There are plenty of puzzles that can’t be solved initially that you’ll have to return to, so while several of Fez’s secrets are buried deep, you’ll rarely hit a point where you can’t progress at all. Completing Fez only requires you find half of its collectible cubes. I appreciated having to think outside the box and use my iPhone on these, but I don’t think we’re to the point where everyone has a QR reader handy, so it’s an odd, somewhat off-putting assumption to make of players.Īt least these are optional. One minor gripe – there were a couple times where I uncovered hidden QR codes. Where games like Uncharted give you a treasure hunter’s journal, Fez tasks you with creating your own. I found myself scribbling down notes and taking pictures of Fez’s more bewildering eccentricities for future reference. In an age where games tend to handhold to the point of ruining solutions, it’s invigorating to encounter so much peculiar paraphernalia, unsure of its purpose.
#FEZ VIDEO GAME PLATFORMS FULL#
Sometimes unearthing collectibles is as simple as rotating the level a few times to reposition platforms, but what’s most surprising is how many puzzles require thought outside the game’s central mechanic.įez’s arcane world is full of mysterious glyphs, obscure machinery, and all manner of oddities like a strangely engraved bell, bizarre grave-like stones, and an ominous owl statue that looks directly at the camera no matter which angle you spin the environment.
#FEZ VIDEO GAME PLATFORMS SERIES#
The goal of the game is to collect a series of cubes, but there are plenty of other treasures hidden throughout dozens of interconnected areas and sussing out their locations can be extraordinarily difficult. Instead, the emphasis is squarely (pun intended) on exploration and puzzle solving. Fez doesn’t contain any combat, upgrades, or game overs. Shifting perspectives becomes essential when scouring Fez’s world for secrets. Objects that look far away from one angle will appear nearby from another, and the absence of a traversable Z-axis allows such visual trickery to reshape reality. You still move along a 2D plane, but hitting a shoulder button rotates the scene 90 degrees. This is first evident when Gomez encounters an otherworldly cube – a shape that shouldn’t exist in this 2D land – that instils in him the ability to see his once two-dimensional world in 3D. Upon leaving his hut to talk to fellow villagers we’re greeted with lines like “Today is special day,” and “Adventure is ready.” It’s easy to think Fez is shaping up to be a satire of 8-bit gaming, but it soon becomes apparent that it’s its own beast. From the first screen portraying Gomez’s room we’re introduced to some fourth wall breaking humour with a Zelda poster (minus the text) hanging in the background and a drum kit adorned with developer, Polytron’s logo. Now, having played the full game, I can say that Fish and company’s work was not in vain and Fez lives up to the lofty expectations bestowed upon it.įez begins like so many retro adventure and RPGs, with its protagonist – in this case a little blobby fella named Gomez – getting out of bed. It’s such a bleak, desperate portrayal that one wonders if the final product could possibly be worth it. In its most harrowing scene he plainly states that if Fez doesn’t get released he will kill himself. Having been in development for five years, its Montreal-based creator, Phil Fish, has become something of a celebrity going so far as to co-star in the upcoming award-winning documentary, Indie Game: The Movie, which follows Fish’s legal, financial, and emotional tolls as he pours over his labour of love.
Plenty become wildly successful after the fact, but the path to glory is fraught with peril as indie developers toil away in relative obscurity. By and large indie games don’t get a lot of pre-release hype.
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