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Holy crap, I’m a genius! That will be the first thing out of your mouth when you solve that first difficult puzzle in FEZ. As I traversed through the digital world of FEZ, memories were brought back of a 16-bit era that I haven’t experienced much nowadays outside of Super Meat Boy. Much like the high-quality games from the 90s, this game boasts some great art direction both visually and audibly.
Speaking about audibly, Disasterpeace has created a great soundtrack full chiptune goodness with layers of blips and bloops that create some of the best music in this genre since Anamanaguchi did “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game” soundtrack. Truthfully, it was the music that first got me interested in this game when I found it a mere few days before the game was released. When they pulled the soundtrack off Spotify, I still knew that I had to hear this music again and play the game at the same time.
The gameplay is full of interesting little touches that broke the fourth wall and made me smirk with fascination as it seemed like there was no end to Polytron messing with me. I don’t think I’ve pulled out a pen and paper to figure out puzzles in a video game since writing overly-extensive passwords from terrible 8-bit video games. However, these puzzles are anything but terrible. Some puzzles have caused me to tilt my head in confusion, only to figure out the puzzle upon a tilt of the head. Other puzzles were more based on feeling – in my fingertips. Sometimes I had to put sunglasses on in order to figure it out. When all else failed, a good cell phone app was there to help me find those extra hidden cubes.
I haven’t fully completed the game yet, but I’m getting there. What I will say is that you should definitely pick this up. There have been some issues, but none more than the occasional sluggishness when the game is processing too much on the screen at once. However, the strengths definitely outweigh the weaknesses. For ten bucks, you can’t go wrong! If you have played it, tell me, what’s your favorite part of the game so far?