In early 2012, an unexpected product appeared on Steam virtual shelves-Indie Game: The Movie, a documentary about indie games. He conducted spectators in the backstage of the independent industry, introduced the developers and was able to prove even the most skeptical viewers that some games can really be attributed to art. Still – after all, a movie about Braid, Super Meat Boy and Fez.
But if the first two games at the time of the premiere have already become cult, then the strange pixel arcade has not even come out yet. A few months later, Xbox 360 users were able to fully evaluate the brainchild Fila Fisha (Phil Fish): The project received the highest assessments of critics and the favor of players. He reached PC only now, and therefore there is no much sense to catch up with the intrigue. All that remains is to present the most multifaceted platformer of recent years with honors with honors.
Torque
The first ten minutes Fez looks, feels and works in the same way as any game of the Sega era. Pixels stick out from everywhere, eight -bit music is sawing against the background, and a little little man in the center of the screen jumps on the platforms. His name is Homez, and he does not even know that literally after a turn he was waiting for the highest forces in the form of a huge golden cube. Having mumbled something in an alien language, the figure will lower a charming red cap from the sky and show that the world actually has three dimensions. And then it will fly into 64 parts, without ending your incomprehensible monologue.
From this moment, the player falls into his hands a unique ability to rotate the camera for a 2D platformer, choosing a more suitable angle. Something similar could be seen in the recent Perspective: the main character remains two -dimensional and moves along the flat projection of the world, but the projection easily changes along with the viewing point. On the one hand, the distance between the platforms is huge, and on the other, it is not completely.
On this small feature and all left -handed is tied. The game world is several dozen islands soaring in the air, each of which can be bypassed around the perimeter. You will have to move from the bottom up, and it works like a spiral staircase: as soon as the steps end, you need to look around the corner.
It would be worthwhile to be wary here: would the process get bored quickly? This anxiety can be safely discarded – everything is in order. Counting the number of levels is problematic: there are a little more than sixty of them, and all are divided into five zones, move between which it is more convenient with the help of teleports. There are no fundamental barriers in any direction: opponents are absent at all, the number of lives is not limited, and the pointer “Come here” is not provided. The player is free to choose a route for himself, and this Fez only on hand – for the ten -hour first passage, it never repeats.
A peaceful, calm atmosphere, relaxing music and amazing details of the environment awaits in one side. Butterflies fly, foxes jump, and trees throw gorgeous pixel shadows. At this stage I do not want to jump frantically. And you don’t have to – after all, passing rests on a puzzle, which can be solved judiciously and slowly. And if the mood is not “doesn’t think”, then it is better to turn in the other direction to go down to the basements, where all sorts of puzzles will be replaced by hardcore jumps from the upcoming magma – no less complicated and irritating than in Super Meat Boy. The drawing is sharply simplified and loses in saturation.
Somewhere you have to navigate in the dark, somewhere-interact with moving elements, and somewhere-to control the chain reaction of the explosions, rotating the world in the right side. The game is constantly transforming: new gameplay solutions appear, the scene is replaced, and with it – the quality of the picture and the soundtrack. Everything is realized so expressively and impressive that sometimes Fez makes the impossible: a flat pixel platformer becomes truly atmospheric, no worse than anyone BIOSHOCK.
How many buttons to screw the light bulb?
Most of the mood is created due to a very non -standard approach to the game story – parallels can be drawn only with Dark Souls. There is practically no scenario as such in the game – it is limited to three introductory remarks that cannot be understood (the alien cube speaks only as mugs), and the final screensaver, which has very dubious informativeness. The rest will have to think up and compose yourself.
Independently – but in no case is from scratch. The company Homez in travels is a four -dimensional cube arising from nowhere and paying attention to especially important points. He also gives the main gameplay tips and describes artifacts, which sometimes be found. For example, a book painted by the same alien symbols, or the same obelisks standing around the world.
There are much more tasks than required to reach the credits, and therefore the complexity of the player can determine for himself. It is impossible to solve everything at once – you will need the ability even more amazing than the rotation of the world, and it will appear only after the first passage. But as soon as you get to the
final and start New Game+, Fez It will begin to open up for real. This is most likely the most difficult game in your life.
The point is the very tasks that are at first simple. To go further, the player will need to carefully study each location in search of possible tips – and it suddenly turns out that the setting is worked out much deeper than it seems at first glance. So, the alien language presented is encrypted English, and it has to manually restore it. In addition, it will be useful to study the local number system and deal with a special cipher – all this without the slightest hint or advice from the game.
But this is not a ceiling. The rules are constantly changing, and sometimes it’s hard to even assume what actions they expect from us. The fourth wall collapses regularly: it may be required, for example, to get out of the game in the system;And in one of the tasks, knowledge of existing encoding tables will be useful. Apotheosis is the so -called Monolith Room: since April last year, the entire world community has not been able to go through it in an honest way – the players simply picked up the desired key combination as part of a large -scale flash mob. A Phil Fish Meanwhile, it only grins on the forums: “209% of game progress is far from all.”.
Together with the solution of the problems, game events begin to clear up. The plot is overgrown with new details: it becomes clearer why the cube could fall apart;who created it;Where did these or another locations come from. Alas, because of the difficulty to fully understand what is happening, it is simply impossible: the mocking ending is limited only to hints, and history turns out to be incomplete. There is a feeling that the authors have become carried away, and the ardor of the community will cool much earlier than Fez Will come to an end.
Moreover, PC users will get to the final longer than their console colleagues due to a not too successful port. The creators, by their own admission, seriously changed the engine, and therefore the project was supplemented by periodic sorties and bugs. In addition, no adaptation of puzzles occurred, and at least one of them is solved exclusively with the help of the vibration of the gamepad. This, of course, is a trifle, but pretty spoiling impression.
When several people are launching Fez, They certainly diverge in different directions. Someone goes to the farthest corner and thinks over every mystery for hours, methodically sorting through all possible solutions to the problem. Someone just studies the world and for pleasure collects trifles scattered in levels. And some pass the stage at the stage, mastering the gameplay features and nuances of building each location.
Different people will finish at different times: after 6, 10 or more than 20 hours. But everyone will be satisfied, because a simple pixel platformer knows how to seem what they want to see him: light, complex, and beautiful, and not too pretentious. Namely, the ability to please everyone and at once is an indicator of a truly talented game.
Pros: magnificent soundtrack;Great design;adjustable complexity;diverse gameplay;An interesting idea.
Cons: not too good port on PC;plot incompleteness.
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