Fez is one of the worst games I've played in years

[sanic]

I imagine this game does well with brain-dead basement dwelling tokers and pretentious hipsters with a hard-on for chiptunes and lol retro graphics, but take off those black-rimmed, oversized, rose-colored glasses and realize that this is one of the worst games to be released this decade.

The only enjoyable part to this game is the intro, when everything is fresh and the gist of the game is revealed to you. This part is enjoyable due to ACTUALLY HAVING STORY AND A SENSE OF PURPOSE. But once the kernel error, or whatever the played-out gimmick is that restarts the game is, happens, and you're thrown back in your room with the ability to rotate the world, you understand that there's nothing catching or innovative about this game whatsoever. You find yourself plodding through similar, copy-pasted environments pointlessly looking for cube pieces with absolutely no enemies nor obstacles to overcome. The biggest issue is falling a certain distance, but you'll respawn exactly where you jumped off from; this feature even proves detrimental when backtracking through levels, as it forces you to yet again plod through the same tedious environments.

Level after level of slightly varied "puzzles" with poor, anti-climactic, ambient chiptune music playing in the background makes this game incredibly boring. Even the dialogue is boring. There are no challenges, just dull platforming. At which point was I supposed to be engaged? Did I miss something that was intended to be remotely interesting?

Oh wait, but I'm forgetting that vaguely hinting at the location of anti-cubes means this game is tasteful and obviously only for intellectuals who regularly infer meaning from abstract paint splatters. I'm sorry, but you're not cool for following a trend and "appreciating" something someone with plaid loafers referred to as "avant-garde" on their tumblr page, just before that picture of filet mignon they ordered at the Cha Cha Lounge in LA.

Reviewing video games is my profession, and I was given this game for free. I classify this alongside the droves of abysmal cookie-cutter movie tie-in games and nearly every third-party Wii game that plays on some paltry gimmick that loses its luster within the first hour of gameplay. If Phil Fish wasn't such an apprehensive douche about how great this game is, this game would hardly sell. This hipster nerd honestly doesn't care about your praise, because he knows he doesn't deserve it after taking five years to develop a game this boring; his pithy trolls are all just to garner media attention to make people buy this awful game just to see what the big deal is.

Congratulations on being played into buying one of the worst, most uninspired games to be released in the past few years.

[RingJ5]

Originally posted by Black:

Did I miss something that was intended to be remotely interesting?

Did you learn the languages? That's a huge part of the game.

[ELES]

Played it on XBOX360 and I agree with OP for the most part. I won't say it's the worst game I ever played though, just that FEZ ain't really what it was hyped to be by Phil or his white knights.

My main gripe about this game was that for many parts of the game, you can solve "puzzles" by just:

1.) Jump on platforms to get cubes
2.) Rotate the world to find hidden platforms
3.) Keep repeating 1 and 2

Really isn't all that puzzling or tought-provoking; just felt like a slow and repetetive treasure-hunt.

I heard that the puzzles get better later on in the game but you gotta spend like a few hours to get to those. I got bored and stopped playing before getting to the supposedly "good" parts.

Absolutely NOT RECOMMENDED if you're looking for a platforming game.
Maybe OK as a puzzle game but there are a lot more puzzle games out there that are better and less pretentious.

[AbyssWalker117]

there are tons of secrets(challenges) to find in fez. and can be extremely challenging if you try to solve all of them without help. it took the a community to crack one of the puzzles

[RingJ5]

Originally posted by LosingStreak:

I heard that the puzzles get better later on in the game but you gotta spend like a few hours to get to those. I got bored and stopped playing before getting to the supposedly "good" parts.

"Later on" pretty much means "as soon as you catch on to the fact that there's something else going on" in this game. It's just easier to realize the farther you go.

[RingJ5]

Originally posted by Emotional Fart:

Originally posted by shane.lehman82:

there are tons of secrets(challenges) to find in fez. and can be extremely challenging if you try to solve all of them without help. it took the a community to crack one of the puzzles

Yea but thats xboxlive. We are pc users. Take us about 10 minutes tops.

People can't be both, playing it on the Xbox because they wanted to play it when it was exclusive?

Being on PC doesn't always mean you're smarter than console players.

[ELES]

Originally posted by R1J5 (MISSLE BOMB):

Originally posted by LosingStreak:

I heard that the puzzles get better later on in the game but you gotta spend like a few hours to get to those. I got bored and stopped playing before getting to the supposedly "good" parts.

"Later on" pretty much means "as soon as you catch on to the fact that there's something else going on" in this game. It's just easier to realize the farther you go.

