awesome
Nos anos 90 tivemos muitos jogos marcantes feitos no RPG Maker, sendo o principal e mais conhecido "Corpse Party", que na época era um jogo de terror simples, mas que acabou se tornando uma franquia gigante e bastante influente. Mas não é apenas nos anos 90 que essa engine teve impacto, foi a partir dos anos 2000 que ela foi furar a bolha de vez, tendo diversos jogos que inicialmente poderiam ter sido de nicho, mas por conta de toda uma criatividade em estilos e estéticas, diversos desses jogos ganharam um público fiel, como por exemplo "Yumme Nikki", um dos meus jogos favoritos da vida e que pode ter arrecadado diversas teorias e interpretações.
Por que eu dou um contexto assim para um texto como esse? É simples, porque é com essa engine e também a mudança de época que chegamos ao jogo de hoje: "OFF"!
OFF é um jogo francês, criado por um carinha muito curioso, chamdo de Mortis Ghost, um codinome que acho COOL demais. O jogo lançou inicialmente (e aparentemente) em 2008, mas seu idioma para inglês foi sair 4 anos depois, em 2012, que foi mais ou menos por essa época que o jogo foi começar a ser reconhecido.
Quando começamos o game, temos que dizer nosso nome. Não o nome do personagem do jogo! Mas sim o do portador. Nós vamos controlar um personagem Batter, que recebe a missão de purificar o mundo. Ao entender isso, chegamos na Zona 0, onde conhecemos o Judge, um... err, gato esquisito que conversa diretamente com a gente e nos ensina a controlar o Batter.
Não tarda muito até notar-mos o charme desse jogo. OFF é estranho, até demais para ser sincero, mas isso é ponto mais alto dele. Seu estilo gráfico é quase que completamente branco e o traço dos personagens parecem rabiscos até que bem compostos. Quando vamos explorando pelas 3 Zonas principais do jogo, é bem comum ver cenários com uma única cor dominante, como o Azul com rabiscos pretos, ou o Rosa com rabiscos pretos, ou até o Amarelo com rabiscos pretos, esse traçado é a que agrega muito para toda composição e visual.
A Zona 0 é basicamente um tutorial, após sair dela vamos direto para a Zona 1, onde a gente vê um padrão. Cada Zona se baseia em uma indústria de alguma coisa, sendo a primeira de Carne, e ela está sofrendo por infestação de fantasmas, aos quais deveremos purificar.
"E como funciona essa purificação?" você me pergunta. E a resposta é bem fácil. OFF é um dos casos raros de um RPG feito no RPG Maker, as purificações serão combates por turnos onde devemos eliminar os fantasmas na base do porrete (o Better usa tacos de baiseball para combater os fantasmas), esses combates te dão dinheiro e talvez algum item.
Essa vai ser sua gameplay por OFF, e mesmo sendo bastante simples, não chega a ser repetitiva e esse jogo acerta muito, principalmente na narrativa.
A gente entende o objetivo do Batter e até entendemos o que está rolando, mas passamos o tempo todo enquanto jogamos nos perguntando o motivo do mundo estar daquela forma, e aqui chegamos em algo interessante sobre essa narrativa. OFF explica muito sobre suas Zonas, como que cada local funciona, sobre o trabalho daqueles NPCs, mas tudo que ele explica é de uma forma tão enigmática que não há um jeito certo de entendermos aquilo, o jogo meio que nos obriga a interpretar aquele mundo do nosso próprio jeito.
Interpretar faz parte da experiência e algo que agrega muito para isso são suas referências bíblicas. Pode parecer meio desfocado, mas OFF usa muita referência católica para criar sua ambientação caótica e muitas vezes até complexa. Essas referências estão mais conectadas às explicações dos NPCs e um pouco do mundo em si, como na primeira Zona que nos é explicado sobre a carne e em como a enxergamos.
