Why I'm Stumped With Fez

There's a game that's going around, and I'm sure you all know it, named Fez. It's a game that after 4-5  years in the making has received a number of awards and discussion.  It was finally released to the masses after the controversy that was the creator of the game Phil Fish's "Japanese games suck" comment. Despite the long development time and the backlash he received after the comment, the game received very positive reviews.

But here's where I'm stuck...

The concept of the game sounds intriguing. A little 2D man who receives a little Fez hat that allows him to see a different dimension that he uses to solve puzzles to save his world. Many have commented on the music being amazing and the gameplay a little similar to the Paper Mario form of shifting perspectives. There is nothing that I just wrote that would keep me from wanting to play this game. However, the number of reviews on this game do. Below is a few things that I have noticed either said about the game, or not really discussed about it.

• This game can be a chore and frustrating, and not particularly in a good way. Not until after you see the first "ending" does it really open up to the absolute craziness that makes this game what it is.

• Most reviewers don't actually say this game is fun in any way shape or form. They comment about what this game turns into and the puzzle lunacy, but nowhere do they make the game sound fun or that they had any fun while playing it.

• How great it feels to go to the community and see them try to solve puzzles together because nobody seems to be able to do it themselves in game. This moment in gaming where so many people come together to find everything they can in it, and that it may never have been done on this scale before.

Now, I'm confused on why these have been praised where in other games they would be criticized. For example, the going to the community to solve puzzles. Anytime a puzzle game comes out, people always say how important it is to be able to figure them out by yourself. A good puzzle, as most will put it, will leave you scratching your head one minute. But as soon as you figure it out, you feel like a moron for not piecing it together sooner because it was so obvious. That doesn't seem to be the case with Fez. Instead, it is rewarded for being so difficult that you have to not only come to the game with a specific understanding of ideas and previous knowledge, but to go online to find answers that other people have answered.

Not only does this isolate people who may not have an Internet connection (which is something people bring up often when it comes to digital distribution talk), but it brings up the discussion on why sites like Gamefaqs can be scoffed at in one regard of receiving help, but receiving the same amount of help on the game's forum is okay.

My main problem with the puzzles and level of difficulty is the one that had the entire Fez community working in tandem, and that's the very last puzzle. With such a large number of people working on it, one puzzle should not have caused such a problem for them. But not only was it a problem, it was solved by brute force, not any specific methodology.  Nobody who has played Fez can find any sort of reasoning behind the answer to the last problem, nor are they sure it IS the last problem. And while some reviewers were amazed at this and didn't seem to have any issues, it contradicts the very statements they say about games like Portal about the feeling of success they receive when figuring it out. The best part about this puzzle is how the community came together to do it, and that I can understand.

So my question would then be, what about people who come in later? If one of the best things about Fez was the community interaction, what happens to players who play the game at a later date. That community interaction is moot, because the puzzles have already been solved. So one of the best parts about this game is suddenly diminished because being a part of the community to solve Fez's most mind-numbingly frustrating puzzle is gone. The answers have been found, and the game has become nothing more than a Gamefaqs solution away.

But what I'm most concerned about is the actual fun factor. Puzzle games can be fun. Again, Portal is the perfect example of that. So why can't I find many reviewers actually say this game is fun in any term of the word. I can respect the puzzles being hard. Phil Fish sounds like he's on a genius-level I'll never come close to and I am envious of that. The music is apparently amazing and every screenshot I see of the game looks remarkable. I heard the platforming itself is somewhat lacking, and the premise of the game sounds like something I would love. Yet why is it that every person that talks about this game sound like they were clubbed in the back of the head repeatedly while playing it? Being frustrated to the point of looking up answers is not fun. Neither is having to play through a chunk of the game until it picks up interest. Where the actual enjoyment of the game comes from is beyond me, but perhaps it's an elaborate puzzle where I have to decipher the true feelings of the game by picking out every third letter in words with two vowels or more and piecing the letters together backwards.

I'm not sure what to think of Fez. Since I am unable to play the game currently due to no X-Box in the house, all I have to go off of is the reviews and I'm completely baffled by what I'm hearing from them. But at the same time, if the game ever releases to the PS3, I know I'll get it just to see what the hubbub is about. Some people probably think I just don't "get" Fez and I won't until I play it, and that may be true. But I don't "get" how Fez could go against what people want in games but be given the scores that it has when other games would be rated lower due to the same things. So Phil Fish, if you are reading this (doubtful), I hope the game is released on PS3. I would love to be proven wrong and see what this game is about. And if possible, send me a cheat sheet. I've seen the ones people have made, and I don't know if I'm smart enough to figure it out on my own.