Review #3: Off

 (WARNING: This review contains heavy spoilers for Off)

OFF is possibly the best game I’ve ever played. It’s also a 2008 RPGMaker game created by Unproductive Fun Time. The game features an amazingly written story and fantastic characters all around, so let’s talk about it! 

The first thing to discuss is the plot. It surrounds The Batter, a being on a vague quest to purify the world. He must venture through 5 Zones, purifying them of the evil specters, with the help of a cat named The Judge and a shopkeeper named Zacharie. That, however, is barely scratching the surface of the plot, but I’ll cover that later.

The combat in the game is fairly standard. You can attack, guard, flee, use items, or use skills, known as “Competences” in this game. Nothing all too special. There is a weakness system in the game, but I didn’t really use it. You get three party members or Add-Ons throughout the game, Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon, and they appear as floating rings.

The game’s difficulty is fairly low. My experience is, the first Zone is the hardest in terms of combat. The first boss, Dedan, is especially difficult, at least compared to the others. The second Zone and boss, Japhet, is reasonably tough. The third Zone and its boss, Enoch, were pathetic, though that may be because I accidentally did a bunch of grinding and leveled up more than normal. The last areas, the Purified Zones and The Room, didn’t present a challenge either.

The puzzles in OFF are absolutely brutal. I personally hated them, but I can see why people might like them. They go from simple keypad-type puzzles to the abomination you see above. 

This stupid freaking stamped note puzzle is the bane of my existence. Basically, the room you use it in is very large, and stepping off the path brings you to a fight with a specter and you have to restart the area. I fought SO MANY SPECTERS, and by the time I was done, the walkthrough I was using had the characters at level 9, and mine were at level 12. That may have been why the game was so easy. 

Lastly, before I discuss the story, I’ll talk about the music. It’s fantastic. The entire soundtrack’s great, but my personal favorites are “Burned Bodies,” “Midnight At High Speed,” “Pepper Steak,” “Fake Orchestra,” “The Face of A Killer,” “The Race of A Thousand Pounds,” “Brain Plague,” and “Avatar Beat.”

The plot begins with The Batter (and you, yes you) entering Zone 0, the tutorial section. The resident cat and guardian, The Judge, greets you with some very longwinded sentences that sound like they came straight out of Hylics (another great game, please play it, that uses randomly generated text for its NPCs). He shows you how to fight and solve puzzles, and then proceeds to devour food as you suck it up and do the rest of the puzzles yourself. Eventually, you head to the world map and enter Zone 1.

Zone 1 is the agricultural side of the land, generating the world’s 5 elements: plastic, smoke, meat, metal, and sugar. It’s run by a foul-mouthed inspector named Dedan who lives in Alma, the capital of the Zone. It’s also here you’re introduced to the neurotic Elsen, the people who live in the world. They’re terrified to do much of anything (remember this for later). The Batter ventures through smoke mines, barns, and a post office to reach Alma, meeting The Judge multiple times along the way. The Batter also meets Zacharie, the fourth wall-breaking shopkeeper. Dedan’s extremely cruel demeanor is shown throughout the Zone, reinforcing the idea that The Batter is wholly good. Eventually, The Batter slays Dedan and the Zone becomes purified, turning completely white.

Zone 2 is the residential area, where all the Elsen live. Not much happens throughout the Zone, although you get introduced to The Judge’s brother, Valerie. You fight him and learn he rules the Zone, or, moreso, Japhet rules the Zone. Japhet is a firebird that possessed Valerie and turned him evil. Eventually, The Batter and The Judge ascend to the top of the Library and confront Valerie, now fully consumed by Japhet. The Batter kills Japhet, and by extension Valerie, and The Judge gives up on helping him, seeing that he’s an awful being. The Batter, however, moves on to Zone 3, with Zacharie taking the place of The Judge.

Zone 3 is the industrial area of the world, where Elsen work. The Elsen are shown to be addicted to some sort of sugar, which is soon revealed to be... ground-up corpses of dead Elsen. When the Elsen die, they’re tossed into a furnace and turned into addictive sugar which is fed to them to make them continue working. They’re shown in this Zone to be more fight-ready, killing specters by themselves just to get more sugar. The negative sides of sugar withdrawal are also shown, however, during a terrifying encounter with a Critic Burnt, which does nothing but scream for help. The Batter doesn’t care. He kills it anyways. Eventually, The Batter reaches the guardian, Enoch, who chases him until he tires himself out, when The Batter strikes. After The Batter decapitates Enoch, the guardian delivers one heck of a revelation - without a guardian, a Zone and everyone in it fails to exist. The residents of all three Zones you’ve purified - all dead. The Batter doesn’t seem to care.

The Batter can return to any Zone at any point to explore them, but all he finds are Secretaries, strange mutilated babies that attack him on sight (what is this, The Binding of Isaac?). Zone 2, specifically, holds 2 terrifying sights. First, is one singular surviving Elsen huddling in a building talking about how he’s completely safe. The second one, however, is The Judge, on top of the Library, eternally crying out for his dead brother. All he does is ask you if you’ve seen him.

Finally, The Batter enters The Room, a ridiculously trippy visit into his child/creator Hugo’s mind. It’s revealed that Hugo created the entire world, after interacting with the formerly kindly guardians. It’s revealed he hates The Batter, as well. Eventually, in Chapter 1 of The Room, The Batter kills his wife, The Queen, and proceeds to kill Hugo as well. Before he can finish his mission by flicking a switch to turn off the world, however, he’s confronted by a familiar face: The Judge. He’s come back and proceeds ask you, the player, if you want to join him or The Batter. Choosing either of them results in a pathetically easy final boss battle. 

If you choose The Judge, you battle The Batter and once he’s dead, you simply wander for the rest of your life. As The Batter, you kill The Judge and reset the world. A depressing end to a depressingly themed game. 

So what’s the verdict? Play OFF. Just do it. Please.