Essa parte do jogo serve muito para nos mostrar um mundo mais complexo e nos mostrar situações que não são fáceis de explicar, afinal, OFF é bizarro e isso faz totalmente parte de sua identidade, tendo uma das estéticas mais únicas de qualquer video game.
E retornando para esse jogo que coloco definitivamente em um dos ranks mais altos nos meus favoritos.
Por que eu dou um contexto assim para um texto como esse? É simples, porque é com essa engine e também a mudança de época que chegamos ao jogo de hoje: "OFF"!
OFF é um jogo francês, criado por um carinha muito curioso, chamdo de Mortis Ghost, um codinome que acho COOL demais. O jogo lançou inicialmente (e aparentemente) em 2008, mas seu idioma para inglês foi sair 4 anos depois, em 2012, que foi mais ou menos por essa época que o jogo foi começar a ser reconhecido.
Quando começamos o game, temos que dizer nosso nome. Não o nome do personagem do jogo! Mas sim o do portador. Nós vamos controlar um personagem Batter, que recebe a missão de purificar o mundo. Ao entender isso, chegamos na Zona 0, onde conhecemos o Judge, um... err, gato esquisito que conversa diretamente com a gente e nos ensina a controlar o Batter.
Não tarda muito até notar-mos o charme desse jogo. OFF é estranho, até demais para ser sincero, mas isso é ponto mais alto dele. Seu estilo gráfico é quase que completamente branco e o traço dos personagens parecem rabiscos até que bem compostos. Quando vamos explorando pelas 3 Zonas principais do jogo, é bem comum ver cenários com uma única cor dominante, como o Azul com rabiscos pretos, ou o Rosa com rabiscos pretos, ou até o Amarelo com rabiscos pretos, esse traçado é a que agrega muito para toda composição e visual.
A Zona 0 é basicamente um tutorial, após sair dela vamos direto para a Zona 1, onde a gente vê um padrão. Cada Zona se baseia em uma indústria de alguma coisa, sendo a primeira de Carne, e ela está sofrendo por infestação de fantasmas, aos quais deveremos purificar.
"E como funciona essa purificação?" você me pergunta. E a resposta é bem fácil. OFF é um dos casos raros de um RPG feito no RPG Maker, as purificações serão combates por turnos onde devemos eliminar os fantasmas na base do porrete (o Better usa tacos de baiseball para combater os fantasmas), esses combates te dão dinheiro e talvez algum item.
Essa vai ser sua gameplay por OFF, e mesmo sendo bastante simples, não chega a ser repetitiva e esse jogo acerta muito, principalmente na narrativa.
A gente entende o objetivo do Batter e até entendemos o que está rolando, mas passamos o tempo todo enquanto jogamos nos perguntando o motivo do mundo estar daquela forma, e aqui chegamos em algo interessante sobre essa narrativa. OFF explica muito sobre suas Zonas, como que cada local funciona, sobre o trabalho daqueles NPCs, mas tudo que ele explica é de uma forma tão enigmática que não há um jeito certo de entendermos aquilo, o jogo meio que nos obriga a interpretar aquele mundo do nosso próprio jeito.
Interpretar faz parte da experiência e algo que agrega muito para isso são suas referências bíblicas. Pode parecer meio desfocado, mas OFF usa muita referência católica para criar sua ambientação caótica e muitas vezes até complexa. Essas referências estão mais conectadas às explicações dos NPCs e um pouco do mundo em si, como na primeira Zona que nos é explicado sobre a carne e em como a enxergamos.
Essa parte do jogo serve muito para nos mostrar um mundo mais complexo e nos mostrar situações que não são fáceis de explicar, afinal, OFF é bizarro e isso faz totalmente parte de sua identidade, tendo uma das estéticas mais únicas de qualquer video game.
E retornando para esse jogo que coloco definitivamente em um dos ranks mais altos nos meus favoritos.
Empty Warehouse reverberates through the fissures of my buried skull long after I'm gone.
Very confusing. But worth it.