Like symbolisms and hidden objects? I knew about those but games should be about gameplay first - this case - it's a puzzle game, shoulda had better puzzles to solve early on instead of trying to be deep by hiding symbolisms and objects. Like I said, it's more of a boring treasure-hunt than an actual puzzle game.

Super Mario Galaxy was a treasure hunt too, but it wasn't the main point of the game and had really good gameplay. Take treasure hunting away from FEZ and what do you get? An exploration game?

Originally posted by shane.lehman82:

there are tons of secrets(challenges) to find in fez. and can be extremely challenging if you try to solve all of them without help. it took the a community to crack one of the puzzles

Like I said... More like a boring treasure-hunt than a puzzle game.

[RingJ5]

Originally posted by LosingStreak:

Originally posted by R1J5 (MISSLE BOMB):

"Later on" pretty much means "as soon as you catch on to the fact that there's something else going on" in this game. It's just easier to realize the farther you go.

Like symbolisms and hidden objects? I knew about those but games should be about gameplay first - this case - it's a puzzle game, shoulda had better puzzles to solve early on instead of trying to be deep by hiding symbolisms and objects. Like I said, it's more of a boring treasure-hunt than an actual puzzle game.

Where does it officially state that the main genre of Fez is puzzle-platformer?

The symbolism and objects WERE the puzzles. There were even full written languages based on those symbols that you could learn in later classroom areas.

[ELES]

Originally posted by R1J5 (MISSLE BOMB):

Where does it officially state that the main genre of Fez is puzzle-platformer?

The symbolism and objects WERE the puzzles. There were even full written languages based on those symbols that you could learn in later classroom areas.

Steam listed it as platformer. It is a puzzle game but the main method of solving puzzles is by platforming. Therefore: puzzle-platformer.

Also I didn't know learning new languages are considered "puzzles" now.

[Ryan Fenton]

Well, it's not really a language - it's more of a simple encoding mapped to the english alphabet. And I don't know if you've ever read a book of puzzles before, but decoding puzzles are puzzles. That, along with combinatorial mapping make for some deep and interesting puzzles.

[GUY]

But this game has memes so it's good and funny.

[RingJ5]

Originally posted by George Lincoln:

But this game has memes so it's good and funny.

Do you just mean the Zelda stuff at the start? It's been a while since I've played it, and I could easily be wrong, but I don't remember any obvious memes. There were no Rick Astley references or anything like that.

[Kirk]

Originally posted by R1J5 (MISSLE BOMB):

Originally posted by George Lincoln:

But this game has memes so it's good and funny.

Do you just mean the Zelda stuff at the start? It's been a while since I've played it, and I could easily be wrong, but I don't remember any obvious memes. There were no Rick Astley references or anything like that.

DEAL WITH IT glasses, uh. . . hmmm... I know there were more. . .

[Fargoth]

Originally posted by Hacksawunit:

Originally posted by R1J5 (MISSLE BOMB):

Do you just mean the Zelda stuff at the start? It's been a while since I've played it, and I could easily be wrong, but I don't remember any obvious memes. There were no Rick Astley references or anything like that.

DEAL WITH IT glasses, uh. . . hmmm... I know there were more. . .

So when a game like this, with a dev that people hate uses memes, it's all of a sudden a horrible thing, but then the praised Binding of Isaac has "troll bombs" nobody cares and thinks it's funny. Interesting...

[RingJ5]

Originally posted by Blake:

Originally posted by Hacksawunit:

DEAL WITH IT glasses, uh. . . hmmm... I know there were more. . .

So when a game like this, with a dev that people hate uses memes, it's all of a sudden a horrible thing, but then the praised Binding of Isaac has "troll bombs" nobody cares and thinks it's funny. Interesting...

That brings up another point. I love both games, but Edmund's said some pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stuff too before and everyone still loves him.

The SMB hacking thing? Anyone remember that?

[Fargoth]

Originally posted by R1J5 (MISSLE BOMB):

Originally posted by Blake:

So when a game like this, with a dev that people hate uses memes, it's all of a sudden a horrible thing, but then the praised Binding of Isaac has "troll bombs" nobody cares and thinks it's funny. Interesting...

That brings up another point. I love both games, but Edmund's said some pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stuff too before and everyone still loves him.

The SMB hacking thing? Anyone remember that?

I love both games too. Around 94 hours of Isaac actually, and well look at my picture. Steven from Time Fcuk. Edmund is one of my favourite indie devs, but yeah, he's said and made some pretty messed up things.