OFF. OFF. OFF? OFF.
Let's keep this simple; OFF is incredible. Take an aspect from an RPG maker game from the past 10 years you like and 9 times out of 10 it will originate from this game, and for good reason. Creatively, this game hits pretty much every single aspect of itself out of the park.
OFF feels like a bag of puzzles pieces for a 7 color puzzle that was tossed around really hard and given to you to solve with no context. You're left alone to build up what you've been given, and it isn't until the very last piece where it all makes sense, until you realize you're still looking at 7 colors. Got it? Good.
I wanna get a point of contention out of the way real quick; the combat. It's not bad at all, however it was overall disappointing. As someone who has a huge fondness for turn based combat I had my hopes up for this game. I was immediately off put by the ATB, which I am not a fan of at all, but surprisingly, OFF does it pretty well, though I'd still prefer the game without it.
I think the major issue comes from the party and enemies. Neither side has any uniqueness to them, so throughout the entire game you're mostly just spamming the same 1 or 2 attacks. There's no real resource management either since the game constantly gives you abundant healing items. And as stated earlier, the enemies have 0 variety. The most they'll do is throw out a weak status effect once or twice. I never died in this game, and only ever had a party member die once. Overall the combat isn't that bad, I still had fun, but even the interesting thematic elements can't stop me from saying this aspect was a disappointment.
Outside that though? Pretty much perfect. There isn't a single other element that I think stumbles. Continuing on from gameplay, the second big side to this game is the puzzles. Every world has a decent amount of them, with the last world essentially being one big puzzles. I really like the puzzles, though I do wish there were more variety. Zones 1 and 2 both have pretty similar puzzles, reusing the same keypad puzzle multiple times. Zone 3 spices it up with much more unique puzzles, and The Room goes all out. None of the puzzles were particularly difficult (to me at least), they're moreso fun brain teasers to add variety to the world. I did enjoy the fact that they're the type of puzzles that you have to write down stuff for, it adds this extra layer of player interactivity that I always love. It's not my favorite aspect of OFF, but puzzles gave some nice variety to the game.
Now for what I consider the peak of this game, and what'll probably make this game stick in my mind for years to come; the art direction. This includes visuals, sound, and anything else that ties into that. And god damn, this might be one of the artistically potent games I have ever experienced. Every single elements of this game, from the awesome battles sprites to the incredible music to the amazing UI and to everything else, it's all perfect. Even if you don't like turn based combat at all and have no interest in the story, this game deserves to be checked out as a work of art alone. Just looking around and experiencing what is happening is enthralling in an of itself. I could sing my praises for days but it's something that needs to be experienced. Just know that the incredible art direction all plays perfectly into OFF's tone and world.
And speaking of that, the hardest part for me to cover; the writing. OFF is an incredibly complex game, one that has a monumental amount of depth that someone much smarter than me has already made all the connections and solved everything. However as your local dumbass, I can confidently say that the story is still a hell of a time. Nearly every conversation in the game can give you even the slightest nugget of information about the world. Not all of it will fit together perfectly from the get go, but you can still appreciate a puzzle from its pieces. I can't really say much else here, outside that, just like the art direction, the dialogue is so good at setting a tone.
Those are all the major aspects I wanted to touch on. Overall, OFF is just incredible. It's not a game for everyone, but hey, a free game is a free game. Do yourself a favor and give this game a shot, hopefully you can solve the puzzle.
Let's keep this simple; OFF is incredible. Take an aspect from an RPG maker game from the past 10 years you like and 9 times out of 10 it will originate from this game, and for good reason. Creatively, this game hits pretty much every single aspect of itself out of the park.
OFF feels like a bag of puzzles pieces for a 7 color puzzle that was tossed around really hard and given to you to solve with no context. You're left alone to build up what you've been given, and it isn't until the very last piece where it all makes sense, until you realize you're still looking at 7 colors. Got it? Good.
I wanna get a point of contention out of the way real quick; the combat. It's not bad at all, however it was overall disappointing. As someone who has a huge fondness for turn based combat I had my hopes up for this game. I was immediately off put by the ATB, which I am not a fan of at all, but surprisingly, OFF does it pretty well, though I'd still prefer the game without it.
I think the major issue comes from the party and enemies. Neither side has any uniqueness to them, so throughout the entire game you're mostly just spamming the same 1 or 2 attacks. There's no real resource management either since the game constantly gives you abundant healing items. And as stated earlier, the enemies have 0 variety. The most they'll do is throw out a weak status effect once or twice. I never died in this game, and only ever had a party member die once. Overall the combat isn't that bad, I still had fun, but even the interesting thematic elements can't stop me from saying this aspect was a disappointment.
Outside that though? Pretty much perfect. There isn't a single other element that I think stumbles. Continuing on from gameplay, the second big side to this game is the puzzles. Every world has a decent amount of them, with the last world essentially being one big puzzles. I really like the puzzles, though I do wish there were more variety. Zones 1 and 2 both have pretty similar puzzles, reusing the same keypad puzzle multiple times. Zone 3 spices it up with much more unique puzzles, and The Room goes all out. None of the puzzles were particularly difficult (to me at least), they're moreso fun brain teasers to add variety to the world. I did enjoy the fact that they're the type of puzzles that you have to write down stuff for, it adds this extra layer of player interactivity that I always love. It's not my favorite aspect of OFF, but puzzles gave some nice variety to the game.
Now for what I consider the peak of this game, and what'll probably make this game stick in my mind for years to come; the art direction. This includes visuals, sound, and anything else that ties into that. And god damn, this might be one of the artistically potent games I have ever experienced. Every single elements of this game, from the awesome battles sprites to the incredible music to the amazing UI and to everything else, it's all perfect. Even if you don't like turn based combat at all and have no interest in the story, this game deserves to be checked out as a work of art alone. Just looking around and experiencing what is happening is enthralling in an of itself. I could sing my praises for days but it's something that needs to be experienced. Just know that the incredible art direction all plays perfectly into OFF's tone and world.
And speaking of that, the hardest part for me to cover; the writing. OFF is an incredibly complex game, one that has a monumental amount of depth that someone much smarter than me has already made all the connections and solved everything. However as your local dumbass, I can confidently say that the story is still a hell of a time. Nearly every conversation in the game can give you even the slightest nugget of information about the world. Not all of it will fit together perfectly from the get go, but you can still appreciate a puzzle from its pieces. I can't really say much else here, outside that, just like the art direction, the dialogue is so good at setting a tone.
Those are all the major aspects I wanted to touch on. Overall, OFF is just incredible. It's not a game for everyone, but hey, a free game is a free game. Do yourself a favor and give this game a shot, hopefully you can solve the puzzle.