Woke up today feeling like a hater, so here are my thoughts on OFF.
I dunno man, I might be missing something but this just seems like a regular RPG Maker game with stylized graphics and cool music. You know, those default RPG Maker 2003 games with the default blue-haired protagonist where all you really do is walk around and fight random encounters.

The combat suuucks. You can definitely create an interesting battle system in RPG Maker 2003 that isn't just "spam your strongest move for 10 minutes". It's not a fault of the engine as so many people seem to claim. Look at Super Mario RPG - The Seven Sages, which was being developed around roughly the same time.

Some of the puzzles are fine (like that one part where you have to look for quiz answers on a calendar), but too many of them boil down to remembering and inputting numbers. Then you have places like that looping warehouse and the library, which seem to be designed only to waste your time.

I've heard people say that the story makes it all worth it, but ... ??? what story? There's some slight hints of symbolism here and there, but the whole thing seems like exquisite nonsense. If there truly is a meaning behind everything, it's too cryptic for me to care about, but also too structured for me to turn my brain off and go on a crazy ride.
More power to you if it resonated with you or something, but when I read things like "the ending made me cry" I simply have zero idea what people are talking about.

I expected the ending to explain everything, but nope, it just abruptly ends with a "lol you were evil all along >:), anyways here's some copyrighted music".
It should have been either clearer or even MORE avantgarde. It's stuck in a weird middle ground where my only reaction was "Oh, okay. I guess it's over". This whole game feels that way. If you want to make avantgarde nonsense, go full in!

I had a bit of a delayed reaction to everything in off.

The artstyle would appear amateur and scratchy, and then I'd understand it better within the context of other art in the game.

The music in-game would feel too harsh or strange, and then listening to the tracks in isolation, I'd get flooded with the feeling of the moment I first heard it.

The plot of the game would confuse me, and then after I was done I kept wondering what it all really meant.

Off is not really a good game. The fighting system is so trivial that the game provides the option at the start of every fight to just let it play out automatically. Random encounters would make exploring the world frustrating. The puzzles are often unclear and confusing.

But, maybe counterintuitively, it's better this way.

Not so much a role playing game as a role playing experience. For a tone/story/thematic reason you have all the mechanics of an rpg (ATB, magic, hp, mp, leveling up, items, gear, status effects) but it is all so shallow and easy that the game never gets beyond simply spamming your most powerful magic or just turning auto on.

The art and sound is surreal, the writing punchy and tight, and the world suitably strange. I see people compare this to Earthbound, but really there is very little here that screams that. The rpg mechanics are ATB based and the writing clearly draws inspiration from Killer7. The problems with the game extend two fold from this comparison. The actual plot reaches a point of being too abstract whereas Killer7 finds a better balance between the surreal and telling a compelling narrative. The final area, in contrast, seems a little to plain in comparison. It never goes so far as to utterly supplant the early areas of the game, but it does add in a far blander plot element that seems to be an attempt to ground the game world in a completely separate story.

These minor flaws aside Off is beautifully bleak game which feels like a break of fresh air in comparison to more sickly sweet or overly emotionally indie games. It also has the best non-sequiturs in gaming this side of Suda51.

I replayed this game recently, and I have to say, it is one of the coolest psychological horror games I have ever experienced, right up there with games like Omori. I love cryptic storylines in video games, and this game does it incredibly well. It's like if you gave a dark game like Yume Nikki a proper storyline and more likeable characters. There's characters like Zacharie, who's basically the predecessor to Sans from Undertale, and the Judge, who's literally the Cheshire Cat if he read a thesaurus. If I were to describe it to someone who has never even heard of it before, I'd say "It's the True Lab from Undertale stretched out over an entire game."

This game (here comes an actual cheesy as hell sentence to make you interested) feels like Undertale before the actual Undertale came out.

Now that I probably caught your attention, for better or for worse, I'll explain myself.
First of all, this game is actually FREE, so why aren't you playing it yet? :(
That aside, this game feels revolutionary in its own right, I won't spoil any details but hoo boy was this an experience. The game itself controls like a classic RPG (it's a literal RPG Maker game, nothing else should be expected). However, it's the actual world, vibe, and the overall story what makes me rate this game that high, since the gameplay just works as a medium to bring this story to life.

The music, the characters, everything feels so surreal yet so unique that it brings a feeling you barely get when playing games anymore.
Story/ambience is its main selling point, but as I can't say anything about that, just trust me, it's that good.

If you're gonna play this game, it's short, you could beat it in a few hours, but you should at the very least try to unlock the secret ending scene (doesn't bring much to the table, honestly, but it's the way you can experience all the game has to offer).

Try not to look too much online, and just play this game (in any case just search for vague hints for the secret ending scene), it's literally free, and I assure you it's a great experience.

I think very often about this game because I think it changed my psyche as a young child. The distinctiveness this game holds is truly amazing - it's really the sort of game that haunts you days, weeks after you've played it. Unlike many games I've played, I found the challenge here to be sufficient, satisfying and worth pushing through. The music is really just something else, with the themes surrounding The Queen being particular standouts.

This game knows what it's about, stylistically and in general, and it is not afraid to swing its metaphorical bat directly into your head.

What a game. What a game.

Really fucking excellent story with mid as hell gameplay. So to start off, Off is an excellent commentary on player choice, chosen one archetypes, NPCs in video games, as well as just what it means to beat a game. Though on the same time the game itself is... iffey with how it's designed. Like, the combat is kinda sluggish, the puzzles can be a bit of a chore, but despite all that though i can't reccommend the game enough because of just how amazing it's story is. It even influenced Undertale if that helps you consider your decision.

Playing this game feels like trying to play a board game your cousin has left on your grandmas house and not remembering how to play with the only guidance of some rules book in a language you cant even make out (maybe it's just french?). OFF has great puzzles, VERY good music and a masterpiece with regard to the worldbuilding aspect of the game. The only thing that leaves a bad taste might be the actual fightplay imo, but it still is and will always be a chef-d'oeuvre in the history of videogames.

This is the kind of game that just embodies an original artistic perfection throughout and none of its flaws can keep it from being a masterpiece. The biggest drawback is the slow random encounter fights which I mostly left on auto-battle. The story is not something that results in an epic climax but rather comes to a satisfying close. There, that's about the limit of what I can criticize. It's a surreal adventure unlike anything else out there and has spawned numerous fan games and influenced plenty more, and its continued obscurity is a disservice to games as a medium.