I am not a fan of platformers. I am not a fan of cutesy art styles. I am not a fan of older indie games. Everything about FEZ initially put me off. Every single time I saw screenshots or gameplay, I looked at it as just another boring late 2000's/early 2010's "indie masterpiece" with a gimmick and nothing more. Because of this, understand that when I say FEZ is a masterpiece that is unlike anything that has come before or after, I really mean it.
On the surface, the game is a tough sell. A short collectathon where you rotate the world to pick up cubes and a handful of other collectibles in a sizeable world map. Nothing bad, just nothing immediately grabbing either. Screenshots don't help either; the game just doesn't initially look interesting in stills.
FEZ is the type of game where playing it yourself is the only way to truly understand it. FEZ's gameplay, controls, visuals and sound all come together in a specific way that can only be experienced though interaction. I watched someone play FEZ before ever touching the game, and I thought it looked boring. It wasn't until I got my hands on the game where everything clicked.
Once you get into it, FEZ is fun from beginning to end. A lot of people don't like the platforming in this game, which genuinely baffles me. The game just feels fun to move around in. Gomez has this specific feel and weight to him that is unmatched outside of Sonic maybe. It's hard to articulate, but FEZ is the only platformer I've played where the physics and feel of the character is as good as the platforming, which it in itself is really good too. The game is constantly throwing new mechanics and challenges at you. While the game never goes into much depth with them, the point is that almost every challenge feels unique and different to play. The platforming is connected together by one large world map, which might be the most addicted I've been to exploring a map ever. Every room is highlighted with treasure, and is given a nice gold sheen once you're done. A lot of the satisfaction has to do with the puzzles and secrets themselves.
And speaking of secrets, FEZ has a largely secret underside that is surprisingly overlooked. After you've finished the base game, New Game+ turns FEZ from a platformer with puzzle elements into a puzzle game with platformer elements. FEZ includes an entire language, numerical system, and movement cipher, all to make its secrets more elusive. Writing stuff down and taking notes is a heavily underappreciated and underutilized part of games that have sadly become more and more rare in games. A game designed around notes can provide a more thrilling and immersive experience than any quest log or information map could provide, and FEZ defines itself by that. The puzzles themselves too are no easy feat. For most of them, you're going to have to carefully observe your surroundings and use all your abilities available to solve them. There's also Red Cubes; puzzles that took the entire community coming together to help solve. Hell, one to this day isn't actually truly solved, being brute forced by the community by inputting every single possible combination for weeks, which I think perfectly showcases the intrigue of the mystery and the enjoyment of puzzle solving in FEZ.
The general presentation of this game is also unbelievable. I already mentioned how important it is to play FEZ to truly understand it, but I just want to reiterate. FEZ's world is animated, and constantly moving. There's so much flair and love in the environment that is so easy to overlook. The visuals would be nothing though without the incredible sound design and music. Every interaction and movement in this game has a sound, and it is genuinely some of the best sound effects I've ever seen in the game. From Gomez's footsteps changing from what he's stepping on, each region having its own bird species to personalize their atmosphere, valves and wheels playing small little tunes when you turn them, to that ever satisfying noise that plays when you solve a puzzle, FEZ has a audible identity I've yet seen matched. It's kind of scary how much personality seeps out of every aspect of this game. And this identity extends into the music too. The soundtrack is what convinced me to stop overlooking FEZ and to actually try it. The entire OST is fantastic, and contains some of my favorite songs in gaming (and possibly ever). Just as each object and action is defined by a sound, every room and discovery is defined by a song. I won't go into examples here, as I think it speaks for itself.
Overall, I can't recommend FEZ enough. Despite being one of the most iconic indies ever, I genuinely don't think I've seen a game as relatively overlooked and underappreciated as FEZ. No one talks about it, no one makes fanart, no one mods it, no one makes countless shitty video essays on it. My best guess is that most people feel the same way I did; I knew about it for years, but I was put off at a surface level and thought it looked generic. FEZ probably isn't for everyone, however if anything above looked interesting, please play it.
