For games both massive and tiny, delays are a constant occurrence for any number of reasons. Such is the case with Fez, a game developed by indie studio Polytron that was originally announced back in July of 2007. After having its release date pushed back from the planned early 2010 time period, it has finally seen the light of day here in 2012. Did this extra time turn Fez into the charming platformer it was meant to be or a disappointing mess as full of glitches as the plot is?

Fez starts out simple enough. You are Gomez, a 2D creature living in a 2D land where the very idea of such silliness as extra dimensions is just laughed off by all your peers. However, Gomez is quickly exposed to the 3rd dimension by an all-powerful hexahedron and ends up on a quest to collect the broken pieces of the aforementioned artifact before the world is destroyed. Using his new perspective on the world, literally, Gomez makes his way across various areas to save everyone and look stylish while doing it too.

The first thing everyone will notice about Fez is the visual design, which is, on the surface, a very simple affair of squares and cubes hearkening back to the days of extreme pixilation in gaming. Despite the effort to make the game look old-school however, the game’s style still looks crisp and clean, with every new room or area bringing something new to look at. The water effects are especially smooth, always catching the eye due to their standout appearance. Also of particular note are the occasions when the game decides to switch up its look drastically to fit certain areas, such as how the entire well area is filtered with a sickly green color and light focused around Gomez to give the sense of being underground. On the whole, Fez just looks really appealing and it’s clear a lot of effort was put into making the game look just right in order to fit the gameplay.

The visual design is clearly meant to tie in directly with the basic story and does so very well, as the entire game is meant to been taken as a game being played on an older, cartridge-based system. When Gomez finds out about the 3rd dimension, the whole gamescape essentially glitches out, with a fake error screen and the game starting up again to give the sense that something just went seriously wrong. In addition, as you progress through the game, you will find certain areas have “black holes” floating around, that suck you in and make it harder to get around. These obstacles are actually glitches in the game that continuously, well, glitch out and further convey the idea that you are basically patching up a glitched game by finding all these cubes. It’s an interesting concept to be sure and the integration into the world they create is done perfectly.

The actual gameplay involves using Gomez’s new perspective abilities to find a path where it may not be too obvious. Gomez can flip the view left and right to be looking in from any of the four sides of an area. Find a ladder in pieces at different levels of a wall you need to climb? Turn the perspective to the side and climb up the ladder because it now looks completely connected. Need to jump to a platform but the only path high enough is very far away from the platform you’re trying to get to? Change perspective until it looks like where you stand is right next to the platform in question. Honestly, the gameplay style is very reminiscent of Super Paper Mario, except it drops the rather bothersome time limit that game had on being in the 3rd dimension. The concept leads to many different puzzles and while most are fairly easy and can be solved using the tried and true method of, “Flip until you can see a valid path,” it’s still fun to find the way through any and every room.