#off2025

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I just noticed the rollercoaster photograph is signed on the back...

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Last thing for today- the entirety of the Batter's manual from the physical edition scanned. Enjoy 🩵

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Ok, here are my initial thoughts about OF:

I really enjoyed how Pablo was characterized in the comic. He is very very selfish. As a cat, part of that is to be expected, but it is the same selfishness that is ultimately exhibited by the other adults in the narrative who believe that Hugo is in proximity to something that they desire...

It makes it so that even though they are all well-meaning and do genuinely seem to care about him, they still don't really See him over their fixation on what they believe his Mother will allow them to accomplish. Their warmth to him has always felt incidental in that way. (Which is deeply ironic considering that Hugo is actually the "magician" responsible for the creation of the world, but it is very interesting that he does not seem to be aware of this himself at any point in the narrative.)

I have mentioned before that to me a core theme in OFF is the exploitation of children, and this comic really hammers that home to me- though the twist at the end re-frames a lot of The Guardian's behavior seeing as though they did not forget and abandon Hugo maliciously, but rather the Queen actively erased their memories of him once the Zones were complete...it adds a layer of tragedy, though It's not as if any of them protested much to his isolation even when they DID remember him- Judge moves on near immediately and Enoch resigns himself to the Queen's orders. To me that is an even greater tragedy- that either way, whether they were aware of it or not, Hugo probably would have most likely suffered the same fate.

This is our first good look of what the world of OFF looked like in the before times as mentioned by various characters, most notably the Zodiacs.

Going to state the obvious here for a moment, but it has been stated that Hugo is responsible for creating the world of OFF. It only makes sense that upon its death, his power would need to be utilized again to "fix" it. It appears that this process had already started happening during this comic, hence his sickness corresponding with the gradual shift of the landscape. The Queen then decides it would be best to hide Hugo away and erase all traces of him to cover up the suffering he must endure to create their new utopia. She reminds me so much of Batter in this way...they both abhor suffering. Though their solutions to it are very different.

Valerie remembers...does this mean that only the Guardians and their subjects were made to forget? Or only those that made some attempt to establish a relationship with Hugo? (Which would make the comic's care in showing his disinterest make sense.)

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I have also read the prologue comic and I have many thoughts, give me a moment to gather them. I am also thinking of scanning the pages so that will take me some time as well.

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Today is a good day.

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Oh yes and before I forget. Bingo :>

Only explaining some of these.

The combat in the remake is something I would revisit simply for fun now. It is so snappy and satisfying. I probably should have phrased that square as "...become one of my favorite aspects of the game" because story will always be king.

Surprisingly yes, I did favor the remastered soundtrack if we define that by songs I would actually seek out to listen to in my leisure. While yes, the original soundtrack will forever remain iconic, there were admittedly not many tracks I desired to listen to outside of playing the game.

Batterie propaganda.

Please ignore me in the last image.

Here is the blank again.

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I don't really have much to say about The Room and ending.... it stayed largely the same. I suppose if anything I can mention the one part of the game that I was truly apprehensive about- and it actually managed to make me choke up. The new ending song.

I could do nothing but listen in surprise. It felt like a direct response to Somewhere Over The Rainbow, a song about feeling unsatisfied with life and longing for something more, something less painful. And here this song says, I know that it hurts, but it's worth sticking around for when things finally get better. It touched my heart so deeply. It felt like a testament to how far this game, and perhaps even Mortis had come. I am still feeling so many emotions about it.

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The End