1001 Video Games You Must Play

Very early on in Fez, before you can switch perspectives with the press of a button, you make it to the summit of your home island. The screen freezes and down from the heavens comes a fez hat which rests upon your head. The moment is hysterically transcendent and purposely meant to be over the top. It isn’t until the game intentionally glitches and reboots on itself that you realize you’re playing something very special. There are very few games that make the inner child in me squeal with delight but Fez speaks so highly to my nostalgic sensibilities I can’t help but smile whenever I pick up the controller.

Fez is the brainchild of Phil Fish and his company Polytron Corporation. The game centers around a white marshmellow-like figure named Gomez who’s tasked with saving his world from imploding in on itself by collecting yellow cubes that make up its core. To say there was a lot riding on Fez is putting it mildly. The game was garnering awards years before its release on the Xbox Live Arcade (the oldest of which was in 2008 for “Excellence in Video Art” at the Independent Games Festival). In addition, the game was featured as one of three titles for the independent film “Indie Game: The Movie” alongside Jonathon Blow’s Braid and Edmund McMillen Super Meat Boy. After a lengthy four-year development, hype for this game only increased as audiences were quickly introduced to the pixelated world of Fez.

Fez seamlessly taps into the emotional core of players without even trying, however the best way to describe it is to remove the player from it completely, or to not think of it as a game at all. From a purely visual standpoint the game is bright, colorful, and vibrant. Its 8-bit pixelated visual style is enough to melt the hearts of gamers young and old. There’s also something sublimely beautiful watching the backdrops of levels change from morning to night, from twilight to pre-dawn. As Gomez collects more and more  yellow cubes to restore his world, whole chunks of levels turn into empty voids that suck our main character into space if touched. There’s also an impressive range of palettes on display here, from the lush seaside isles of Gomez’s homeworld, to dank underground sewers, to rust-colored industrial areas and low-lit abandoned mineshafts set in indigo.

On a purely superficial level Fez is an engrossing experience albeit a short one. Despite its child-like atmosphere and whimsical style, it never speaks down to the player nor does it handhold them through the experience, but rather let’s players think for themselves and allowing them to approach gameplay naturally. This game easily qualifies as “video games as art” and rightly so. It pays homage by drawing inspiration from classic platformers like Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man using classic tropes of the genre to create something unique and enjoyable.

So let’s get to what really draws most people into this game, the changing perspectives. Throughout the majority of Fez the player can rotate each level on the fly. Doing so allows them to reach ledges or vines that are otherwise inaccessible or out-of-reach. This is the crux of Fez and perhaps its greatest selling point. The game restricts the player to a two-dimensional plane while simultaneously giving them access to a larger three-dimensional world, as such Fez has been compared to games like Echochrome, Paper Mario, and Crush. However once you get past its colorful visuals and playful tone you quickly realize that Fez is as much a statement on the evolution of video games as it is an indictment of them, reminding us that the only way we can move forward with the medium is to repurpose old genres, a medium which has given us untold freedom to create but is also one restricted by limitations.

What Braid was to time, Fez was to perspective in the most brilliant and creative ways possible. I have no doubt that once the honeymoon phase is over with Fez it’ll be destined as one of the most innovative games of the last decade.