FEZ vs No Man's Sky
When comparing FEZ vs No Man's Sky, the Slant community recommends FEZ for most people. In the question“What are the best indie games on Steam?” FEZ is ranked 13th while No Man's Sky 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
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
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 Endless procedural generation
This game procedurally generates almost everything. Your spaceships are procedurally generated, so are the planets, moons, every animal on these planets, the resource nodes, trade routes, languages, etc. When discovering new species or planets, players get to rename these and leave their mark on the galaxy.
Pro Good graphics
The art style of this game is very colorful and saturated and uses hues in a way that it gives you an otherworldly feel. Graphics like these tend to remain good for a much longer time than classic 3D graphics.
Pro Massive galaxy to explore
Thanks to the fact that the entire galaxy of No Man's Sky is procedurally generated, the amount of planets to explore is almost endless. The number of planets would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,616. However, the fact that 2 players managed to find each other in game on the first day, seems to make this number quite questionable.
Pro Seamless space to planetary flight
Pro Freedom to choose how you want to play
Ally with factions, trade or just be a pirate. When trading with NPC aliens, you build up a positive reputation with the faction they belong to. Alternatively you can also be hostile and attack trade ships, or even be attacked by NPC pirate spaceships. Both can be ways to get what you need, so do whatever suits your play style.
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 No clearly defined missions
The objective of the game is to ultimately reach the center of the galaxy. However, the player is completely free and unguided from the beginning. You figure it out for yourself as you start mining, crafting and upgrading your ship and gear. This game doesn't have a big story to tell.
Con Expensive
No Man's Sky is a pretty big production for an indie game as the team of devs and artists consisted of 14 people in the later stages of development. The game stands out above most indie games in size, features, technology and graphics. Along with the amount of enthusiasm from the gaming community, this has allowed the studio to set the launch price at $60 (or €60).