** PLEASE MARK SPOILERS **

I just played through on the PS4 version and got to 200%, really enjoyed it. I didn't look online at all until I was around the 160% mark and then I was starting to get really frustrated with not understanding the alphabet plus a couple other things and just decided to look online for a little help. I probably never would have figured that out on my own, the solution was incredibly clever and well-hidden. But at the same time it has got me thinking about how the Internet can take the fun out of a game. It can sometimes be really hard to force yourself to think through a puzzle when you know you can open up your phone and just Google for a solution in five minutes. With most other games, the solution turns out to be completely ridiculous and unfair so you're OK with doing that. But in the case of Fez most of the solutions turned out to be actually reasonable once I understood them.

A lot of Fez's harder puzzles were apparently designed to be worked out by the community online. But from what I've been able to read, the community got that all done within one week of the game's release. Anyone who played the game after that period (which I'm going to randomly guess is 80-90% of the game's players) can't get that "perfect" Fez experience of working out those solutions along with the rest of the Internet. I'm a little sad I missed that. I really hope Fez 2 get un-cancelled and then I could go through that whole process with the sequel.

Anyway, how far did you get with Fez before you looked online? Did you regret looking online or were you OK with it?

I looked online for the obelisk, secret password, and that book, all of which are not needed to finish the game. Beat it without looking up anything. I'm proud of that but it took me a long time so i don't blame anyone for looking things up.

I think the game is meant to be played till you can go further. I never felt bad about looking stuff online because when I saw the solution I understood I would've never figured it out.

I did not even know the existence of the Fox and Dog sentence, english being my second language.

I figured out the numbers myself though. I really loved figuring that.

I really loved Fez, seriously.

Zero. I got zero far. I had no QR scanner, I had no clue about anything. I just gave up after jumping around for an hour. I still don't know anything about it. Maybe one day.

I think I was at 186%. I still haven't unlocked the ability to fly for some reason.

half of fez is pure exploration. What I recommend is finding the stuff that can be found purely by jumping/looking around for things to collect. When that's done, there's a good chance that you'll stumble upon things that will help you finish the other half of fez (the crazy meta-puzzley half). That's what I did, and it worked out great for me (had to look up a couple of things, but figured almost everything out for myself)

I got all of the cubes (and negative cubes or whatever they were called) without looking up anything at all. I had about 3-4 pages of notes in the back of one of my notebooks. Such a rewarding game to figure out all on your own.

The only stuff I didn't end up doing was that super secret ultra obelisk thing or whatever it was. Found it, but just had no idea.

I'm at 73.4% and haven't looked up anything. 200% is crazy. It won't be much longer until I use the internet though. I'm to dumb and impatient when it comes to puzzle games, except Portal.

Update: Well I beat the game with 103.10% and I don't feel like figuring what I couldn't figure out on my first playthrough by myself so here I come internet! I found 2 artifacts by myself though so I'm not a completely lost cause.

The clock puzzle is what made me say fuck it

I remember getting the game on release day and struggling through what some of the community-based ones were. Things that a single person would definitely never be able to figure out. I don't know how people managed to find a lot of this stuff, but the stuff that you're able to find solo is really neatly done I think.

I managed it all without a guide apart from 1 of the clock anti cubes, and the Observatory and Monolith red heart pieces. Came very close on the obelisks, spent 5 hours banging my head on a wall before pressing L3 and jumping out of my chair with joy.