FEZ vs Hitman (2016)
When comparing FEZ vs Hitman (2016), the Slant community recommends FEZ for most people. In the question“What are the best PS4 (PlayStation 4) games?” FEZ is ranked 13th while Hitman (2016) is ranked 85th. The most important reason people chose FEZ is:
The core mechanic of FEZ is the ability to spin the world around in 3D, and then traverse and interact with the resulting terrain in 2D. This allows you to experience navigation puzzles that are rarely found in any other game.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Clever 2D rotation game mechanic
The core mechanic of FEZ is the ability to spin the world around in 3D, and then traverse and interact with the resulting terrain in 2D. This allows you to experience navigation puzzles that are rarely found in any other game.
Pro Brilliant puzzles
Fez has some deviously hard puzzles and mysteries that will require gathering clues from around the world to solve them.
Pro Mysterious world with lots of depth
FEZ goes beyond just being a great puzzle platformer. It also has a very clever storyline and game world with a mysterious bygone civilization that fits perfectly with the mysterious puzzles of the game.
Pro Charming graphics and world
The characters are interesting and expressive and the world they inhabit varies between vibrant forests and villages, foreboding caves, rainy cityscapes, and more.
Pro Great atmospheric soundtrack
Soft synth sounds mixed with chiptunes makes for an enjoyable soundtrack that evokes a feeling of nostalgia while creating a fitting atmosphere that complements the graphics.
Pro Hiding in plain sight is intuitive
The game allows for players to easily hide in plain sight through a disguise system, like dressing up as a model at a fashion show, which gives the player access to anywhere they might want to go. This is expanded upon by having a helpful hint system for those who are unfamiliar with its intricacies.
Pro Tons of choice
The game's six levels are all big sandboxes that allow players to complete their tasks in any way they see fit. This allows players a great deal of freedom in experimentation and the customization of play style. One of the earliest assassinations in the game can be achieved through the manipulation of a chess board, sabotaging the ejection seat of a fighter jet, or faking a radio call, among other things. Hitman provides a strong context for the player's actions, but there is no wrong way to play, so long as you get the target.
Pro Replayability through escalations, contracts, challenges, and masteries
Once the main level and objective is complete, players can move on to escalation missions or player-created contracts. Escalation missions remix the maps, giving players new targets to complete in the same maps. Paris features 17 escalations, Sapienza has 9, and the other missions have some as well. More are being added all the time. Escalations are unusual in that they feature specific constraints, such as specific uniforms that must be worn, or specific methods of assassination. This increases the difficulty, but it's a great to expand each episode. The player contracts are similar, but this game mode allows the player to choose who their target is and what constraints to put in place, making for an endless list of possibilities in a particular level. Each level also features 20 'Mastery' levels, which unlock tools and insertion locations that expand the way the level can be played. Hitman is a game built to be replayed.
Pro Interactive environments
More so than previous games in the series, Hitman has many objects that can be tampered or interacted with. Nearly any problem the player faces can be solved by using the game's many interactive objects. For players unsure where to start, the challenge system offers a wide variety of hints. For instance, the optional challenges for the first training level include one where the player must disguise himself as a special character who is scheduled to meet the target and another where the target can be given rat poison at the bar.
Cons
Con Minimal direction
The lack of clear direction + the mysteries of the foreign writing alphabet and numeric systems may overwhelm players who got in expecting a simple & cute platformer game about a white dude with a red hat (a traditional Ottoman hat, which is called a "fez").
Con Pen and paper absolutely required for full completion
There is a lot of backtracking and so, you need to keep a pen and paper near you to take notes, because you might need something very important later on. For some people this might be a fun killer.
Con Not metroidvania
Nothing in the form of powerups,. this is a puzzle game - not a metroidvania.
Con Very limited depth
The core gameplay loop of "jump until stuck, then rotate" is boring and repetitive within the first hour. Aside from this perspective-shifting mechanic, the game does not have much to offer.
Con Limited button mapping support on keyboard
FEZ has a couple of preset control schemes to choose from, but the buttons can't have functions assigned individually.
Con Phil Fish made it
Phil Fish has had a long rap sheet of being incredibly arrogant and toxic in his behavior, purchasing this game is an implicit endorsement of this kind of behavior.
Con Guess-and-check instead of intuitive puzzles
Unlike other great puzzle games like Portal or Braid, many of the levels in Fez are unpredictable. You can't just look at the map and predict exactly what to do. You have to guess and check, and not all of the results are intuitive. While guess-and-check puzzles works well for games like The Witness, it's really tedious in a game like Fez.
Con Loads of backtracking
The world is an intertwined maze that rely on specific portals to travel between. Since the entire game revolves around locating cubes -- a minimum of 32 cubes are required to reach the game's ending (64 cubes and "anti-cubes" exist in total). A considerable amount of backtracking is needed to locate the needed cubes; which are intentionally difficult to find and acquire.
Con Slow gameplay
Navigation isn't quick, and each missed jump can make ascending an area feel like a laborious chore.
Con Frequent crashes on PC
PC version of the game has stability issues. Luckily, FEZ autosaves often so no much progress is lost when the game crashes.
Con DRM issues
While playing single player, if the player loses connection to the game's servers (through their own internet going down or the servers going down) the game will boot the player back to the start screen, meaning any advancement made in the game will be lost. To see this happen in single-player is concerning, as there is no reason for the single-player experience to take place online.
The game features frequent online updates, limited-time event assassinations, and other features that benefit from an online connection, but players cannot opt out of these features if they simply wish to play the single-player campaign.
Con First chapter does not offer a ton of content
Much of the content in the first chapter are a bunch of training levels that are represented as being done on a set of some kind, giving a feeling of not being real. The problem here is that there is little in the way of giving a feeling of wanting to revisit these training levels, which drastically cuts down on the playable content in this chapter.