Falar de off é falar de Vídeo Game, falar de OFF é falar sobre pecado, falar de off é falar sobre o nada, falar sobre o escuro que passa dentro de alguém, falar de OFF é falar de Arte
This game is like getting the best blowjob of your life and never getting that same feeling ever again.
Truly amazing masterpiece
The impossible masterpiece to find
Batter did nothing wrong
its ok
This review contains spoilers
This title isn't too in-depth of an experience gameplay wise, but is extremely profound through its themes to the point it stuck with me for weeks.
Is death and nothingness preferable to eternal guilt? Is it truly worth it to stop a world from turning apocalyptic if it means your own hands will be responsible for its destruction?
What does purification even mean? What are morals, if you have to destroy everything to ensure that moral code?
I kind of have to rate the game highly, because when I played through The Judge's ending, I genuinely lost contact with reality. I didn't cry, I totally shut down, for hours. It was like a fit of psychosis. I wasn't even aware that a video game could have such an effect on me.
I kind of have to give it a perfect rating based on that alone, right?
The whole game is based on perspective. Nothing changes, but the actions stay the same. The Guardians are incompetent. The people of this world are neurotic. All that's left is bleakness no matter the outcome. You have two options.
One, blame The Batter, and feel the guilt of The Judge for the rest of eternity.
Or two, return this contemptible world to nothingness.
The Batter appears as a monster, but whether or not you think he truly is that way is up to you. It's such a profoundly unique way of handling morality in that The Batter reduces everything to its purest blacks and whites, clearly having a misguided savior complex through his acts of abject genocide... But not entirely being wrong. He even requests the help of The Judge, implying that he doesn't want to fight him at the end, and views The Judge as the only being of the world in question not experiencing neurosis. As well, The Judge views their world as corrupt, but hates The Batter's methods. At the end of the game, he also begs The Batter to join him. They need each other, but their ideologies are so far apart, they can never come to a solution together.
The Batter is a truly amoral, inhuman figure, whereas The Judge is the last monument to the failure of the Guardians echoing the last gasps of a dying world.
If you choose The Batter's side, The Batter stays the same, being a humanlike figure.
If you choose The Judge's side, The Batter turns into a monster.
The Batter is the same person either way. He only changes in appearance because he's viewed as an enemy. He holds the same ideologies either way.
The other characters are equally compelling.
The Queen is one of the few people in the game who calls The Batter an extremist hellbent on destruction. It's easy to see her point of view, because The Batter's ideologue is to essentially perform mercy killings. At the end of the day, The Queen is a mother protecting her infant son from The Batter's rampage through righteous means. The Judge asks The Batter to expiate sins that they both are guilty of, and prevent "this monster" from completing his work.
Whereas The Queen is naive through her well-meaning, Enoch has a heart made of ice. He's a monument to how human sin corrupts each world, including this one. Even then, however, he is not an amoral individual. Enoch insists on giving the citizens of his zone drugs to prevent them from becoming Burnt, malformed souls with horrifyingly distorted bodies. He shows a more pragmatic attitude, but his solution is misguided, as we see denizens in other zones which haven't become Burnt. Citizens and specters murder each other over these drugs.
Dedan is resentful towards The Batter, even after he helps the Elsen rid his zone of the Specters. He's a permanent malcontent, and will never help purify the world, even if it helps his people. He barely even enjoys his own existence, let alone anyone else's.
Japhet is the epitome of naivety turned into madness, as he summoned the Specters as revenge for his subjects fearing him.
Zacharie is a permanent optimist, who takes it upon himself to remain ethereal in his role to aid the player. It's unknown what his connection is with Sugar, but sugar in the game is the drugs I referred to earlier. Sugar asking The Batter to say goodbye to Zacharie is... Utterly soul crushing on a level I haven't seen from any work of fiction before. Zacharie's reaction of, "I guess it's better like that", made me have to stop playing for several days. I understand the metaphor, Sugar is the drug that keeps him happy, the only thing he really had left. Sugar is the one thing The Batter doesn't call purified, as her childish nature simply betrayed her innocence. She's the only thing The Batter truly refers to as 'dead' across the entire game. Even through that one line of text, you can feel just that one pang of regret, that it was no longer a genocide, but instead an omnicide.
