The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time: Creepy Puzzle Vibes | The Gamerheads Podcast

Those old enough, like me, probably remember renting RPGs and stumbling across a sacred save file. The kind where a previous player had already made it to the final battle and left behind an overpowered party. It always made me wonder, “How did they get this strong in just a few days?” There was an unwritten rule back then: you didn’t overwrite or delete that save file.

That’s exactly how The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time begins. Going in, I assumed I was about to play a traditional RPG. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Jumping into the game, I notice there are three save files, although I can only pick one; the other two are glitchy. I choose the only one I can and I immediately noticed on Steam that I already had almost every achievement unlocked. That instantly told me one of two things: either the game had some major endgame shenanigans waiting for me, or everything was eventually going to reset and force me to start over.

I’ve played RPGs that begin near the finale before, with In Stars and Time immediately coming to mind, so seeing my characters at absurdly high levels didn’t initially seem strange.I marched confidently straight into the final boss fight, which is exactly where the game begins, assuming it would be a complete cakewalk. It was not.

I couldn’t land a single hit, and my party was wiped out almost immediately. Still, I wasn’t surprised. My immediate thought was, “Okay, this is expected. The rest of the game is probably going to be about figuring out how to eventually beat this boss.”

I load the last save file and feel like I’ve been thrown much farther back than expected. My team is gone, which makes me assume there must have been a whole stretch of game between that opening boss fight and wherever the save file dropped me.

The first thing I notice is a speech bubble. I interact with it, and it turns out to be a recording from the developer thanking me for playing The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time. Weird, but not that weird. Then I find another recording, this time with the developer casually explaining how they designed some of the game’s puzzles.

Still not that weird, I guess.

To be honest, I initially thought the game was broken. There were moments where my characters wandered into areas that didn’t seem like they should be accessible. I walked through tables. Even the puzzles the developer described as difficult to create in those audio recordings didn’t actually feel that complicated to solve. I began to think, “Am I missing something?”

I eventually start discovering pages from the game’s instruction booklet, and that’s when my gaming senses really start tingling. Jotted down notes are scattered throughout the pages, almost like someone else had already had played the game before me, trying to figure things out.

Then I run into a few enemies and quickly realize something important: I actually need to study the booklet to understand how to defeat certain enemies and survive what the game is throwing at me.

Eventually, I come across the item that changes everything: a VHS tape. Watching it, the developers discuss an area they both agree still needs collision mechanics added to the fencing. Otherwise, players might accidentally stumble into the dev room. That’s when I realize they’re describing the exact room I’m standing in. I start to wonder if they ever actually fixed the issue. Then I step forward. A leap of faith. And suddenly, the game reveals what it truly is.

While The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time contains some RPG elements, I slowly realize the game is actually a puzzle game at its core. By solving puzzles hidden throughout the dev room, I begin unlocking additional VHS tapes and developer videos. Some solutions require me to dive back into the RPG itself to uncover clues, while others force me to carefully study the instruction booklet pages I’ve collected along the way.

And as I dig deeper, it becomes clear there’s far more happening beneath the surface than I initially realized. The VHS snippets begin documenting growing tension between the two developers. But there’s something else happening too. Something deeper. I start uncovering additional clues and pieces of evidence suggesting that someone, or something, is trying to communicate with me directly.

At that point, The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time stops feeling like a quirky meta RPG and transforms into a mystery. A mystery with a creepy vibe.

Parts of the experience reminded me of Inscryption, particularly in how the game constantly plays with meta elements. The instruction booklet puzzles brought Tunic to mind, especially since one of the developers, Jacob, can even be seen wearing a Tunic shirt in one of the VHS recordings.

While most of the puzzles are well designed and easy enough to follow, there were still moments where I had no idea where the game wanted me to go next. I can freely move between the RPG itself and the dev room, using one space to uncover clues that help solve mysteries in the other. In many ways, the two worlds function like portals feeding information back and forth between each other. But setting the premise at the end of the game creates an uneasy feeling for me. Because technically, I’m already at the end of the RPG. Mentally, I kept thinking, “What else can I even do here? I’m at the end of the game. There’s nowhere left to go.”

And yet, the game constantly pushes back against me.

“The carpet paths always lead somewhere.”

Final Grade: B+

I’m not going to dive much deeper into the puzzles themselves. That’s something you really need to discover on your own. But I will say this: the more I uncovered, the more uneasy I became. Part of that comes from the game’s overall presentation. The developers do a great job capturing this strange, janky atmosphere that constantly makes the experience feel slightly off in an intentional way. But most of the unease comes from the growing realization that there’s something else communicating with me from within the game itself.

And honestly? It’s kind of creepy.

Review code provide by Plan of Attack on behalf of Coin Drop Games