloody footsteps and leave the room, returning to a character named Superduck, giving him the orb and he eats it.

ACT THREE

3.1 - “KAY 4”

• Wake up in Padu PI and speaks to a character named Leblanc.
• Go home and enters a secret office.
• In the office, speak to a device called the headdrive on the desk and disables a signal jammer.
• Speak to the head drive again and open the phone to open the GNONVC app
• Speak to Catherine about Superduck.
• LeBlanc suggests that you visit Superduck's house.
• Go to a place called Dimes and fight Garretts dressed like Templars.
• Enter Superduck's house, reads a note on the desk, and go into the office.
• Connect to headdrive and speaks to Superduck's headdrive via a phone app.
• LeBlanc suggests you visit lake, which is then added to the overworld.
• Go to the lake and talk to the fisherman about the boat, now there's two paths to follow: Unit A or Unit B.
• Unit A path: Go to Unit A and bang on the door until LeBlanc kicks the door in, talks to the fisherman, records him talking about how the person in Unit A is cheating, and then plays the recording for the lady, causing her to run out, and taking the key.
• Unit B path: Bang on the door until people inside answer and they give a meter to test the Superduck node, which you can choose to return or not after visiting the node. Look at the bulletin board with the AR app, and observes the light pattern. To reveal the ghost bayous, she needs to match the light patterns.
  • Patterns are:
    • Labranche - two quick blinks followed by a pause
    • Trepagnier's pond - slow pulse
    • Cypress wheel - rapid strobe
    • Interstate canal - solid
  • Find John's head which is within the boundary of the coordinates displayed in the letter from Dimes. Take the glass eyes from John's head and takes them to the “Distress signal” coordinate location.
  • Drag the eyes onto the Superduck node and it will release the orb.
  • Go to the duckblinds, flash the orb twice for the Garretts to let you through, and has an optional task of searching for sunken Mardi Gras beads in the lake and bringing them to a character called Pigman.
  • If Monkey joined your party in Act 1, you should find him / dive for him on the route to John’s Pond
  • Navigates rightward until you reach John’s Pond, go to the rocket, watches the Keith’s Corner live stream.
  • Note that if you knocks on the shipping container, a character named Bruce will open it.
  • To unlock the “Good” Ending, either: Play Bruce the memo recorded from his dad (“Watcher”) in Act 2 or use Wet Monkey on Bruce to unlock the “Good” Ending.
  • Go to the shipping container and drag John’s head onto the Garrett who is dressed like Pawpaw.
  • Play the recording for the American flag-masked man at the fishing camp on the other side of the rocket.
  • They try to shoot Pawpaw Garrett but end up shooting a character called Gooch. Note: if you show the patriot John’s head before they shoot Gooch, they’ll end up killing Gooch.
  • Go and take the security card from Gooch and use it to enter the rocket.
  • Follows the ladder up to the top of the rocket
  • Proceed through 3 fights, which you can quickly win by spamming the orb.
  • Arrive at the Shepherd’s Watch, and enters the right and left doors beneath the mezzanine in either order.
  • The central door will open after you interact with these rooms.
  • Pawpaw waits for you in the throne room, and there are a few possible endings:
    • If you choose to sit in the chair, and you have persuaded Bruce to leave, Pawpaw will leave the room, allowing you to grab Blake and her mother and take them to the balcony. Throw your mother off the balcony and dive off.
    • You can choose to leave the throne room and dive off by yourself.
    • You can sit in the chair with your mother and Blake. Pawpaw radios Bruce, and the rocket takes off.

It's worth noting that each of these endings will have very different consequences and result in different scenarios, it is important to have a clear understanding of what objective you have before making a decision. It also depends on the choices you made in the previous Act and do you have certain characters in your party.