OFF: Zone 1 Guide - Befenn.com

Being an indie RPG that’s well over a decade old, OFF is quite an obtuse game to get into, and it features a cavalcade of puzzles that can break the brain, be pretty frustrating if you can’t figure them out, and generally take quite a long time to crack.

This begins as soon as the first Zone, which starts you off with a relatively straightforward introduction, then throws you into the complete darkness, has you cracking codes to an elevator, and requires you to listen carefully.

The remaster doesn’t change a lick of this, as it usually keeps the dialogue, puzzles, and world design the same as they were originally, just a little touched up and with a different OST to boot.

I’ll be guiding you through the entirety of Zone 1, giving you the way to find the solution to each puzzle, and also telling you the answer to each problem, wherever that’s applicable.

Damien

After riding the train and hearing about how smoke is produced, you can head up for a chest, then head down, where you’ll get your first party member. Going up, you’ll speak to the miner again, setting off on your journey to get into the mines.

You can grab a free Joker in a hidden chest behind the topmost wall on the island where you can enter the mines, then delve into the cavern, where you’ll be forced into a rather easy combat encounter with a bunch of ghosts.

Exploring around, you’ll find a few optional chests with goodies just by searching around the mines, but heading down and to the right, then up the ladder, will take you to the Barns, which you’ll need to clear first to make any progress.

Pentel

Head over to the right and save, then enter the barn, where you’ll succeed by purifying 5 Spectres. You can leave and save to refill your health at any point in the process, so don’t feel afraid to back out if you need to.

For the last spectre, you’ll come across a slide puzzle that can be solved by moving the rock near the bottom, then pushing one up, and slipping through the gap. After that, you can exit and see a scene featuring Dedan being rather cruel.

Heading back to the mines, darkness will envelop you once you take the newly opened path to the right. There are a ton of items to find on the left side, but you may want to wait on grabbing all of those.

The group of four small spectres you find here can be incredibly annoying, so you may want to save up your healing items for this point, using them after you inevitably get shot 27 times in the chest.

Screenshot of Zacharie's Mines Dialogue in OFF.

You can avoid these enemies by taking your way out and not lingering around and going for optional collectibles yet, as that will be far easier later on, and you can always wait a little bit for your stat boosts.

To make progress, you’ll need to find the switch by heading up through the gates, heading to the left, and then down. Head back up and to the right, past the blocks that retracted into the floor, and you’ll find Zacharie, the traditional items merchant.

I’d recommend stocking up on a few items here, then going back and collecting items if you wish. Equipment should be your first priority, then healing items like luck tickets and Jokers.

Shachihata

Screenshot of a Large Suit-wearing Burnt in OFF.

Heading up from the shop, you’ll be taken to a man guarding an elevator, and after getting another lore dump, namely that you need to go find the postal service, you can run up to all 99999 floors of this building.

Start by going to the roof, where you’ll find the Judge and get some guidance. Namely, that one of the four Ground Floor rooms has employees all saying the same numbers, and that you should prioritize lowercase over uppercase.

Naturally, head to the ground floor on 00001 and inspect the multitude of employees there. Find the ones saying the same numbers over and over, and you’ll find that you should pay attention to the bottom left room, where the employees all say “stamp 10258”.

Enter 10258 on the elevator, and you’ll find yourself at the postal service. You’ll encounter an employee who turns into an enemy as you try to get to the next floor, but they aren’t too difficult to dispatch.

On the next floor, you’ll find a note, the first version. Take note of the word “Sixth” here, as you’ll need to find a number on all the different notes scattered about this floor.

The next note you’ll find has “Eight”, and before heading upstairs, you can head to the left and get an Aura of Justice. The third version has “Single”, the Fourth version has “Four”, fittingly. Heading over to the right, you can go upstairs into a closed-off room.

This has the fifth version, with “Five”, and heading back down and to the left, the final note next to the guy guarding the door has “two”, forming the full code, “681452”, which you need to say to the man guarding the secret elevator.

After fighting them, you get death threats from Dedan, unlocking Alma as a tramway destination. You can also go ahead and visit a random floor for absolutely zero reward, then head back to the ground floor to take the tram.

Alma

This next puzzle is one of the hardest ones, having you answer questions based on the three posters on the wall. You’d usually have to denote several details from them, then answer the quiz, but I’ll just give you the cheat sheet.

The third comes from Orta, the Holy Trinity is made of Roses, Our Lady wears Jersey Number Six, there are 22 threes in June, and it’s Cyrille, Kevin, and Jonas. And, the final question, the two-digit number is 87. Now fight the man.

This leads up to a large area surrounded by pools of meat, and another fight, but after that, you’ll get a save point and a shop. To get to Dedan, you need to open up the blocks that block the entrance to the middle, so head to the left and get in another fight.

Call the pedalo at the walk sign, and interact with it to ride through the meat waters, taking note of the numbers you find along the way, namely “1, 4”, “2, 9”, “3, 8”, and “4, 2”, with another fight up at the top.

OFF's Meat Fountain segment containing a Cube Puzzle.

Heading to the right, there are a bunch of blocks in keypad formation, and another fight to access the pedalo again. Before you do that, though, head even further to the right, fight another guy, then call the pedalo there.

Take note of these numbers as you head down. The pairs of “5, 6”, “6, 5”, and heading even further down grants you an item, as well as another opportunity to use the save point and get some shopping done, where you’ll find “7, 9”, and “8, C” at the bottom.

Back up at the keypad blocks, use the Pedalo to enter the numbers, the first number indicating the order, with the code being 4982659, then enter by pressing the bottom block. Doing this, you can now enter the middle and prepare for a fight.

Screenshot of the Dedan Bossfight in OFF.

Before the encounter, you need to go through a weird maze, where the volume of the music indicates which door is correct, making you go towards whichever door makes the volume the loudest when approached.

After you go through a dozen doors, you’ll be outside with a red save point, and can go directly up to fight Dedan, which will cause the zone to be purified right after you kill him. He’s not too hard, and if you’re struggling, you can spam healing items.

The clock that pops up each turn indicates when he’s doing a super move, and whenever the clock strikes midnight, he can inflict you with a rather nasty status effect, or give himself a very good status effect, such as Hasty.

It’s especially best if you have an item to completely negate the negative status effects he can inflict, but more often than not, you can spam attacks and your strongest competences and get through the battle before he can even get a third super move.

You can head back into Zone 1 once the fight is over to explore the purified version and try to get whatever you missed, but I’d recommend doing that once you’re near the endgame, as there are rather tanky enemies that can kill you pretty easily.