In 2008, OFF was released to the French masses, with a well-known and semi-official English fan translation by Quinn K. soon to follow. The game, originally made by Mortis Ghost, was a cult classic with a wide stretch of influence on the indie and RPGMaker communities due to its quirky humor and surprisingly complex themes on morality. In late 2024, it was announced that Fangamer partnered with Mortis Ghost to remake the classic RPG with updated graphics and new content. During Steam Next Fest: June 2025, a demo was released with the first two chapters of the game.

This review will be for only these first two chapters, without spoiling the rest of OFF, for those who would like to experience it for themselves. The original game is available for free!

Purrrification in progress

First, here’s a short synopsis of the first two chapters. Those more familiar with OFF can read past this.

OFF stars the Batter, a mysterious character on a self-proclaimed mission to rid the world of spirits. The game has you begin with inputting a name and gender (including they/them), but it is soon revealed that your role within the game is controlling the Batter and aiding him on his pious quest, as the Batter directly refers to your role by name. The player and Batter meet the guardian of Zone 0, a talking cat named The Judge, who teaches them the basics of combat and overworld puzzles. These aspects are explained in the gameplay segment of the review.

After The Judge hands us a card that gives us the ability to travel through the void into other worlds, we are off to Zone 1.

Zone 1 is more industrial compared to the almost serene Zone 0. Which makes sense, as the area is where the world of OFF gets its important elements that it needs to sustain itself with. The player becomes familiarized with the Elsen, the race of humanoids around the zones. As well as the specters who the Batter is so driven to kill, which are adorable, cartoon ghosts. Along the way, the Batter comes across Zacharie, the fourth wall-breaking shopkeeper wearing a frog mask. The Batter meets the boss of the Zone, Dedan, a volatile and serious inspector who verbally abuses the Elsen with a permanent sneer on his face, sent by the as-of-yet enigmatic Queen. Zone 1, and the demo, ends with the Batter confronting Dedan.

Swing, Batter, Batter, Swing!

While the game page promises new combat mechanics and content, the OFF Prologue seems to play very similarly to the original game with a few differences. You have attacks, competencies, and items. The first is rather self-explanatory, competencies are the name for character-specific skills, and items range from healing to reviving teammates. Oh, and your party members are floating-circle-things called Add-Ons and you get one for the first chapter. What isn’t standard for most RPGs is that instead of having a numbered speed stat, player characters and enemies have a gauge that fills over time, which signifies when an action will be performed. 

The main difference is the critical hit system in OFF, which I quite enjoy the addition of. It charges a meter, letting you know when your next strike will be a powerful one. Enemies can also critically strike you and your party. In addition, the defense feature seems to be new from what I remember, being able to mitigate damage from an upcoming attack. Of course, with how combat works, it is reliant on the player being skillful enough to know when to use it before an enemy’s attack. 

A puzzling path and visual improvements

One of the key features of OFF has always been the overworld puzzles. There is not much to talk about as far as changes go, but there is one complaint that people have. Late in the chapter is a puzzle called the Flesh Maze Tango. In short, there are multiple doors, and the player needs to determine which one to go through based on the volume of the music playing. In the remake, this maze now has an audio bar in the left corner, meaning it has a lot more visual feedback, making this admittedly short section much easier. Some fans of the game suggest this could be mitigated with an update to make this visualized bar an accessibility feature rather than the default, and I am inclined to agree.

Speaking of the visuals, it has to be mentioned here. OFF has great visual improvements, while not losing its identity. The sprites are of higher quality, but the iconic art style remains the same. The new UI, especially for battles, is sleeker and cleaner. 

The music controversy

The elephant in the room when it comes to the OFF remake is the change in soundtrack. The game’s composer, Alias Conrad Coldwood, has elected to not have his original soundtrack reused. Since the music for OFF heavily made use of sampling, he personally felt nervous over monetizing his work, preferring to keep it free. In his steed, several big-named fans of the game elected to collaborate and contribute to the remake. These names include Morusque (Stray), NightMargin (OneShot), and, infamously, Toby Fox of Undertale and Deltarune.

Personally? I think this new soundtrack for OFF is more than serviceable. A few tracks really stand out, mainly the new versions of “Clockwork” and “Soft Breeze.” The ambient tracks that Morusque has written for the exterior of Zone 1 are nothing short of excellent. 

A lot of the controversy of the new soundtrack comes from Toby Fox’s contributions to the soundtrack, being the main battle theme and the boss battle theme for Dedan. He himself describes working on them to be akin to “taking a bullet for everyone else.” While replacing “Pepper Steak,” the iconic battle theme for OFF, was always going to be controversial, “White Meat” is still a head-bopping tune. As far as Dedan goes, I am also iffy on the “Bonetrousle” from Undertale callback, but I think people are forgetting that Mortis Ghost ultimately has the final say on how his own game should be, so regardless of any personal opinion, it shouldn’t be seen as “disrespectful.”

Final Thoughts

The OFF remake has been split between fans of the original game. While a lot of the changes in the UI, graphics, and a handful of the tracks are welcome, a number of others take umbrage with some of the changes in the puzzles and music. This split was certainly always bound to happen, but a lot of it, besides the maze puzzle, comes down to personal taste. Personally, I believe OFF is a welcome return of the original game, especially if they take some of the mechanical criticism to heart before release. And if you are not a fan of it, the original is always out there for free!

OFF Prologue is available for free on Steam as part of Steam Next Fest: June 2025. The full version is planned to release August 15th, 2025.