Spoiler warning for here on out. I'm going to leave this review untagged just so more people read the above and hopefully play it, but I can't not talk about some other aspects.
First, I want to mention the story and worldbuilding. I haven't researched into the lore and story of FEZ, only picking up the pieces it does show, however everything about it is super interesting. It feels like every game I love nowadays has some sort of sense of scale to it with godlike beings, and FEZ might be the best execution of it I've seen. The aliens are genuinely terrifying. They're kept so vague that I can't tell their intentions. Their designs are so simplified that I can't tell if that's what they actually look like. Their home world(?) is perfectly bizarre and has an overwhelming song that reinforces the scale. The scariest moment in the game for me involved them, that being the skull room. I have no clue what this room means or why it exists, but holding the skull of one of these aliens was so unsettling to me. To see their physical existence and to hold it in my hands just felt overwhelmingly wrong, which can extend to the entire room. I just felt out of place, like I wasn't meant to discover this. The song here too being one of, if not my favorite in the game really played into this too (coincidentally it was the song that convinced me to play the game). It's been a while since I've felt so uncomfortable yet equally mesmerized and intrigued by something in a game.
Finally, above all I mentioned before, even the puzzles themselves, FEZ is a game about scope. The scope of your world being tripled by the third dimension, the scope of the map and the secrets deep within, the scope of the puzzles and the intricate solutions, the scope of the past and what came before, the scope of the universe and those who live in it, and the scope of existence itself and everything that makes it up.
The ending of FEZ is something that I haven't been able to get out of my mind from the second after I finished the game. The visuals combined with the somber yet hypnotic tune creates an ending that's hard to describe with words. It seems sudden and out of place first, but just as the world gets realized as you play through it on New Game+, so does the ending. I'm not sure what the ending means for the story, if anything, but I know what it means for me, and that's all that really matters. And I can't think of a better way to end it then Gomez's celebration. However, there's also the second ending. I already went in with low expectations based off of what I was told, and I get why. The second ending is untriumphant, silent, and quickly over with, and that's the best part. The first ending is all about showing the beauty in creation itself. The entire game has you expanding your scope, so the ending pulls you back home to show you the complexity of yourself on the smallest scale possible. For the second ending to be grandiose, it would have to take away from what the first ending means. And in that sense, I think it's perfect.
On the surface, the game is a tough sell. A short collectathon where you rotate the world to pick up cubes and a handful of other collectibles in a sizeable world map. Nothing bad, just nothing immediately grabbing either. Screenshots don't help either; the game just doesn't initially look interesting in stills.
FEZ is the type of game where playing it yourself is the only way to truly understand it. FEZ's gameplay, controls, visuals and sound all come together in a specific way that can only be experienced though interaction. I watched someone play FEZ before ever touching the game, and I thought it looked boring. It wasn't until I got my hands on the game where everything clicked.
Once you get into it, FEZ is fun from beginning to end. A lot of people don't like the platforming in this game, which genuinely baffles me. The game just feels fun to move around in. Gomez has this specific feel and weight to him that is unmatched outside of Sonic maybe. It's hard to articulate, but FEZ is the only platformer I've played where the physics and feel of the character is as good as the platforming, which it in itself is really good too. The game is constantly throwing new mechanics and challenges at you. While the game never goes into much depth with them, the point is that almost every challenge feels unique and different to play. The platforming is connected together by one large world map, which might be the most addicted I've been to exploring a map ever. Every room is highlighted with treasure, and is given a nice gold sheen once you're done. A lot of the satisfaction has to do with the puzzles and secrets themselves.
And speaking of secrets, FEZ has a largely secret underside that is surprisingly overlooked. After you've finished the base game, New Game+ turns FEZ from a platformer with puzzle elements into a puzzle game with platformer elements. FEZ includes an entire language, numerical system, and movement cipher, all to make its secrets more elusive. Writing stuff down and taking notes is a heavily underappreciated and underutilized part of games that have sadly become more and more rare in games. A game designed around notes can provide a more thrilling and immersive experience than any quest log or information map could provide, and FEZ defines itself by that. The puzzles themselves too are no easy feat. For most of them, you're going to have to carefully observe your surroundings and use all your abilities available to solve them. There's also Red Cubes; puzzles that took the entire community coming together to help solve. Hell, one to this day isn't actually truly solved, being brute forced by the community by inputting every single possible combination for weeks, which I think perfectly showcases the intrigue of the mystery and the enjoyment of puzzle solving in FEZ.
