OFF Review

OFF is a game I’ve been curious about for a while. Since its original release in 2008, I’ve heard it mentioned countless times, but never any details, so with this new release, I figure now would be the perfect time to jump in, and it’s left me feeling rather torn.

OFF puts you in the shoes of a man named The Batter, sort of. While you control The Batter, both he and his companion, The Judge (a strange cat-like creature), are aware of the player, and allow you to essentially puppeteer The Batter around to help him achieve his goal: purify the world of all evil spirits. It’s a simple setup, but the character’s awareness of the player hints at a more complex metanarrative.

This journey takes you throughout a multitude of different zones, all of which are bizarre but charming. They’re inhabited by the Elsen, a race of strange humanoid creatures, who are extremely timid and loyal to those who rule over the zones. It’s these characters that bring out one of OFF’s best aspects: the writing. All the dialogue is surreal and silly, but it makes for a wildly unique feeling. Most of its visuals match this surreality; a lot of it is incredibly simple, but can then be directly juxtaposed moments later by disturbingly detailed portraits of enemies.

Combat is a big part of OFF, and it takes a turn-based RPG approach, more specifically like the ATB system from the Final Fantasy series, where turns are dictated by a timer on each character, rather than alternating turns. It’s mostly serviceable, but I can’t say I loved it, and it did begin to get grating towards the latter half of the game, but it does the job well enough. It’s not particularly difficult either, and the bosses tend to lean more towards being puzzles rather than a strategic challenge; they’re not particularly complex. The best of these are found within the new series of bosses in the Steam release, which are definitely where the gameplay peaks. I don’t mean this as a major negative for the most part, the story and world feel like they’re the clear focus, and the combat doesn’t begin to wear thin until the game is almost over anyway.

Between encounters, you’ll be exploring the zones, talking to the Elsen and other characters, and solving puzzles to proceed. Its progression is simple, but it feels solid. There are enough little side areas to make exploration viable and satisfying, while not feeling overwhelmingly large; its scale feels very well balanced. Sometimes the puzzles can slow the progression down, because they’re so strange. They can be hard to understand, relying on you thinking out of the box, but never to the point of complete stagnancy.

Once you complete Zone 3, the story takes a slight shift, really leaning into its darker themes and ideas. I won’t mention it in too much detail, as the mystery is core to a lot of the experience, but it’s a strong change. The parts of the games before this had some clear thematic hints, but they get fleshed out nicely in the latter parts. Despite this, though, while there’s a lot more depth added to the story in the final third, there’s almost no clarity. The majority of the story is told through hints, strange messages, clues, and abstract metaphors. This makes it hard, if not impossible, to find clear answers, but that seems to be entirely intentional. It works well and is a very strong driving force for the whole game.

The general presentation of OFF is fantastic too, from both a visual and auditory standpoint. I previously mentioned the great visuals that manage to make a very unique atmosphere, and the music is also genuinely fantastic. The battle music began to feel repetitive towards the later parts of the game, but it wasn’t awful. The general sound design for the sections after Zone 3 was also incredible, matching the game’s tonal shift.

OFF is a game I’m very glad I played. While I had some minor issues overall, its approach to storytelling makes those issues feel far less impactful.