Review: Fez

Tommy Cooper would be proud.

Have three black squares on a mass of white squares ever looked quite this cute? 

Fez is a game that wants to make you smile with childish glee, gasp in wonder, and grant you that irreplaceable and increasingly scarce sense of pride in your accomplishments, should you be smart enough to uncover its many secrets. As is tradition, the game flaunts a cutesy exterior hiding a remarkable challenge, and yet buries its toughest puzzles and best tricks so deep you really may never discover them. It’s a prime example of ‘getting out what you put in’; if you’re not one for overly complex puzzles, scribbling down notes on bits of paper, and uncovering every last secret, then you literally won’t see half of what Fez has to offer. Is this the game’s strongest suit or biggest drawback? Well, the answer depends on you. Fortunately, the game has been designed so well, with such a variety of layers appealing to such an array of interests, that whether you see every pixel or just the highlights, you'll fall in love.


On the surface, Fez is a cute platformer that harkens back to the pixel age. Cute characters, straight edges, and seemingly simplistic levels dominate the aesthetic. Throw in a truly wonderful soundtrack, equally inspired by games of yesteryear, and you get one hell of an audio-visual package. But Fez isn't just some nostalgic throwback. With a simple press of a trigger, you'll teleport the game into the 21st century. For, you see, this thing isn't quite as two-dimensional as you might have thought. A tap of LT or RT will rotate the very world ninety degrees around you, revealing the game's core mechanic, and creating a visual effect that never gets old. As you might imagine, this idea goes on to be used in all sorts of inventive ways, and it's a testament to the--and here's a word I rarely use--genius of the developer that you really won't be expecting the sorts of things Fez winds up doing with what is, on the surface, a simple trick. 

Simplicity juxtaposed with intricate detail makes the world of Fez something special to behold 

A point I kept coming back to in my mind as I played Fez was how it is very much a game of two halves. The game itself, for instance, is classed as a puzzle platformer, but I’d be more tempted to call it a puzzler and a platformer. The two genres rarely cross-over, with the platforming being relatively simple when all is said and done. Shifting the world makes for some intriguing jump sequences, but these sections can rarely, if ever, be labelled as puzzling; getting from point A to point B in each screen usually consists of nothing more than rotating the world as much as you like until you spot a reachable ledge, you then jump to said ledge, and the process repeats. It really never gets trickier than that. So if you’re more into the platforming side of things and aren't much of a puzzle fan, there’s still a nice little game to be found in Fez, and the visuals and sound more than make up for any general gameplay shortcomings, but don’t come to the game expecting a huge focus on jumping around and navigating tricky levels with careful timing and skill, the game’s strength is its puzzle element, and in fact there comes a time where the platforming really only serves as a somewhat tiring backtrack to get from puzzle to puzzle. Thankfully, there are several warp zones dotted about the map to get you around faster. Did I mention the game's open-world? Well, it is. And it works. Backtracking frustration aside, having an open world really suits the senses of exploration and discovery that the game tries to evoke.

Seeing everything that Fez has to offer requires two playthroughs, and both will be very different indeed. You can happily go through the game as a simple little puzzle platformer, there’s nothing too challenging about that side of the action apart from some slightly imprecise controls, you’ll see the wonderful environments and pixel art, you’ll hear the retro-inspired soundtrack, and you’ll even get to watch an ending. That’s all fine. In fact, due to the very nature of the game, this is the sort of path most players will take on their first playthrough. But if that’s all you see of Fez, you are truly only seeing half of what the game has to offer. Let's put that into context to explain a little better; the game involves collecting cubes and there are 64 in all. Or maybe there are even more, who knows? Frankly, the game gets very deep and very confusing and I don’t want to make any definitive statements about it, since even I can’t be sure I've seen all it’s hiding, but let’s keep it as basic as possible for now. There are 64 cubes, and 32 of these cubes are required to see the first ending, 64 for the second or ‘true ending’. 32 of them are obtained through conventional platforming, made all the more interesting of course by the unique perspective-shifting mechanic Fez has in place. The other 32 ‘anti-cubes’ are obtained through solving a set of puzzles ranging from the remarkably devious to theoretical physics-whiz levels of intellect. 

