... And the Villagers Rejoiced!
Is Fable the revolutionary masterpiece of an RPG? Certainly not. It isn't even the greatest of this generation, or any generation, for that matter. While it does present several aspects that could possibly evolve the genre, it simply isn't the ground-breaking experience that it was hyped up to be. Many gamers will immediately be turned off at the lack of features in this game. But this is not fair to Fable. To honestly judge a game, it must be judged on the features it DOES have. And what it does have is some fresh ideas that make the game very fun and playable. There is no question in my mind that Fable is the most over-hyped game in the history of gaming. It is certainly not Project Ego, and it isn't even the Fable we heard about a year ago. It resembles an adventure game more than and RPG, but Fable still has a distinct feel and addictive qualities that will keep you playing for a while, even if it is a little short.
Welcome to Albion, a world of great heroes and terrible villains. On its shores lays the quiet town of Oakvale, where a boy and his family live. It was a peaceful town, far from war, until one tragic evening it is attacked by bandits. The town is razed to the ground. The boys mother and sister are taken by the bandits. His father, no hero, fights to his last breath, but is at last slain by many foes. The boy has nothing, as he watches his beloved village burn. Attacked by one remaining bandit, he is rescued by the powerful Spellcaster Maze. Maze takes the boy far away to the Heroes Guild. There, the boy grows into his prime, and becomes a hero under the tutelage of the wise Guildmaster. Once the boy (young adult?) leaves the Guild, the adventure can truly begin. The Hero is free to pursue the person responsible for taking his life from him, and he can choose to do so in two very distinct ways. Perhaps you have a chip on your shoulder, and have something to prove? Maybe then, you shall take the path of evil, where no one is spared, and people cower in your presence. Or perhaps you will be righteous, following a path of good so that people will cheer you on and be happy to see you. Whichever you choose, there is plenty of fun to be had.
Combat is the core of the time, and it all happens it real-time. This is where the adventure aspect of the game is so dominant. Players can choose between melee combat, ranged combat or they can use Will, which is magic. The great thing is that all three forms are extremely accessible, and be switched on the fly for maximum effectiveness. Say your nimble ranger has been plugging those baddies from a distance, but a few charge and now he's surrounded. Press the white button, and he'll whip out his weapon and you can start hacking away. Maybe your warrior is surrounded by quick, agile creatures, and you just can't get a swing in with that gigantic great sword he's carrying. Press the Right trigger button, and you'll be able to use any magic spells you've decided to learn. Send out a force push and send them flying away from, giving you ample time to build up that combat multiplier. What is the combat multiplier? This is essentially what gives you experience. The longer you go without getting hit by the enemy, and continue hitting them, the more experience the enemies will drop when defeated. Naturally, it's good to chain this as high as possible between areas.
Just what do you do with that experience? Use it to level your character up at the Hero's Guild. You'll have to return here quite often to level up, and get all the main story quests. Experience can be used towards three areas- Strength, Skill and Will. Boosting your strength stats will give you a lumbering warrior, Skill will give you an agile archer/thief, and Will can transform your character into a powerful mage who needs neither brawn nor speed. Believe me, get enough potions to restore your mana and level up a few high class spells and you can pretty much breeze through the game unscathed. Fable is a little on the easy side, as potions are easily affordable, and can be found anywhere. Your hero can also eat food, which will restore health as well, and even give you experience. Eat too much at full health, and he'll get a little flabby. Better try to curb that alcoholism too, fighting enemies while the screen is melting is a challenge.
So, now you know the basic core of the gameplay. The rest maybe just filler, but it's the best part. As I said, it's up to you whether you want to be good or evil. You can do this in a variety of way. Have a knack for destruction? Start breaking into houses, stealing everything you can, breaking windows, and when the guards come, start slaughtering them. Heck, while you're at it, slaughter the entire town! Beat your wife, or husband! Belch at people and send them running with your scary laugh, which can be done by assigning earned expressions to the directional pad. Help out those bandits instead of protecting the farm. Just be a jerk. Have a knack for helping out? Well, help those poor lost trader's in the woods, beat up that bully and slaughter bandits without a second thought. Be righteous and spare your most powerful enemies! If you accidentally hit an innocent, apologize to them. If your wife gives you a gift, thank her. And then take her right to bed. Sadly, being good or evil does not effect the overall storyline, and you'll be forced to stay on a "good" path until the end. So while it doesn't effect the story, it certainly effects your appearance.
