Norco

Norco is a cross between a visual novel and a point-and-click adventure game that takes seven hours to play. The game is set in a near-future version of New Orleans and its surrounding bayou. Despite its lowkey cyberpunk elements, the future envisioned by the game isn’t all that different from the present. Norco is gorgeously well-written and intriguingly grounded in the specificity of its setting, and the various small stories it encompasses are filled with fascinating characters and meaningful human drama.

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Although Norco isn’t as mechanically robust as Disco Elysium, it’s easily in the same category of excellent writing and unique visual stylization. I also think Norco is much more accessible to casual gamers. I somehow got the impression that this game would be all doom and gloom about poverty and injustice, but it’s actually a genuinely funny dark comedy about a cast of characters that I grew to love despite (and often because of) their flaws and bad behavior.