Thoughts on: OFF

Closer to the end of the 2000s the independent game development scene was starting to bloom. Independent developers have been doing it for a very long time by that point, but the mix of availability of tools and the evolution of the internet changed the game. People didn’t consider the commercial releases for their games yet as often as they do now, so a lot of genuinely impressive, influential and highly praised titles were released completely for free. OFF was one such title – originally released in 2008, completely in French, it was a surreal horror themed RPG made in RPG Maker 2003 with a memorable soundtrack. And a couple years later, with few unofficial fan made English translations, the game started going rounds around the internet and was often a target for then rising popularity of Let’s Play format of recorded game playthroughs on YouTube.

And now in 2025, after years of being talked about and influencing other developers, the game is officially translated into English, ported to Unity and is available as a commercial release. A faithful recreation of the original project with some improvements and some side-steps.

If you have never played OFF before, but are familiar with a typical RPG Maker project look and feel, you would immediately recognize the basics and mechanics of OFF. Structured around the look and feel of the 90s Japanese RPGs, with a Final Fantasy IV/V/VI-inspired battle system and random battles, isometric exploration, menu screens for using or equipping items and all that stuff. It does focus a bit more on puzzle solving than combat, but is still built around the RPG base. The new version does make the presentation of the menus and different screens far more interesting and unique, where original game just used stock layouts and looks. And the battle system have been tweaked and mostly improved to be quicker, feel more responsive and have a few more actions that broaden the tactical choice you get during the combat.

The exploration, story and the flow of the game is otherwise basically unchanged. There are a couple of new boss fights hidden in the game, but apart from that, the game looks, feels and plays almost exactly as it used to. Which… is good for preservation, I suppose. But it also highlights just how unfun a lot of what stands for “puzzles” is in the title. Most of said “puzzles” involves remembering (or more likely writing down) a very long string of numbers to input somewhere, remembering some other nonsensical things or guessing what leaps of logic must be made to connect one unrelated concept to another. There’s nothing inherently “challenging” about it, it’s all just very unintuitive and tedious.

Which somewhat gets in the way of the… “plot”? OFF does have a story of sorts, most of which is made more clear at the very end of the game, but otherwise this game is more of a mood piece, than a proper narrative. It is a really cool mood, though, with nice visuals and a great soundtrack. Though the last point is also controversial in the new release – the composer of the original game didn’t want to be involved in a commercial release, so none of his music is used in the new version directly (the original soundtrack is available on his website for free though). Instead, the new soundtrack is sometimes samples the original soundtrack or builds new tracks around certain parts of the original tracks, or has totally new compositions. And it’s very good as well, in fact I would say it is a more consistently good soundtrack than the original one was. It’s just that the original’s highs were much higher than the highs in the new version, which will probably make some people upset.

Still, OFF is quite a curious game. I can’t say that I loved it back then (pretty sure I never even finished it) and I didn’t love it now. And I find something like Space Funeral, from around the same year, a far more curious and enjoyable free RPG Maker title. But I am glad that it has had a new release that makes it far easier to play for more people with the engine switch and some good updates to the combat. And if you have never played the game before, it is worth checking out. Just don’t expect it to be as life changing as its legendary status might imply.