I absolutely loved my initial playthrough of FEZ. Its dimension-shifting gimmick works wonderfully, and I happen to really like collectathons. The platforming is about as pure as it gets, with interesting environments and no enemies appearing in the entire game. There is also no handholding whatsoever--you can explore the world of FEZ in any way you choose. The intro and outro cutscenes are inventive and bizarre, so they were a pleasure to watch.

Casual playthroughs like my first one will be somewhat short. Being a completionist, I returned to my save file and set out to collect everything I had missed. Unfortunately, I soon became disappointed with the puzzle design, particularly for the "anti-cubes", which are supposed to be more difficult to obtain.

As it turns out, the solutions are almost always a sequence of inputs that are written down for you somewhere (usually in that level, using an annoying made-up language). Some of the puzzles are extremely difficult, tedious, and/or involved, and many are impossible on your first playthrough. Clearly, a few were intended to require a community-wide effort, and I expect it was fun to work together to solve them when the game was first released, but nowadays, expecting players to use the internet to look up solutions is bad design. Although it is possible to warp to certain locations in FEZ, getting to these puzzles generally takes just long enough that it would be slightly annoying to make your way back later, encouraging you to look up answers to these dull puzzles if you can't immediately figure them out. I would much prefer more standard environmental puzzles.

I absolutely loved my initial playthrough of FEZ. Its dimension-shifting gimmick works wonderfully, and I happen to really like collectathons. The platforming is about as pure as it gets, with interesting environments and no enemies appearing in the entire game. There is also no handholding whatsoever--you can explore the world of FEZ in any way you choose. The intro and outro cutscenes are inventive and bizarre, so they were a pleasure to watch. Casual playthroughs like my first one will be somewhat short. Being a completionist, I returned to my save file and set out to collect everything I had missed. Unfortunately, I soon became disappointed with the puzzle design, particularly for the "anti-cubes", which are supposed to be more difficult to obtain. As it turns out, the solutions are almost always a sequence of inputs that are written down for you somewhere (usually in that level, using an annoying made-up language). Some of the puzzles are extremely difficult, tedious, and/or involved, and many are impossible on your first playthrough. Clearly, a few were intended to require a community-wide effort, and I expect it was fun to work together to solve them when the game was first released, but nowadays, expecting players to use the internet to look up solutions is bad design. Although it is possible to warp to certain locations in FEZ, getting to these puzzles generally takes just long enough that it would be slightly annoying to make your way back later, encouraging you to look up answers to these dull puzzles if you can't immediately figure them out. I would much prefer more standard environmental puzzles.