It becomes easier to appreciate the amount of work and care put into the level design when looking at the environments from this New Game+ opens things up, and introduces a separate mechanic that involves seeing the world from Gomez's point of view. Thankfully, not all of the collectibles in the game are required to beat the first play-through. Some puzzles are so complicated, that they require higher understanding of mathematics. This is dense with many cryptic secrets like this and it makes the game feel so much bigger than it actually is. Is there an apocalyptic prophecy hidden in these strange runes? The in-game language made up of tetrominos apparently does have meaning, and it is possible to uncover a translation, if anyone is willing to put the time into it. There is no telling what Gomez and Dot may discover. The lack of hand-holding truly reinforces the spirit of adventure and discovery. Much of the experience is non-linear, and anyone can explore the various areas in a variety of ways. Instead of power-ups, Gomez simply gathers collectibles to progress, which greatly frees up the game. The structure of Fez is not far off from being considered a metroidvania. The deeper Gomez goes, the more foreboding the atmosphere becomes, as if his world is beginning to break down from space ripping itself apart. Collecting enough of these opens up doors to new and increasingly challenging areas that yield yet more golden cubes. At its core, Fez may just be a simple 2D platformer with no real threats, but the main gameplay involves twisting space around so that Gomez can collect golden cubes. This is a title of many dimensions, and playing it with a 2D-mindset will not get anyone very far at all.įish devised some truly diabolical spatial puzzles using a single gimmick of rotation. His sole companion is a fourth dimensional tesseract, a character who exists to exposit tutorial information, but also emphasize a point about Gomez being 2D and effectively breaking the laws of nature by going to 3D.
Fez switch full#
Gomez quest is full of ominous and extremely cryptic imagery that is set to a soothing and alien synth score. This metaphor for a youth gaining new perception on the world as he grows into adulthood is fitting for a video game hero's call to adventure. Abbott's novella, Flatland a story about two-dimensional square who embarks on a journey, and discovers the third dimension.įez is about Gomez, a 2D game sprite who acquires a fez that endows him with the ability to rotate his two-dimensional world as if it were 3D.
It is no coincidence that the story takes inspiration from Edwin A. Structure is almost like some kind of divine design, and the game's designer wanted to share this appreciation with the player. Simple shapes, dimension and patterns are fetishized and emphasized.
That is not to say it is perfect, but "perfection" seems to be an underlying theme. Fez is a game utterly focused on geometry and perfection.