by FEZ is a 3-D game with one game-altering twist. Instead of rotating your avatar (Gomez) and your camera around in the world you play in, you instead rotate the world around Gomez at 90 degree intervals while Gomez is always confined to two-dimensional movement upon the either the X or Y and the Z axes. Aside from providing an interesting mechanic to allow problem-solving in a platforming setting, this also just provides an interesting method of understanding the perspectives of 2-D vs 3-D movement in general. For instance, there is a section with a seemingly endless ocean that you can swim across in a on-dimensional line. After swimming out for a minute or so, simply rotating your perspective of the world once will place Gomez right back at the island, since from a two dimensional perspective looking at Gomez in the opposite direction he was swimming in would indicate that he is right next to the island itself. The game does not increase Gomez’s size, accounting for size discrepancies however, since perspectively Gomez would appear to be larger compared to the island in the distance than he actually was (and perhaps that’s a game for another time) but as that would ruin the game’s mechanics, I have no problem with this.
Plotwise, the world of FEZ is going to blow up because of the broken nature of three-dimensional movement impeding upon the two-dimensional and it’s up to you to collect 32 cubes (many of which are broken into multiple pieces) around the world. As far as I can tell, that’s pretty much it. There are no enemies, no villains, no spikes or catapults–it’s simply a game where you travel around quaint 2-D/3-D environments and collect cubes.
Now I’ll admit that so far, the game sounds a bit dull. In fact, while trying to critique FEZ, I underwent an internal struggle. If you haven’t heard before, I hate about 90% of the world’s puzzle games. As a whole I think they are a waste of time under the guise of a fun experience. When it comes to FEZ, two years ago I had actually played about 30 minutes of the game before–enough to identify it (incorrectly I admit) as just another 2-D puzzle game with a cheap gimmick that has no substance. While I can’t sit here and tell you that FEZ is a revolutionary product that breaks the boundaries of what a game can be, I also know that my initial analysis of the game was incorrect–the game isn’t really that bad. One problem I may have as a player is that when I play a game, I’m constantly looking for a challenge; I’m constantly looking to test my skills. Realistically, FEZ is not challenging. You have infinite lives, immediate respawns off any cliff you’ve fallen from and autosaves at every corner. However, If you slow down and don’t try to take it too seriously, it’s actually kind of fun. The game can be used as a sort of reprieve from complexity and its appeal falls in line with games like Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie–the reward isn’t necessarily the defeat of another great enemy, but the collection of a piece of something resulting from the exploration of an interesting colorful world.
In the end, I realized that in some ways, the world may need games like this. Maybe I’m just feeling a little leniency from my usual harsher judgement of puzzle games. Maybe FEZ got lucky and in the moment I needed something a little slower-moving to provide a respite from the intensities of my usual challenging repertoire of games. Or maybe this challenge of Lepcis’s and mine is giving me a better appreciation and perspective over gaming as a whole. Regardless, I believe that FEZ needs to go into Tier 1, if only to remind stiff gamers like me that sometimes a game can be simple and relaxed, while still providing an engaging concept worth exploring. If you like Platformers that bend reality, this one might be for you.
