Fable III
Platform: XBOX 360
Let me preface this review by first stating that I have played and completed both Fable and Fable II. I have been a major fan of the series. While the previous entries into the series have had their faults, they were very enjoyable.
You are the son or daughter of the Hero from the second Fable game. The game opens up with a very interesting and engrossing premise: your brother, the king, has become a tyrant. Children work endlessly in factories, the citizens are impoverished, and the world itself is disarray. After an unfortunate incident, you and your allies flee the castle in an attempt to gather an army to overtake your brother. While this story on its own would be enough to hold your attention, there is an underlying plot that makes the kingdoms horrifying issues seem inconsequential. On the way you gain many allies and become the hero or heroine Theresa, a seer, has foretold. The story of Fable III is the best in the series, but it is not without faults. There are many aspects and characters from the previous game that are shockingly absent. For a newcomer, these issues are non-existent, but as a follower of the series, I have to wonder if Lionhead even thought of continuity.
Another vast improvement over previous Fables is the new combat system. Each buttons controls one type of combat. One controls melee, one controls gunplay, and one controls magic, or will. The way in which combat flows is smooth and intuitive. You can weave gunplay and melee very easily. To add another wrinkle, there is the ability to charge all attacks. For melee and gunplay, this is called Flourishing. A flourish is an unblockable attack that will almost always knock an enemy on their back. While powerful, the usefulness of this type of attack diminishes greatly as you fight quicker and larger enemies. For players of Fable II, will is just as overpowered as it always was. A fully charged Fireball can kill almost any enemy, even those late in the game, in a single blast. You upgrade these abilities, along as many others, on the Road to Rule. Everything you do in the game is rewarded with guild seals. You can spend these seals to learn new spells, upgrade your combat prowess, learn new emotes, gain the ability to buy businesses
pretty much anything. This system is streamlined for the worse. You like the Shock spell? You cant buff it exclusively. You want to buy real estate? You have to unlock it. Its arbitrary.
The Sanctuary is a new feature of Fable III, and it succeeds, for the most part. The Sanctuary is, essentially, the menu screen. You walk around in the menu physically going from room to room. You can pull the Sanctuary up anytime by hitting Start. You can change weapons, access the world map, change clothing, view achievements, change settings, view multiplayer options
basically everything you can do with a normal pause screen. While perhaps a well-done menu system would be quicker and easier, the Sanctuary is a huge step up from the laggy and clunky menus of previous Fable games. Quests are also accessed from the Sanctuary. Sidequests are fantastic in Fable III, and can add dozens of hours to the experience. You can also upgrade weapons in the Sanctuary by fulfilling certain requirements (kill 100 hollow men, spend 10000 gold, complete 30 quests, etc). A drawback to this system is the fact that if you ever need to change your active quest, you have to pause the game, walk to the map, click the map, press Y, scroll through your quests, hit A, hit A again, and hit A again. When there are hundreds of quests to scroll through, this is such a time sink and it boggles my mind why this was not addressed in planning.
There are a few very glaring issues with the gameplay. Morality plays a much smaller role in this game. If youre an angel and do everything right, youre at a huge disadvantage at the end of the game. You receive almost no rewards. You dont look any different (minus a small white tattoo around the eyes) and dont receive any perks besides feeling like you did the right thing. From a technical standpoint, all jobs, or the way you earn currency, are quick time events. Normally there wouldnt be an issue with this, but the frame rate stutters frequently while working. When you start getting into the upper levels of working the stuttering completely ruins it. Along the same note, one look at the official thread would tell you that this game is full of glitches. Your dog will constantly get stuck. You can get stuck in the Sanctuary and be forced to warp to another location to leave. You may not be able to interact with certain townsfolk. The game can freeze and even give you a disc read error when the game is installed. The list goes on and on. Not many force you to load a previous save, but they do take away from the experience.
Mulitplayer is much improved as well. Couch co-op lets you pull in your own hero and play alongside another on the same screen. Online co-op lets you play on your own screen, but you must be in the same region. Only the hosts story will advance, however. A positive is that you take back all items and experience you gain in your hosts game back to your world. You can even marry your host! It's a huge step up from Fable II, but isn't fully fleshed out.
The visuals in Fable III are a mixed bag. The art direction and menu system are very sleek and inspired. The color in the game really stands out. Grass is green, buildings are painted, and clothing is vibrant. However, from a technical standpoint the game is fairly pedestrian. Jagged edges abound, characters will glitch through each other, and the screen edge blur is incredibly noticeable. The music and voice acting are so well done that sometimes you forget that youre playing a game. You can tell Lionhead really threw some money behind it.
There is one final point that must be mentioned: the ending is incredibly disappointing and frustrating. The game gives you no warning as to when the end of the game is. You simply stroll along as King, doing your kingly duties, when suddenly you are whisked away to the ending. Your assistant is literally interrupted mid-sentence. Not only is it sudden and unexpected, but it is underwhelming. The last boss is a complete joke and after you defeat him/her/it (no spoilers) you have a feeling of thats it? There is a post-game, however, so you can simply continue from where you left off. Fable games are known for sub-par endings, and this version is no different.
Overall, it comes down to this: if you liked Fable II, you will like Fable III. If you didnt like Fable II because it was short and the gameplay wasnt for you, check out Fable III. If you just didnt like Fable II, you wont like Fable III. This game is essentially Fable 2.5. If youre okay with that, you will enjoy Fable III as much as I did.
Loved: Upgrading weapons, music, voicework, combat.
Liked: Atmosphere, side quests, new menu system, collectables, improved multiplayer.
Disliked: Moralities role, Road to Rule, actual quest system layout.
Hated: Ending, glitches galore.
Score: 7/10
