Fez

Genre: Puzzle-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Fez is a family-friendly Puzzle-Platformer first released on Xbox 360 in 2012 and later ported to numerous other platforms, with the Nintendo Switch getting a port of the game in 2021. Celebrated as an early highlight of the modern indie game scene, with its development a focus of the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, Fez is a game that centers around its mechanic of shifting its 2D perspective in a 3D world, making its 2D Platforming gameplay take on the elements of Puzzle-Platformers by requiring players to use the shifting perspective to get to otherwise inaccessible places.

The visuals here are decent, on the surface appearing to be fairly simple pixel art graphics, but revealed to be 3D visuals with the touch of a button. And while none of these visuals are especially complex or technically impressive, they are still conceptually interesting in a way that has helped to endear this game to players over the last decade or so. These visuals are backed by a great chiptune soundtrack with excellent themes like Adventure, Puzzle and Beacon, although often the game’s soundtrack is more atmospheric than melodic, which works well when it comes to making this game’s exploration of dimensions feel like exploring the unknown.

The gameplay here is both simple and deceptively… not. On its surface, this is a pretty straightforward Platformer with a twist – collect all the yellow cubes, spread throughout the world and requiring players to shift their perspective to make their way from one place to another, as well as to solve puzzles. The game makes use of this for some rather interesting puzzles too, although perhaps some of the most interesting are puzzles that will require far more observational and deductive skills than one might expect from such a simple-looking game. Thankfully, the game only requires players to tackle the more relatively straightforward stuff, leaving the game’s secrets for players who truly want to plumb the depths of its hidden properties. This results in a game that has a little something for everyone regardless of skill level, though it’s not without its problems.

It is extremely, extremely easy to get turned around and lost in this game, in part due to the perspective-shifting gameplay, but also partly due to a woefully insufficient in-game map. This issue can be really frustrating, when you know where you want to go, but can’t recall exactly how to get there. Also, I feel like I should mention that while the perspective-shifting puzzles in this game are quite good, the platforming is only decent, and the physics of jumping and moving around feel a bit stiff. It’s nothing that will outright ruin the experience, but it’s worth noting nonetheless.

Overall, while it’s not perfect, Fez is a Platform-Puzzle game that has aged pretty well over the last decade, and remains fun to play both for more novice gamers as well as expert gamers looking to dig into a game’s deeper secrets. It’s perspective-warping gameplay can make it a bit easy to get lost, but overall this is a game that became well-known for a reason, and if you have yet to try it, now is as good a time as any.

tl;dr – Fez is a Puzzle-Platformer that has players changing perspective in 3D to solve its 2D Platforming puzzles. The presentation is great, the puzzles are clever, and there’s stuff here to cater to those of varying skill levels. It can be a bit too easy to get lost thanks to all the perspective-changing and an inadequate map, but overall this is a solid game that every fan of the genre should play.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Most Overrated

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