VARN'S PROFILE

I figured as much, especially given the snarky message I got for hitting level 50 (beat 'the superboss' at ... 39 I think.) I might suggest removing all the extra ???s if there's another patch?

I might also nitpick that Impossible Mode ... really seems to be exactly what it says on the tin. Fixing the basic slimes to give 1xp instead of 0xp might ... make the initial grind far, far more doable? I tried anyway, running from the blue slimes, facing only Red Slimes - one per inn visit - and gave up when I saw the inn price scaled to my level. (And I'm not sure the Impossible-mode post-game content would be doable even at level 50. At least without buying millions of gold worth of meat.)

Regardless - this was an EXCELLENT game, and I truly enjoyed it. Thank you for spending so long making it!

I'm not sure how a blank comment got this game buzzing again, but thank you.

You reminded me why I shouldn't immediately spend money on a 5-star reviewed game (which I actually did back in 2017), as the reviews could well be completely fake.

And more importantly, you reminded me of the most ... interesting ... comment section I've ever seen on a posted review (Liberty's). So thank you for that, was a fun re-read.

I played about 20 hours into the game. I came to the conclusion that it was worth the money I spent - but then again, there are dozens of games on this site that I would have gladly paid $50 for, and Astoria is certainly not one of them. I eventually decided Astoria was not worth my time, and stopped.

It might be worth YOUR time, if the main thing you want from an RPG is a ... certain kind of challenge? The game is difficult, but mostly for the wrong reasons. It reminded me of a Rom Hack I recently played of FF4. 90% of it was just the same as the base game, except all enemies were 100%-200% stronger and gave far less gold and experience. It kept the same (actually pretty poor, in retrospect, not that the original wasn't groundbreaking) story, shoddy translation, VERY familiar maps and systems, and otherwise felt like things we've all been playing for 30 years. And the other 10% of the hack was original content - but horribly unbalanced, unfair, and unfun.

Or at least, that was my memory. I uninstalled after those 20 hours, and it's been almost 5 years now, so take that with a grain of salt.

One of my friends finally convinced me to play this ... and I am *utterly baffled* by the hype.

The story seemed vague and bizarre just for the sake of being vague and bizarre. It struck me as being symbolic. Not symbolic of anything in particular. Just symbolic, like a bad paper by a pretentious college freshman. Maybe the author hates Capitalism, and is trying to show us why. Or Religion. Or Alcoholic Fathers. Or Modern Society in general. Or Sugar. Or - and this is my theory - he hates people who enjoy playing RPGs.

The big twist - and I see no point in using spoilers since it's so blindingly obvious from about 5 minutes in - is that you're playing the Bad Guy. *Gasp. Shock. Horror*. It has been done far, far, FAR better. Both before and since.

Most of all - striping away the story, music, atmosphere, tone, etc - OFF is by FAR the worst actual *game* I've ever seen on this site.

The battles and systems some how wind up mechanically *worse* off than all those 'my first RPG' projects that use all default settings and have 30 minutes of gameplay. OFF's battle challenge-level is so low that the apparently unaltered 2k Auto-Battle appears to be the recommended way to fight. There's practically no need to use any of your abilities, ever.

And the puzzles. LORD, the puzzles. Most of them barely qualify as such. There are at least a dozen of the "See this number over here? Go enter it over there" variety. While the few remaining puzzles are completely illogical. Even strictly following a walkthrough, you'll have no idea why the solution given is the correct one.

A lot of people seem to love this game. I cannot possibly fathom why; but who knows, maybe you'll also disagree with me. The only other reason I could suggest playing it at all is that the game is very short ... so you'll be able to catch the numerous shout-outs to OFF elsewhere on the site. In much, much, MUCH better games.

That's not the classic FF spoiler I was expecting.



At least, that's more what I was thinking of when talking about a way to save poor Obsidian.

Pssst ... do it in a patch. Do it! :)

That's a weird way to spell Agrias.