When comparing FEZ vs Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, the Slant community recommends FEZ for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Linux?” FEZ is ranked 29th while Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is ranked 82nd. 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 Mind control mechanic that adds depth to tactics
Players can mind control orcs to call upon them in battle, turning a one-vs-many battle, into a more evenly balanced showdown. You can even use your makeshift allies as fodder, allowing you to sneak up on unsuspecting enemies in the heat of battle and take them out instantly. It's up to you to decide when and how to use the orcs, giving the battles a decent amount of tactical depth.
Pro Great stealth combat mechanics
In Shadow of Mordor there are various ways you can kill enemies while staying unnoticed. You can simply sneak around by staying low, breaking line of sight behind walls and carts, backstabbing orcs when you sneak up on them. You can climb walls and traverse building roofs, dropping onto unsuspecting orcs while impaling them. You can even use supernatural abilities or wait for nightfall to make you even stealthier. All of this coupled with Shadow of Mordor's very smooth controls, makes being stealthy really enjoyable.
Pro Enjoyable preparation element
Bosses in this game have different immunities and weaknesses to in-game skills. For example, a boss can be immune to takedowns, but can also be vulnurable to fire, so it's best to have a flame-infused weapon ready to fight him effectively.
This makes preparation very important to succeed, sometimes even requiring you to mix up your playstyle and fighting methods. Because every enemy requires a different approach, it can help the gameplay stay fresh for a longer time.
Pro Entertaining combat
Shadow of Mordor has very fast-paced combat, allowing you to have exciting fights with groups of orcs. You parry, you counter, you roll, and you slash away at the orcs with your sword. You even have supernatural abilities that give you an edge in a bad situation.
For example, after stunning an enemy with Wraith Stun, you can perform a devastating combo that kills the enemy. The same ability can be upgraded to affect every enemy in an area, so it can also be used to escape losing battles or exact justice on all of them.
Regardless of your methods, you always feel like the dominant force, which makes it all the more satisfying to ruthlessly skewer helpless orcs.
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 Progressing through the storyline can be confusing
While excessive hand-holding in games is bad, you might get lost in this game with no idea what to do next. This is mostly because the game almost never tells you what you should be doing, so it's up to you to find out, which can sometimes result in you aimlessly running around an area for up to an hour. Anyone looking for a more directed experience might not like Shadow of Mordor that much.
Con Unskippable cutscenes interrupt gameplay
Every time an orc leader enters the screen, there is an unskippable cutscene where he rambles a bit, focusing the camera on him and halting combat until the cutscene ends. This usually happens as you're fighting another enemy, potentially disrupting your rhythm, which can be really frustrating, especially if mess up your combo or take an unnecessary hit after the cutscene.
Con Extremely repetitive
The game can begin to feel like a chore after 3 hours. Every area has the same missions, requiring you to unlock towers, kill/dominate that orc, or defend/attack a base. There isn't much change over the course of the game, so it can feel pretty disappointing if you're expecting more variety.