Indie OFF: The puppeteer blamed by the puppet's actions

What is a goal when only one get benefited?

What is a task when you don’t know why you do it?

When loyalty becomes blind faith and starts being harmful?

When the player ends and the playable character starts?

Don’t bother answering, and turn your brain OFF puppeteer

SUMMARY

While most people will tell you the Earthbound-like mania started in 2015 with Undertale, the truth is that six years ago, there was a little experimental RPG Maker Game made by Mortis Ghost who in his own words wanted to mix Killer7, Myst and Final Fantasy VI in a single game, that game, is OFF, OFF is minimalism incarnate, the game doesn’t even have Rugmaker’s assets, instead you play in levels that feel too flat, you only see a kind of NPC except some special ones, the game is foreboding, like if anytime you played you summoned a person to breath in your neck, that, is the surreal world of OFF


HISTORY

“You have been assigned to a being called "The Batter." The Batter has an important mission. Be sure that it's accomplished.”

That is the paragraph that receive us…and that’s, we are then asked to name the puppeteer AKA you, the one with the keyboard, and then your genre (Irrelevant) after that you come to Zone 0, your Tutorial, where a strange cat that names himself Pablo tutor us, talking as if he ate a Shakespeare book, after a brief Tutorial of how the combat and the main puzzles works, you are send to the “WORLD MAP”

Notice the world map (?), not even the game itself knows what even is this world hub

Despite the looks, you can only pick the worlds in the numerical order, meaning you have to play the game in the order it wants, the main premise is simple, if a “bit” odd, you are the puppeteer, a entity separate of the playable character, the Batter, a stoic yet determined warrior whose task os to purify the world of the Specters, the game’s monsters, these varies from “Cartoon ghost” to “WHAT THE F… is that!”, a simple task…Not

The game is minimalist, your only NPC type would be humanoids called Elsen, they practically are EVERYWHERE, think of them as the Toads in new Paper Mario Games, aside of them your only consistent allies will be Pablo, the aformentionec cat, who sometimes would give hints, or as he calls himself the mandatory videogame merchant Zacharie, a weird even by this setting’s standards guy with the best laugh in any RPG. He is basically the Meta Guy, meaning that for him the fourth wall is just two words, breaking it constantly to make witty comments while also giving hints while Pablo is AFK, aside of helping obviously with supplies and armory duties

TRUTH ABOUT THE STORY MASS SPOILERS AHEAD

Spoiler

The game starts as a basic Good vs bad conflict where a cold but good guy stomps the evil guardians of the Zones, you are even tricked by making Dedan the first boss, a dipshit you want dead not only for seemingly being the reason the Zone is down the dumps, but because he is a dick to the Elsen, the second Zone slightly blurs the line, by making the Guardian a tragic figure that despite all still wants his Zone destroyed by the Specters you are killing, however the Zone three Guardian is not only a comparatively caring guardian, giving shelter to his Elsen, but also handing them sugar, as the plot of the Zone advances… let just say you won’t want to eat sugar anytime soon after the big reveal

To make stuff harder, while subtle in the past Zones, we got some droplets of clues that the Batter is not exactly a Pure (rimshot) soul, and that his goal is far from benefitial to the world, I am not going to spoil what happen in the final dungeons or even Zone 3, the exact point where the game goes in a express train from Guatemala a Guatepeor, but to get a glimpse of what will happen, after you finish Zone three, return to Zone 1

In the batter's eyes, this is a improvement over the non-purified zones...

Quoting another game that deals with faux heroism… ¿You feel like a hero yet?

