Every once in a while a game comes out that uses the medium to push the boundaries of interactivity and adds new facets to what it means to play it. Titles like Doki Doki Literature Club, Tunic, and Inscryption all take standard genres and mix them up with fourth-wall breaking moments and meta-gaming approaches. The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time is another fantastic game to add to this list and one that uses the framing mechanism of a classic JRPG being revisited for nostalgia to weave an impressively complex and layered adventure into the very fabric of making a game.
First things first, that title is eye-catching but too unwieldy to type out in full very often. That being said, it is entirely accurate as to what the game purports to be. Shortly after beginning your time with the game you’ll get access to behind the scenes videos from the developers explaining the motivation for – and process of – remaking the end of the greatest RPG of all time. This RPG is never specified and in some ways acts as a cipher for various 16-bit titles that have reached legendary status for original fans and newcomers alike. In other ways it is clearly The Remake’s own distinct thing, as you play through alternative versions of the titular End various times. In a neat trick, you unlock the majority of the Steam achievements as soon as you begin, giving the impression that you have played through and loaded into a late-game save for a game that in actuality does not exist.
After some enjoyable standard JRPG exploration and basic battles, you reform your imprisoned companions. The protagonist is an axe-wielding mage called Rose, whilst her team is made up of the undead skeleton pirate, Captain No-Beard, a cute little robot called Robert, and a somewhat out of place edgy vampire called Darkhart. Each of these characters has unique skills to use in combat, with a simple (at first) system where each move is linked to a directional button. As you progress you’ll need to utilise specific combos, both individually and in tandem with other team members. This seemingly basic turn-based process becomes the key to some of the most fiendish puzzles in the game.
During the in-game developer videos, we meet the two students behind the game, Jacob and Lucas, childhood friends who bonded over the original game. Lucas is seen wearing a Tunic t-shirt, a nice nod to the influence of that game has on The Remake. One of Tunic’s most distinctive aspects was the centrality of the manual, a document that unlocked as you progressed and slowly revealed a deeper riddle at the heart of the game, and The Remake picks up on this idea to great effect. At first you have access to very little information but each puzzle you solve or secret area you find generally rewards you with a manual page that slowly fills out everything you need to dig deeper into the metagame.
Aside from the pixel art main game you can log out and explore a strange, backrooms-esque 3D ‘real’ world that serves as the entrance to more layers of riddles. False walls, destructible barriers, and areas gated off with puzzles that require you to look for solutions in the development videos or manual abound, as well as an entire secondary set of hidden areas for yet another secret. The end result is a dizzying and immersive experience where the ‘game’ itself becomes almost secondary to the investigation of what lies behind it.
At its heart, this is a game about what it means to make games, what motivates developers, and to what extent nostalgia defines and distorts our relationship to the medium. While this sounds somewhat arch and philosophical, in practice the integration of gameplay, meta-puzzle solving, and reflection is so skilfully managed that they come together to create a truly memorable experience – and even one that creates a false memory of a game that you haven’t actually played before coming to terms with its End.
I found the majority of the puzzles in The Remake to be extremely well judged. Once you absorb yourself into the game’s framing mechanism you’ll constantly be pushing further and deeper into the mystery and progress is always possible with the tools that the game gives you. I’ll be completely honest and admit that I sought hints from the developers to complete this review, and Lucas was extremely generous with his help – even offering tiered solutions rather than simply giving me the answer. Ideally, this is a game that will generate a community of players looking for hidden lore and solutions and I’d recommend taking your time to check all of the information at your disposal when stuck. Some solutions require you to take a lateral approach whilst others are a simple matter of finding the right information from an area you might not have visited.