The ending of the game is just a different beast entirely. It perfectly encapsulates that there's just nothing left. It's either The Batter literally flipping an 'OFF' switch to turn the world 'OFF', or it's The Judge just wandering... Endlessly. The Judge is left with a chosen few left to run the world, and even then, it's likely the Secretaries will swoop in to finish them off, with the purification of each zone.
Was there even a choice? Was everything going to die like this anyway? Is The Batter a monster, or simply an accelerationist to the inevitable?
It's a game that gets me thinking every time I see anything of it. No game has made me go through so many separate stages of grief and epiphany. It's a brilliant look into the cosmic nature of morality and it's basically a must-play for anyone interested in indie RPGs. Quotes from nearly every character in the game are pure power etched into writing.
"Hence nothing remains but our regrets."
Is death and nothingness preferable to eternal guilt? Is it truly worth it to stop a world from turning apocalyptic if it means your own hands will be responsible for its destruction?
What does purification even mean? What are morals, if you have to destroy everything to ensure that moral code?
I kind of have to rate the game highly, because when I played through The Judge's ending, I genuinely lost contact with reality. I didn't cry, I totally shut down, for hours. It was like a fit of psychosis. I wasn't even aware that a video game could have such an effect on me.
I kind of have to give it a perfect rating based on that alone, right?
The whole game is based on perspective. Nothing changes, but the actions stay the same. The Guardians are incompetent. The people of this world are neurotic. All that's left is bleakness no matter the outcome. You have two options.
One, blame The Batter, and feel the guilt of The Judge for the rest of eternity.
Or two, return this contemptible world to nothingness.
The Batter appears as a monster, but whether or not you think he truly is that way is up to you. It's such a profoundly unique way of handling morality in that The Batter reduces everything to its purest blacks and whites, clearly having a misguided savior complex through his acts of abject genocide... But not entirely being wrong. He even requests the help of The Judge, implying that he doesn't want to fight him at the end, and views The Judge as the only being of the world in question not experiencing neurosis. As well, The Judge views their world as corrupt, but hates The Batter's methods. At the end of the game, he also begs The Batter to join him. They need each other, but their ideologies are so far apart, they can never come to a solution together.
The Batter is a truly amoral, inhuman figure, whereas The Judge is the last monument to the failure of the Guardians echoing the last gasps of a dying world.
If you choose The Batter's side, The Batter stays the same, being a humanlike figure.
If you choose The Judge's side, The Batter turns into a monster.
The Batter is the same person either way. He only changes in appearance because he's viewed as an enemy. He holds the same ideologies either way.
The other characters are equally compelling.
The Queen is one of the few people in the game who calls The Batter an extremist hellbent on destruction. It's easy to see her point of view, because The Batter's ideologue is to essentially perform mercy killings. At the end of the day, The Queen is a mother protecting her infant son from The Batter's rampage through righteous means. The Judge asks The Batter to expiate sins that they both are guilty of, and prevent "this monster" from completing his work.
Whereas The Queen is naive through her well-meaning, Enoch has a heart made of ice. He's a monument to how human sin corrupts each world, including this one. Even then, however, he is not an amoral individual. Enoch insists on giving the citizens of his zone drugs to prevent them from becoming Burnt, malformed souls with horrifyingly distorted bodies. He shows a more pragmatic attitude, but his solution is misguided, as we see denizens in other zones which haven't become Burnt. Citizens and specters murder each other over these drugs.
Dedan is resentful towards The Batter, even after he helps the Elsen rid his zone of the Specters. He's a permanent malcontent, and will never help purify the world, even if it helps his people. He barely even enjoys his own existence, let alone anyone else's.
Japhet is the epitome of naivety turned into madness, as he summoned the Specters as revenge for his subjects fearing him.