The game was envisioned as a sort of Rorschach test akin to another RPG Maker game where jack is explained, sadly since the game compared to others isn’t that known, there isn’t that much fandom to get head canons from

GAMEPLAY

What the game has for an interesting plot despite being deliberately lacking in it, sadly it lacks in the combat, you have an ATB system where you can pick your action after the respective character gets his bar full, fitting the game’s bareboneness regarding aesthetic, rather than NPC with personalities, you get three rings of light called Add-ons, the game’s oddity also is reflected in the combat system, since magic is called competence, healing items are called tickets and Competence healers are called Meat…wrap your head around that one

The game regarding battles isn’t too much to handle, I literally never had to grind aside of basic get Credits for better weapons and armor, fortunately you get an Auto mode, while not exatly humanlike, the Auto AI has a rudimentary strategy unlike most RPG with the function, since the Ai will intercalate between basic attack, offensive attacks and healing when health is too low, which is a Godsend since the game has a problem I always dread of classic RPG: Excessive Random encounters, fortunately that means you theorically wouldn’t be never under leveled as long as you never run of an encounter

*AGGRESIVE TECHNOSWING NOISES*

The bosses are more of a challenge, but even then, that is more because Early Game Hell and the enemies having titanic HP reserves, the only boss I couldn’t beat in auto was Dedan, and that was because at that point his attacks input out sped mine, but after wearing him some, I still could beat him by choosing auto and reading my Geronimo Stilton PDF’s while I waited his (Cool BTW) boss theme stopped, that is a recurring problem, bosses rather than being a test of the Puppeteer’s skills and strategies, they merely can last a lot of hits

An RPG where all you do is walk to point B would be boring, so the game spices things with puzzles, aside of some with unique puzzle rules these comes in two flavors: Blocks and riddles

Block Puzzles are basically push these buttons in a certain order, sometimes you receive a sequence, sometimes you get a 3x3 grid that emulates a calculator where you still need to find the solution, the other category would be Riddles, basically finding clues and telling an Elsen the answers, basic Survival horror stuff, some of them are my favorite, but the rest… well the game could benefit from some randomizing, because as soon as you get the answers, you can basically breeze though the puzzles

Get used to this, you will see those numbers and blocks a lot
MUSIC

Alias Conrad Coldwood was in charge of the music, and oh boy he didn’t disappoint, I don’t know more of his music, but I can tell from this game he went for the Homerun (Je) with this one, the music fits the “What even is going on” mood, ranging from mockingly calm (Zone 0) to bouncy fun (Peper Steak (sic) the battle theme) to Flat-out sinister (the final dungeon’s music, you will know you are there when you reach it), even the game over music is a banger, it must be a crime against humanity the game is so easy since you are missing this

GRAPHICS

Barely there, then again, this seems to be the point, since the lore snippets you can find seems to hint this bareness is diegetic, and you see what the characters see, as if you are merely seeing a crude recreation of a house made by a kid, considering the “Water” is liquid plastic and the “dirt” is metal extracted from cows’ stomach (Don’t ask) they convey the dreamlike atmosphere

LENGTH AND REPLAYABILITY

Unless you get stuck in a puzzle, each zone can be beaten in between 15-60 minutes discounting Zone 0 (Tutorial) and the final chapter (90 minutes) and like mentioned the puzzles doesn’t change solutions, so if you remember them, you can breeze them

FINAL THOUGHTS

I have a term for games with bad or too average gameplay which you still play doue to the story being a banger: Movie games (Not to confuse with Interactive movies or licensed movie games) and this game fits, gameplay and puzzles bareness made up by a unique world with an interesting lore and a twist that makes you wonder if you always play the hero in a videogame

Is a shame it has the middle child syndrome regarding the Genesis of Quirky self-aware Earthbound clones, when I ask people who started the subgenre, they either point their finger to Madotsuki or Frisk, but somewhere over the Rainbow, a Batter purified the norm, and while not that know, it will have a place in my…

HOLY SHI…!!!

The Review is now in OFF...Bakuma out​

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

I can agree the battles are so easy even the auto battle mode can beat them without issues

 

[Kamako]

OFF is a marvelous game. Thank you for spotlighting it.

 

[Glossy Cat]

This game looks very good in a different way. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.