The general presentation of this game is also unbelievable. I already mentioned how important it is to play FEZ to truly understand it, but I just want to reiterate. FEZ's world is animated, and constantly moving. There's so much flair and love in the environment that is so easy to overlook. The visuals would be nothing though without the incredible sound design and music. Every interaction and movement in this game has a sound, and it is genuinely some of the best sound effects I've ever seen in the game. From Gomez's footsteps changing from what he's stepping on, each region having its own bird species to personalize their atmosphere, valves and wheels playing small little tunes when you turn them, to that ever satisfying noise that plays when you solve a puzzle, FEZ has a audible identity I've yet seen matched. It's kind of scary how much personality seeps out of every aspect of this game. And this identity extends into the music too. The soundtrack is what convinced me to stop overlooking FEZ and to actually try it. The entire OST is fantastic, and contains some of my favorite songs in gaming (and possibly ever). Just as each object and action is defined by a sound, every room and discovery is defined by a song. I won't go into examples here, as I think it speaks for itself.
Overall, I can't recommend FEZ enough. Despite being one of the most iconic indies ever, I genuinely don't think I've seen a game as relatively overlooked and underappreciated as FEZ. No one talks about it, no one makes fanart, no one mods it, no one makes countless shitty video essays on it. My best guess is that most people feel the same way I did; I knew about it for years, but I was put off at a surface level and thought it looked generic. FEZ probably isn't for everyone, however if anything above looked interesting, please play it.
Spoiler warning for here on out. I'm going to leave this review untagged just so more people read the above and hopefully play it, but I can't not talk about some other aspects.
First, I want to mention the story and worldbuilding. I haven't researched into the lore and story of FEZ, only picking up the pieces it does show, however everything about it is super interesting. It feels like every game I love nowadays has some sort of sense of scale to it with godlike beings, and FEZ might be the best execution of it I've seen. The aliens are genuinely terrifying. They're kept so vague that I can't tell their intentions. Their designs are so simplified that I can't tell if that's what they actually look like. Their home world(?) is perfectly bizarre and has an overwhelming song that reinforces the scale. The scariest moment in the game for me involved them, that being the skull room. I have no clue what this room means or why it exists, but holding the skull of one of these aliens was so unsettling to me. To see their physical existence and to hold it in my hands just felt overwhelmingly wrong, which can extend to the entire room. I just felt out of place, like I wasn't meant to discover this. The song here too being one of, if not my favorite in the game really played into this too (coincidentally it was the song that convinced me to play the game). It's been a while since I've felt so uncomfortable yet equally mesmerized and intrigued by something in a game.
Finally, above all I mentioned before, even the puzzles themselves, FEZ is a game about scope. The scope of your world being tripled by the third dimension, the scope of the map and the secrets deep within, the scope of the puzzles and the intricate solutions, the scope of the past and what came before, the scope of the universe and those who live in it, and the scope of existence itself and everything that makes it up.
The ending of FEZ is something that I haven't been able to get out of my mind from the second after I finished the game. The visuals combined with the somber yet hypnotic tune creates an ending that's hard to describe with words. It seems sudden and out of place first, but just as the world gets realized as you play through it on New Game+, so does the ending. I'm not sure what the ending means for the story, if anything, but I know what it means for me, and that's all that really matters. And I can't think of a better way to end it then Gomez's celebration. However, there's also the second ending. I already went in with low expectations based off of what I was told, and I get why. The second ending is untriumphant, silent, and quickly over with, and that's the best part. The first ending is all about showing the beauty in creation itself. The entire game has you expanding your scope, so the ending pulls you back home to show you the complexity of yourself on the smallest scale possible. For the second ending to be grandiose, it would have to take away from what the first ending means. And in that sense, I think it's perfect.
Minish
1 year ago