I'm biased on this one- I translated it to English. But, yes, OFF is good: A triumph of boundary-breaking aesthetic and off-beat narrative depth. A trailblazer in a few respects too, taking up condemnations of game violence as early as 2008.

Its puzzles are lovely notebook-and-pen riddles, with some hard nuts to crack; where it falters is its combat, which is at worst tedious and at best negligible once you've reached a high enough level.

Even so, this is one of the RPG Maker game greats of its day, and is still worth revisiting now.

OFF is an incredible game that manages to hold a significant landstone in pop culture even over a decade after releasing. Even to this day there's not many things quite like it, just things that have been inspired by it.

OFF contains an absolutely ephemeral world, some of the most thick, intense atmosphere I've ever seen in an RPG Maker game, an absolutely incredible score that's unlike anything else I've ever heard, wonderful writing that helps pull you deeper into these characters and this strange, unknowable world, and with deep themes and implications running all throughout its runtime. It's a story with a lot of open room for interpretation and one you'll likely be chewing on for a time after.

The only thing really holding OFF back is its gameplay, its incredibly simple and basic, ultimately brainless. I never used the auto feature, but it honestly probably would've been for the best. The combat is piss easy, enemies never present a real challenge, the game never requires more than basic attack mashing for 90% of its runtime, the combat is very barebones. Luckily, the exploration and puzzles make up for it at least. The puzzles are rather fun brainteasers that definitely can make you do some thinking and have some rather inventive solutions (especially the one in the 3rd Zone, you know the fucking one).

All in all, while flawed, there's a reason OFF is the eternal classic it is. Still a joy to experience even to this day.

Shoutouts to Pablo btw the realest nigga there ever was.

Left my ass cooked and crooked. Easy to let complaints of the rigidity of RPGmaker ATB combat and exploration fall to the wayside when the game's narrative doesn't miss a beat. OFF has a lot of unique ideas, and it tells them confidently with fantastic dialogue, surreal environments and an all around sense of style. For a game that paddles in the abstract so obscenely, the conclusion still manages to expertly close the book and leave the player with exactly what they need. Thanks for the stone in the gut.

Huge points for originality here. Pretty much anything that can still get me going "oh, games can have a vibe like this?" especially after having seen so many top down RPGs of both the retro and indie variety earns some major respect from me. I don't think the battle system ended up super interesting at the end of the day, but the game's world and narrative make up for that to me. No spoilers but while it goes for a metanarrative route that is pretty old hat at this point by the end I do think the execution here is actually much better than other games with much bigger budgets that have attempted the same thing. But yeah idk mostly just vibing with this and appreciating how cool its world is. The simple graphics hide how conceptually interesting/evocative some of it's worldbuilding ideas are, like damn the sea of plastic, the smoke mines... letting your mind fill in the blanks using the dialogue as a starting point really conjures some wild imagery. So yeah! I'd definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a creative and well paced RPG with an interesting story.

fuck ok so why is this game so good tho

i still dont have solid ideas as to what this game is and means to me on this day and age

i dont even know its trying to do on its own but its absolutely magical

for an rpgmaker the depth and weight of the story and art direction and all that stuff is unmatched and I cant recommend this enough to anyone who either enjoys or despises rpgs

off shows how the rpgmaker "genre" can be pushed to its boundaries with an inventive and groundbreaking view on the entire videogame landscape and this happened in fucking 2008 I could Not believe this was made in 2008 at first and for anyone wondering it was made by TWO PEOPLE and I can tell you with seriousness that they poured to the last ounce of love into this project and its apparent and very clear

on a technical side this is an rpgmaker game like you've seen everywhere around top down perspective simple mechanics puzzles everywhere an atb battle system some stock elements here and there but with so much charm that I think is still unmatched in the rpg department

you fight some bad guys you level up acquire party members upgrade stuff and learn special abilities and now we can get into off weak point

the battle system isn't the best around here since you can basically auto pilot every single fight even the boss fight and most of the time you won't know what the fuck you or the enemy are doing because the abilities have some super random ass names like color of god (invented) so you're like ok well that had a cool animation and thats fucking it plus it all happens so fast and so soon you won't even have the time to learn all these abilities and battle aspects and realistically you don't have to

also abilities have some elements but again they have no real purpose apart from being a callback to the elements in the world of off

world that is dystopia falling apart absolutely hyper capitalistic and dreadful to a notch and can still be charming in some cursed ways

