izigame.me

Writing a review after having some serious realizations about this game.
I first picked it up because I loved the art style (I still do, it's very charming) and thought it'd be a fun platformer to work through. It's unique and engaging, the map is a little complicated but I quite like that.
But man, the puzzles are stupid. Okay, I don't want to say I'm the smartest bloke in the world, far from it ('smart but dim', is what my mum always said), but I feel like I'm moderately intelligent and I really struggled with these. I then I realized, these puzzles aren't just a matter of how smart you are, it relies almost entirely on meta-subjects. The developer, in an attempt to make a unique game (rather than one that's fun, engaging, winnable without exteranl context etc.) purposefully added puzzles that require diligent and excessive research outside of the bounds of the game. After 3 hours of making some decent progress, I'd realized that the 7 or 8 puzzles I'd stumbled across I had no idea how to solve. Lazily, I looked up how they work...
First puzzle I came across. The answer was to look at the achievements, and type in a specific button sequence. Okay, that's pretty annoying. Definitely META, but doable.
Second puzzle I came across requires me to either have a specific type of game controller, or a specific type of sound system. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. You're telling me I can't continue the game unless I have one of those? This isn't genius game design, it's just unique, shitty, pomposity. You're gatekeeping the completion of a game behind hardware choices.
Third puzzle I came across requires I learn a new language. Okay, at this point I'm done. This isn't a relaxing, or even fun anymore. I'm not buying computer accessories or learning a new made-up language so that I can play the game. I'm just not doing that. Expecting anyone to do that is mental. What makes it worse is that there is NO indication within the game that this is how you do the puzzles. Essentially one guy figured it out, wrote a guide on it, and now everybody else knows how they work. I'm not kidding. From what I remember, 2 of the puzzles have only ever been solved by one person (presumabely someone who dedicated months of their life to decrypting the game for the benefit of their own sanity and everyone elses - praise that man). So not only did the developers write some obscure language they wanted people to learn to play the game, they didn't even tell you the language was there. I don't know what the developer was playing at, but he clearly has some issues; deep-rooted trauma, narcissism, condescension, arrogance, maybe all of the above? Again, this isn't "I'm just making a kooky little indie game with some puzzles", this is "I hate the people that play my games, and I want them to suffer to figure out something that's almost impossible to solve". I mean, why draw the line there? Just make a puzzle that forces someone to decrypt SHA-256 while we're at it? (for those that don't know, that's what most websites use to encrypt passwords, because without a super computer, it would take millions of years to crack).
It would also make sense why he basically just bounced from the entire industry when someone said they disagreed with one of his tweets. The guy clearly has problems, that he's unfortunately plagued this otherwise beautiful game with.
So, in all, I'm not going to recommend this game. I don't want anyone to spend a second playing this game, thinking that they even have a chance of finishing it without help, because they don't. You physically can't unless you; own or buy the required computer equipment to complete the challenges, have outrageously large amounts of freetime you can dedicate to figuring out the puzzles and the language (or you just fon't mind cheating), and/or you also have deep-rooted mental issues like the developer, and you're okay spending hours of your life trying to navigate the monotonous map.
Edit: Read the Reddit post titled 'ELI5: Why is Phil Fish, developer of Fez, under so much controversey' it's very enlightening, and confirms all of my assumptions about the guy. Essentially, thinks everything he does is worth more than gold, and poured his entire cracking depressed life into this game, which makes sense why it probably started as a cute game, and became plagued with depressive impossible puzzles - probably in an attempt to make you as depressed and maniacal as he is/was.