There was a time when everything about Fez seemed magical. When it was announced in 2007, the relaxed atmosphere, pixel-art aesthetic, fluid animation and mind-bending nature of the world-rotation mechanics promised something truly unique. By the time it released in 2012, it felt like it'd all be done before. Fez took so long to come out, it arrived at the tail end of the retro graphics fad its announcement way back in 2007 started. Fez's impact on the game industry, specifically the indie game industry, was immense before anyone paid a single dollar for it. You could argue it kicked the door open for Braid, Super Meat Boy, Minecraft, Spelunky, and countless retro remakes and re-releases on consoles, including TWO Mega Man sequels made in classic 8-bit style. So when gamers finally got their hands on Fez, it felt...foundational. Fez was aesthetically gorgeous, cute, warm and serene; the puzzles were fairly simple and the 3D world rotation mechanic was about as cool as one could hope. But still, the indie scene exploded so rapidly after Fez's announcement, that by 2012 that these kind of experiences were numerous and more specific - there were retro-platformers with RPG elements, retro-platformers with tough-as-nails levels, retro-platformers that focused on crafting, heck an entire "Grand Theft Auto" style retro game out a few scant months after Fez - Retro City Rampage. It wasn't that Fez was bad, it was that it felt like an also-ran despite being the first guy off the finish line. Toss in the fact that the initial Xbox 360 release had a game-corrupting bug that was impossible to patch due to to Microsoft licensing fees - and the cantankerous Phil Fish canceling Fez 2 over an internet beef - and there was a strange aura of negativity surrounding Fez post-release. The ultimate ruination of Fez came from the fact it changed the game, then didn't show up until to that game until the fourth quarter. The things that were unique about it were siphoned off by developers who realised they too could make a visually pleasing and mechanically creative game - and they did. Fez should have blown gamers away, instead it felt like a warm summer breeze.