you play as the batter no name no nothing he's just here all of the sudden and his mission and kind of a holy vow is to purify the entirety of this wicked world

you get guided by mister big words cat aka the judge who acts as a walking tutorial for the first part of the game and then for far off guidance throughout your annihilation quest

what happens is you begin to battle against specters who all of the sudden are infesting the place here and there and in order to purify each zone you'll have to kill the guardian of each land

during all this you also meet my sunshine zechariah who is first and foremost the merchant of this game (useless because you won't be using any item whatsoever in this game and you can just buy some equipment from time to time) and also a guy who sees through the game and makes some forth wall remarks addressing YOU as the player mainly because they let you choose the name at the beginning of the game so he's like hey stinkypoopoo I know you're there

storywise it all gets kinda linear there's people around overworked overfatigued and also scared by the ghosts so you gotta help them unless they turn crazy and start attacking you while their head explodes into a mush of blackness then you just traverse this lands around and around for useless loots and advance doing some bat shit puzzles that I honestly advice you to look l up sometimes on the Internet because theyre not for stupid people like me apparently

characters tho are a whole new story you don't get that much of an insight for most of them but it's just great how with so little they can give them distinct and precise personalities

apart from the batter who actually is the most (rightfully) cold blooded apathetic and all in all a man of few words with clean as sky delivering and honestly for a man who is swayed by a holy mission an unwavering will is required plus he's basically killing anything he finds suspicious or tainted so like

the judge is enigmatic and firstly authoritarian because he uses big words so he must be clever and tyrannical but as you progress you see more sides of him being an empathetic rightful and all in all good guy

the guardians all have distinct personalities and the only worthy thing to be said about the inhabitants of this hell of a world is that they have some funny sfx when they speak still a change in their attitude always shows signs of deterioration keep that in mind

and that leaves zacharie now he's a cool guy kind of a comic relief and kind of a dork but we only get so much as a glimpse of his personality and yet he's probably been the most liked character in the community (rightfully so)

you purify the zones and everything slowly dies but thay us your duty

SPOILER TERRITORY
when you get to the room which is a place that details some insightful flashbacks about the guardians and the nature of this place but it remains kind of vague and unfulfilling so you're face to face with the queen and after some enigmatic dialogues you also end up killing a kid named hugo and possibly the last and the rooms guardian

you come across a switch and the judge comes back to tell you how fucking angry he is that you were supposed to just purify the lands but just ended up pushing evert corner of the world into nothingness

you then get to choose which side take and if you just side with the batter you kill the judge and end the game with a message saying

the switch was turned OFF

plunging the entire univers into the void

if you decide to side with the judge tho you will get a new perspective on the batter who is not the holy messiah you thought he was from the beginning of the game but a murderous and animalistic being whose only real intent was that to slaughter anyone and anything in his path

killing him is easy task and the judge just looters around the now white and silent lands forever

wild

as you may know this is not a story with a clear direction you don't get decisive proofs to what's happening or what the backstory even mean and that's fine like most of this obscure indie whatever games you don't get a full conclusion to the events and thats perfectly fine for me

what really is a game winner for me tho is a the majestic and ominous atmosphere that accompanies you from the very first moments of the game till the grand finale

art wise this game is odd as shit

in the overwolrd every single character sprite and building and world around it is monochromatic detailed by thick lines and huge color contrasts to a point that the characters stick out as ultra white on these saturated colored backgrounds but where this actually gets real good is in mortis ghosts style that shines through during through battles and in the little character portraits when they talk

honestly I was not expecting this level of wonky (in a good way) artistry but for the most part the art is delightful every monster design is great to look at and super varied and the imaginative creativity of mortis ghost really is the winning point in these design just look at the bosses or any battle screen really absolutely phenomenal

the other aspect that really heightens the entire atmosphere is the sound design and ost department who is entirely curated by alias conrad coldwood (co creator of this game) and his talent is incredible his electronic and industrial flavored dark ambient sells the game for me it has a lot of range and immortalised every single scene efficiently and he can make some bopping battle themes if you ask me and its no surprise to me that silent hill was some of the main influence for this game since the whole trip hop feeling is here and thriving just listen to the main battle theme or MY favorite boss theme this theme is absolutely fucking phenomenal people I cant believe this is even real like goated videogame BGM all times masterpiece

anyhow this game is great I advice anyone who's reading this to play it it has some weird stuff and even some frustrating progression but surely it's worth it

I so need a remake god shit fuck