Five years ago, FEZ was released on the Xbox 360. Despite being an indie game with little development prowess, FEZ had already built up a reputation before release, thanks to winning notable prizes in festivals and getting featured in the documentary Indie Game: The Movie. Even with the hype, FEZ still delivered what I consider to be a perfect game, and sucked me into its world more than any game since.
On the outside, FEZ has many great qualities. The pixel art has vibrant colors and creative designs, making each level stand out. The music, oh the music! I still jam out to Disasterpeace’s soundtrack to this day. Seriously, go listen to ‘Adventure’ and ‘Sync’ right now. While all these are hallmarks of a great game, what’s below the surface made FEZ a hallmark game.
The gameplay was deceptively simple. In a world convinced there were only two dimensions, players control Gomez, a guy with a powerful hat. Think of every level like a six-sided die, with a pole going right through the top. Players could rotate each level to jump to different sides, solve puzzles, reach new platforms and collect
Like a good TV show or movie, when FEZ released, it had everyone I knew talking to each other about thoughts, theories and discoveries related to the game. What at first appeared as a creative platformer, collect-a-thon was growing into a crazy world of secret codes, languages and more. My coworkers at the time would come in every day with a new batch of hand-written notes, scribbles trying to decipher more scribbles. Imaginations were running wild with what all this could mean or be leading to. This buzz surrounding a game after it releases felt unique, and seems the only game to come close to something similar since is The Witness.
Of course, you can’t talk about FEZ without mentioning its controversial creator Phil Fish. Due to Fish’s negative remarks shared during a panel, and his general confrontational attitude seen on his Twitter account, many people deemed Fish to be an asshole. The video above goes more in-depth on all sides of the story way better than I could, and is well worth a watch.
The negative criticisms and attacks got to be too much for Fish, who cancelled an in-development FEZ II. Nothing about the project, aside from a logo, was ever released, so it seems we may never know what crazy ideas Fish had in store for the sequel.
Regardless of your opinions on Fish, whether he was an asshole who deserved to be shut down or one of the first victims of the internet outrage machine, one undeniable fact is that FEZ is a masterclass of game design, aesthetics and mystery. Even five years later, few games can top the crisp retro-inspired graphics, killer soundtrack and deeply layered level design.
If you haven’t played FEZ, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy on Xbox Live (only for Xbox 360, but Backward Compatibility could happen at some point), PS4 or Steam.
So what do you think? Did you get caught up in the FEZ madness five years ago? How many of the crazy puzzles could you solve? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
