Disasterpeace – Fez

April 20, 2012 • II

I guess it's fitting that I chose Fez to round out the week; like Thomas Was Alone and Journey, Fez's soundtrack is one that instills a sense of wonder and purpose into its game to an incredible degree. Even though I highly recommend the game, if the soundtrack is the best you can do for now it's definitely worth listening to.

The soundtrack's style is mostly based around very simple chiptunes, but the quality of the various melodies and production values take it to a completely different level. Like how the film-score stylings of Journey's soundtrack created such vivid soundscapes, a similar thing applies here; Fez is a bit like a film score with electronic music instead of classical (you could almost think '70s soundtracks, but in a good way). Each piece effectively sounds like the location in the game it's associated with, and at the same time the whole soundtrack is still very cohesive and flows well.

But to try to pin it down in so many words would be doing the music a disservice. There is so much to be explored and discovered here (it is pretty long, after all) and there is so much thrown at the listener throughout. Sometimes it's the sunniest, most cheerfully bouncing music ever; other times it's dark and mysterious, droning away low guttural sawtooths. But in most cases, the music has this wonderful ability to just hang around and be incredibly comforting. It's tough to explain exactly why or how, but whenever I listen to it I just want to sit and be in that experience.

Special mention goes to the suite of "Snyc" and "Glitch" for wrapping up Fez in the best possible way; one of the most feel-good pieces of music I've ever heard (with a fantastic, catchy beat to boot). I don't like to rank music much anymore, but if I had to, Fez would be no lower than the second-greatest video game soundtrack I've ever heard. A masterpiece in every way.