Zacharie is a permanent optimist, who takes it upon himself to remain ethereal in his role to aid the player. It's unknown what his connection is with Sugar, but sugar in the game is the drugs I referred to earlier. Sugar asking The Batter to say goodbye to Zacharie is... Utterly soul crushing on a level I haven't seen from any work of fiction before. Zacharie's reaction of, "I guess it's better like that", made me have to stop playing for several days. I understand the metaphor, Sugar is the drug that keeps him happy, the only thing he really had left. Sugar is the one thing The Batter doesn't call purified, as her childish nature simply betrayed her innocence. She's the only thing The Batter truly refers to as 'dead' across the entire game. Even through that one line of text, you can feel just that one pang of regret, that it was no longer a genocide, but instead an omnicide.
The ending of the game is just a different beast entirely. It perfectly encapsulates that there's just nothing left. It's either The Batter literally flipping an 'OFF' switch to turn the world 'OFF', or it's The Judge just wandering... Endlessly. The Judge is left with a chosen few left to run the world, and even then, it's likely the Secretaries will swoop in to finish them off, with the purification of each zone.
Was there even a choice? Was everything going to die like this anyway? Is The Batter a monster, or simply an accelerationist to the inevitable?
It's a game that gets me thinking every time I see anything of it. No game has made me go through so many separate stages of grief and epiphany. It's a brilliant look into the cosmic nature of morality and it's basically a must-play for anyone interested in indie RPGs. Quotes from nearly every character in the game are pure power etched into writing.
"Hence nothing remains but our regrets."
Hauntingly gorgeous and gently macabre, wearing a unique but demented style all its own. Unfortunately a supreme aesthetic and a great sense of imagery cant do all the work for you, you do also have to come up with something other than just number password puzzles and damage-trading RPG fights.
Great soundtrack but character dialogue and graphics were a bit too dull for me. I understand why that is but that's my own fault not the games. A must play if your into RPG maker games
It's fine
I knew it would be a more of a cryptic type of a game and I'm fine with that but honestly, the combat takes up too much time; is very easy and just not fun overall. And the story is ehhh, I might have screwed myself over by going into the game thinking it would have dogass combat system but amazing story in exchange and no it really doesn't
I knew it would be a more of a cryptic type of a game and I'm fine with that but honestly, the combat takes up too much time; is very easy and just not fun overall. And the story is ehhh, I might have screwed myself over by going into the game thinking it would have dogass combat system but amazing story in exchange and no it really doesn't
It is a great experience to beat Off, I highly recommend, especially if you beat Off with your friends!
Great worldbuilding and characters. Gameplay is fine but doesn't hold up to modern standards. Only worth playing for historical value.
This game is peak RPG maker, on the same level as Yume Nikki or Undertale (after all, this is one of the games that originally inspired Toby Fox). Fantastic soundtrack, surreal atmosphere and story. Gameplay was a bit too simplistic for my tastes but hey, that's RPG maker for you.
Aún me mata el hecho de que los combate se pasan solo si mantienes el modo automático todo el tiempo.
someday i will beat off
absolutely horrific
More like OOF
i should play this in its original french honestly idk why i played the eng tl
Game is over.
It's crazy how much this game feels like it was "made for me"
It stands the test of time as an art piece.
It stands the test of time as an art piece.
The style, atmosphere, world and characters, and the mystery and open-endedness of it all is this game's main draw. Something that you play more for the experience than for the gameplay. I was obsessed with this game in 2020 oh my god
Esperava mais, mas é esteticamente muito legal. A história é divertida de se acompanhar, o problema mesmo são as lutas que são insuportáveis depois de 5 minutos, depois de umas 3 horas eu desisti de jogar realmente e só prestava atenção nas conversas, deixando as lutas no automático.
had some design quirks but otherwise off-some
this is such a unique game
Para su tiempo fue la hostia, y me sigue pareciendo súper bueno. Es de los juegos más únicos y con más personalidad que existen.
ah! ah!
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