Fez Review

[Dr.Susse]

Don't let River tell you any different, every fez is a cool one!
I'm looking forward to seeing how many secrets this game actually holds. Like the secrets in even the soundtrack; It's a good game that goes beyond the puzzle.

 

[Simonoly]

It's a great game. But it has some evil technical issues. Save corruption on a game where you can only have one active save at a time? Ouch!

 

[Susan Arendt]

It's a great game. But it has some evil technical issues. Save corruption on a game where you can only have one active save at a time? Ouch!

Ugh...I hadn't encountered anything like that. Got some chugging every now and then, but that was the extent my my tech troubles.

 

[l3o2828]

I was never interested in this project to begin with, and after seeing how much the creator has his head stuck up his ass i'd rather just not support him at all.
But thanks for letting me know, Escapist.

I can totally respect that.

Thanks.

(Oh god Susan Arendt talked to me!!! >W<)

Ahem.

 

[mental_looney]

I enjoyed fez but did spend far too much time lost and forgetting which door led where and ending up in the wrong room. New game plus was a great addition but I still have no idea what was going on in most of the game...

 

[Ophiuchus]

Fez is one of the most visually appealing games I've seen in a long time and the whole idea of the thing just seems like a heap of fun. I read about all the controversy surrounding that guy and fully agree that he didn't come across well, but I don't believe that disliking Japanese games implies racism or whatever else so I don't see any reason why I shouldn't buy it.

 

[TheLastSamurai14]

Why I oughta... fezzes will never be cool and bow ties ceased being cool when it was first uttered.

Heretic! Burn the heretic!

OT: Oh my god, something so simple can make a basic puzzle-platformer into a revolutionary new game. It's brilliant! Adding New Game+ is a big plus (no pun intended) in my book. The art style is really cool, too. Definitely gonna pick this one up, regardless of what the dev thinks of another part of the industry.

 

[somonels]

Why I oughta... fezzes will never be cool and bow ties ceased being cool when it was first uttered.

Heretic! Burn the heretic!

OT: Oh my god, something so simple can make a basic puzzle-platformer into a revolutionary new game. It's brilliant! Adding New Game+ is a big plus (no pun intended) in my book. The art style is really cool, too. Definitely gonna pick this one up, regardless of what the dev thinks of another part of the industry.

Burn with me!

The game is nowhere near being simple, it is a very novel idea both creatively and it's technical implementation was great... did I mention the graphics? Not just pretty, but aesthetically pleasing, last time my eyes were as joyed to watch it was Mirrors Edge.

A different game than Minecraft, I'd rate it higher... much higher.

I haven't played it, nor seen more than a few minutes of common gameplay but this game reeks of deserving a near-perfect score.

 

[LostintheWick]

Was a good game. Shame it really starts to become all too easy once a few pieces start falling into place. Took many hours to get the first few anti-cubes, and only a few more to get all the rest, barring waiting for that damn clock to come around...

But now, been there, done that, have the heart cubes to prove it. Want more "cerebral" platformers like this one on XBL. Braid never quite scratched the same itch.

I'm also confused about the whole Fish thing. I've heard people claim he said --all-- Japanese development sucks, and always has. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought it was a dismissal of contemporary development, say, this console cycle in particular, that they are, to turn a phrase, a shadow of what they used to be? That was the impression I got from the whole controversy, but there's a measurable number that keeps insisting otherwise.

Which is it?

Because, to me, in more than one way, the game started off like some long love letter to the Japanese games of yore (with more than one extremely powerful nod to Zelda in the bargain), so I'm getting a bit of a logical disconnect from all this.

You're getting the disconnect because it is sort of a love letter to the oldschool games, while the internet loves to assume a lot and build villains. Ppl love to hate. Fish is a true gamer and creator and he's just saying what most of us (at least in the industry) think about the games we are getting from Japan NOW.

And of course, there are ALWAYS exceptions, but imo, they are just that. If it's from Japan and actually fun, it's an exception. I think this is mostly because Japanese game design isn't growing or evolving with each new generation. It all feels "been there done that".

If you want to know more bout Fish, go see Indie Game the Movie. Excellent documentary. It's far more educated than the internet.

 

[mitchblahman]

it does tell you if you've completed a stage
it turns gold in the map

 

[Simonoly]

It's a great game. But it has some evil technical issues. Save corruption on a game where you can only have one active save at a time? Ouch!

Ugh...I hadn't encountered anything like that. Got some chugging every now and then, but that was the extent my my tech troubles.

It mostly happens if the game crashes while autosaving. I've been really unlucky and it's happened to me 3 times now. But by far the worst bug I have experienced is when the game crashes and you reload only to find Gomez frozen to the spot and there's nothing you can do to move him. This happened to me on a certain section where you have to escape some rising acid. So all I could do was sit there and watch Gomez die over and over again. I think I watched him melt around 50 times before I came to the realisation it was time to start again.

Oh and good review by the way. Very much agree with your comments on that darn map. It's a real arse of a thing to use when you're navigating back to find those pesky anti-cubes.

 

[Susan Arendt]

it does tell you if you've completed a stage
it turns gold in the map

Yes...did someone suggest otherwise?

 

[jFr[e]ak93]

Port it to PC and I'll be picking this up.
It looks like it will cause rage tantrums. I like a puzzle game that can cause a good tantrum.

 

[Ophiuchus]

ak93]It looks like it will cause rage tantrums. I like a puzzle game that can cause a good tantrum.

Possibly. I'm reeeeally impatient with puzzle games and highly prone to throwing the controller down in a sort of "oh fuck this" gesture. Hasn't happened yet with Fez. Not sure if it's the visual style, the soundtrack (by Disasterpeace [http://disasterpeace.com], who you should probably check out if you're even remotely interested in the whole chiptune deal, although the soundtrack for Fez is more ambient than his usual fare... can you remember what I was saying before I opened these parentheses..? No, me neither.) or the general sense that it doesn't take itself seriously, but something about it is keeping me cheerful despite all the getting lost and not really having a damn clue what I'm doing.

 

[floppylobster]

I know I can look it up but I would think the platform you are playing the game on was a fairly important part of a review.