As do many things. Throughout the game, you will be able to purchase clothes, tattoo's, different hairstyles, all of which effect your Attractiveness and Scariness. If you're going for the worshipped hero look, I recommend the Bright Armor, with a beard and snappy haircut, maybe some stylish tattoo's. And if you're evil, well turn your body into some kind of carnival sideshow. If you decide to become a mage, your hair will turn white, from all that magic use. Get in too many scraps, and you'll come out with scars all over your body. As you grow more to the side of good, a halo will appear over your head and butterflies will flock to you. As you grow evil, your character will grow horns, develop and odd red mist and attract flies. It's very cool to look at before and after pictures of your character, just to see how much he changed.
If you don't feel like doing any of the quests, you can bounce around from town to town for a while, but there really isn't a whole lot to be done, like what was promised. Exploration is a joke, as the entire world is broken up into small sections that all follow a linear path. By all means, this game is very linear, a far cry from anything that was promised. You can play card games in bars, tackle a few side quests, go fishing, dig for treasure, get married and buy houses. This is the games true failing. If there was really a consequence for every action, then the world should evolve naturally, no matter what happens. If you sit around eating pies and drinking beer, the world should fall apart with constant attacks since you aren't there to do anything. And certainly, should you fail a mission, you should not have to repeat it. There's no consequence to letting a bandit prisoner get away if the game makes you start over. If the game is truly open-ended as the developers claim it to be, such a feature should not be overlooked. The world doesn't evolve until your character advances the story, making it no different than any other game.
The graphics are quite good. There is a day to night cycle, which means all the shadows will shift according to where the sun is. Traveling down a forest path will show off spectacular lighting, as there are patches of sunlight filtering in through the trees. If you were to leave your character standing in a field with trees for an entire day, you will see the shadows creep slowly and slowly across the ground. This is really the only thing that makes the environments unique. Traveling through some forests late at night where there are no torches is quite spooky, but as for the rest, you've seen it before. There is a graveyard, a swamp, a multitude of forests and and of course, a place with ice. There is quite a bit of detail, but it's easy to have a lot of detail when the path is so linear. Aside from the very cool Balverines, the creature designs aren't anything to write home about. You've got bandits, little goblin-like creatures called Hobbes, trolls and some undead. A little variety would have been nice, since it feels like you fight bandits for the entire game. The best thing about the graphics is definitely the hero of the game. As I said, you can dress him, tattoo him, he'll get scars and so on. The detail is simply staggering, as some scars will fade away, while deeper ones will be permanent. As you age, your hair turns white, and you'll get wrinkles. You can wear huge suits of armor or modest robes. Customizing your character is easily one of the greatest joys of this game.
The voice acting is another high point for this game. While the NPC reactions to your character may get a little tiresome after a while, they're all laced with dry British humor, which is always a good thing. There aren't very many main characters, but they're all voiced reasonably well. Your hero will not talk at all during the main story, which is a little disappointing considering how many RPG's usually have a talking main character nowadays. The music is relatively good, though it does feel very similar to the score found in the PSone hit MediEvil. However, I do get the impression that the world of Albion would be full of this type of music. It suits the very well. Fighting will get you your usual assortment of clangs and swishes, and your character grunting every time he takes a hit. The creatures have some good growls, particularly the howl of the Balverine. It sent chills down my spine until I got used to it.
Whether or not it doesn't have what the developers promised, I am disappointed in Fable. Sure, it has a lot of cool features that could (and should) be used to push the RPG genre forward, it just isn't a high caliber game. Free-roaming is a joke, the story is far too short, and once you beat the game, there really isn't anything to do. There's virtually no way to make decent money unless you exploit one of the many glitches to be found in this game. For a game under development for four years, I would expect the game to be completely glitch free, or at least not one that can make the game ridiculously easy before you even accept the first quest. Nothing ever changes, which means the same thing will always be in the chests. There aren't many surprises, since you can complete the entire game and all the sidequests in under 20 hours. Sure, you can go through as one of the three classes as good and evil, but there really is no point once you beat the game as both good and evil. There are pure action games that are longer than this game. But still, I cannot discredit the fact that Fable is a fun game to play. It's fun customizing your character, talking to NPC's and finding all the legendary weapons. And so