Often the name of a video game doesn’t feel that important, but it can have a big impact on how you perceive it. When watching a showcase full of trailers, names can get you more excited for a new title, make you roll your eyes, or even go in one ear and out of the other. I’ve lost track of how many generically named games I struggled to remember, even ones I liked and wanted to recommend to a friend. Thankfully the game I’m reviewing now has no chance of leaving my brain, because The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time has probably the best name I’ve ever heard.
It accurately describes the game too, or rather the concept of the game. The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time is a fictional remake, made by two friends who loved playing it as children and wanted to celebrate it. This SNES era title is full of nostalgia for them, and even without the rights to the game they go ahead and start creating it. With no context to the events happening in front of you it’s jarring by design, but there’s some somewhat handy developer commentary to get you up to speed.
You will have no idea what’s going on when you start (or I suppose start to finish) this adventure though, with basic mechanics entirely unexplained. That’s where the scraps of manual you find come in handy, revealing basic information and combos that’ll surely help you on your way. It’s all a little bit Tunic, and the developers clearly know that given that one wears a Tunic T-shirt in cutscenes.
Battles in The Greatest RPG of All Time are turn based, and your party of four characters all have different moves they can utilise. These deal different types of damage, and if arranged in certain orders will combo together to unleash massive screen filling attacks. Of course when you start the game you don’t know this, but slowly pieces of this elaborate video game mechanic puzzle will come together and help you beat the next battle against a foe weak to one specific attack.
It’s not just combat you’ll struggle to understand though, it’s basic exploration too. Early on I found a locked chest that I assumed I needed to find a key for, but it was actually already in my inventory in a list of dozens of completely alien items I could never know the use for. The idea of having to piece together how a game even plays in the end game without any context is seriously clever, and that’s before the real twist reveals itself.
At any time while you play you can choose to log out, which I thought just sounded like a way to go back to the title screen. Before long though you’re encouraged more and more to do so, and when you do you’ll find yourself in a three dimensional space. This almost Backrooms style location features looping conversations between the developers, alongside locked areas that require you to input different passwords which you can work out with a bit of sleuthing.
The most magical part of The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time is how these two portions of the game blend together, with solutions you can only find by switching between them. By getting far enough in the maze you even unlock new save files from different portions of the retro RPG, allowing you to explore even more of its world. Alongside this you’ll hear the developers argue about the remake itself, and eventually uncover more drama I won’t spoil here. There’s a whole lot more to discover in The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time, but ruining the surprises would be very cruel.
On every level this bizarre video game mashup appeals to me, but it does have some issues I have to mention. The biggest of these is quite how easy to get stuck it is, with so many mysteries and levels of secrets to uncover. There were multiple occasions where I had to resort to using a guide, and this meant I missed out on those exciting eureka moments. The RPG combat being more puzzle based also just sort of made me miss playing an actual turn-based RPG, instead of this pretend one.
If you want to play something truly unique, there are few games I’d recommend more than The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time. If you can embrace the confusion, fight through the mysteries (and don’t mind using a guide or two) then this is one creative experience that you should absolutely explore though.