Stumbling on the odd city or person to talk to helps to make the world feel alive

See what I’m saying about a game of two halves? The platforming side of Fez really is only one side of a very intriguing coin. Indeed, if you were to imagine Fez as a coin, one side of it would bear a simple smiley face, representing the carefree, breezy nature of the platforming that anyone can enjoy. While the other would show a million painstakingly engraved equations, formulas, and scientific scribblings to confuse all but the finest minds. The sort of notes that, unless you have a photographic memory or unimaginable intelligence, you will have to physically make if you want any hope of finding all of the anti-cubes and fully understanding Fez’s world. By the end of my own adventure, I had reams of paper strewn across the floor, replete with feverishly drawn symbols and incomprehensible codes, as though depicting my own gradual descent into madness. Yet, it’s a side of the game I really enjoyed, a throwback to days gone by when pencil and paper were essential game-solving instruments. Some may simply not enjoy the prospect of having to do more than push buttons, some may say that note-taking breaks their sense of immersion. There’s an argument to be made for both sides, but personally I can’t help but enjoy it, especially in this day and age, when a game goes this far and becomes something more than a series of button inputs. The note-taking is actually only one of the ways Fez makes you look outside the box, I would be remiss to spoil any of these moments, since they’re some of the finest parts of the game, but anyone who remembers how cool it felt to look on the back of the Metal Gear Solid box to find the frequency; expect to have a similar feeling several times throughout Fez.

At its core, Fez is all about exploration, an idea integral to the world of video games for decades, and explored with varying success by countless titles. Fez gets it spot on. It’s as though the game is teaching you more and more as you play, as long as you’re willing to pay attention. The first run-through is effectively your initiation into the way this world works, you’ll begin to understand the deeper role the perspectives can play, and catch glimpses of things you probably won’t understand without returning later and doing an awful lot of thinking. The game is exceptionally clever in this way, you will see hints, clues, and even full-on puzzle solutions scrawled on walls or carved into the environment. The game is a sea of mysteries and secrets, and the more you play and discover, the more you begin wondering how deep it all goes. Nearly everything seems so deliberately and carefully placed that you’ll begin to question even the smallest details of the world around you and wonder if they could somehow be clues that you just aren't understanding. Again, this whole idea will be divisive. To some, the notion of having to figure all this out and unravel the mystery of Fez will be a joyful indulgence, to others a frustrating chore. The game also manages to take it to such extreme levels that, in all honesty, unless you’re exceptionally clever, observant, and/or patient, you probably will wind up looking online for some form of help. At that point, players might feel as though the game has beaten them, and at least personally, the guilt I feel whenever a game confuses me to the point where I have to seek outside help is hard to bear. 

There's a mystery around every corner

Quite fittingly, it’s very hard to argue against a game being too difficult, and it's not like Fez doesn't provide you with more than enough subtle hints and tips to guide you along, but at several points throughout the game I found myself at a loss, not knowing where to go or what to do, with the only puzzles available to me being seemingly impossible to solve—incidentally some of the puzzles literally are impossible to solve in the first playthrough—this was a recurring frustration throughout my time with the game, and it’s a criticism most players will throw at Fez, but ultimately, all I'm really saying is I just wasn't smart enough for it, which is no more a criticism of the game than it is of myself. The argument for a hint system or helpful arrow pointing the way could be made, and it would certainly lead to a lot more players finishing the game and really seeing what it has to offer, but it’d be like asking for an Easy mode in Dark Souls. It defeats the point. This is a puzzle game, and the puzzles are what make it special, solving each conundrum provides an intangible reward; a sense of achievement. Not everyone will be able to solve Fez’s trickiest challenges, but with enough patience and brainpower, perserverant players will be rewarded with a genuine sense of gratification upon completing the game, and even those who can only solve a few of the puzzles can enjoy those unparalleled few moments of fist-pumping joy that can only be experienced when overcoming a true challenge.

It's both unfortunate and profitable for Fez that it came out at a time when the entire scene has become somewhat synonymous with the "Faux-Retro Platformer" because, while that fact naturally diminishes some of the game's originality, it simultaneously accentuates it. Fez sets the bar well and truly above and beyond almost all those imitators that have come before, and it does this by showing them how to do it. And how is that? Well, some would have you believe it's an awfully-complicated affair but I think it can be summed up with just one word: love. Regardless of what one thinks of Phil Fish, it is clear to see the man loves his video games; he feels the same profound adoration for the games of his youth that an awful lot of us do, and he is blessed with the talent to pay justice to those experiences in perhaps the finest way one can. Despite the reams of references throughout, tetrominoes scattered amongst the world, the 8-bit soundtrack, the pixelated trees, nothing ever feels overdone or just there for style in Fez. It's all about the homage, it's all about recreating the wonder and joy so many of us felt the first time we ran through our earliest games. A lofty ambition indeed and yet, incredibly, I can say with a satiated smile on my face that Fez is a wonderful, wonderful success.

For the purposes of this review, the Xbox 360 version of the game was played.