When comparing FEZ vs Grim Fandango Remastered, the Slant community recommends FEZ for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Linux?” FEZ is ranked 29th while Grim Fandango Remastered is ranked 73rd. 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 Inspired by the day of the Dead holiday, Mexican folklore and film Noire
Grim Fandango is self admittedly inspired by the Day of the Dead Mexican holiday as well as Noir style films.
Pro Challenging
Compared to modern point and click Grim Fandango actually requires the player to pay closer attention to details or even take their own notes. While this may not be everyones cup of tea, for long time point and click adventure game players it is a refreshing change back to the norm.
Pro A world of depth
The world is immersive and the characters feel like real people.
Pro Stellar writing and voice acting
While the art design and music come together to create a cohesive world oozing with atmosphere, the near-Pixar quality voice work and writing breath life into the characters in way few other games have managed to achieve.
Pro Improved controls and UI
The controls were remastered to feel like more modern point and click adventure games I instead of the tank controls that turned so long time gamers off. From fully enjoying the game. The UI was cleaned up and made easier to use
Pro New commentary track
The current remastered developers have added a new commentary track from the original key developers to the game.
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 Improved controls and interface
The controls were remastered to feel like more modern point and click adventure games I instead of the tank controls that turned so long time gamers off. From fully enjoying the game. The UI was cleaned up and made easier to use
Con Some puzzles are obtuse
While the quality of puzzles is generally fantastic, there are a few offenders that may force players to resort to a "hail Mary" strategy of clicking anything and everything in hopes of stumbling on the solution.
Con No tutorial
A missed opportunity with this remake is the chance to finally add a tutorial.