I've been playing for almost a week now and I just wanted to drop some impressions here. Gonna be a long read since I'm at work and I'm bored, so I apologize in advance.
****VERY VERY MINOR SPOILERS******
I just became king in my game and so far I'm having a good time. All of the complaints are justified, though. This game is a buggy, technical disaster. I'm amazed that I've managed to accomplish what I have in this game with the amount of issues that I run into on any given playthrough. The jobs are unplayable at times due to the random slowdown. You'd think that something as simple as a button pressing mini-game could be pulled off without a hitch...especially mini-games that require time sensitive button presses. I don't think I've ever failed the mini-games due to an error on my part.
The lag that you get (seemingly at random) is ridiculous. I'll be running around a barren field and out of nowhere my character will slow down and resemble a Michael Bay shot. I hope it's just a glitch and not a design decision to allow the environments to load up without pop in. I'll be super pissed if they purposefully slow down the action in the game so House A over on the hillside has a proper amount of time to render before it pops into view.
And something else that really bothers me is how muddy this game looks. Maybe I can't remember how Fable I and II were, but the graphics always seemed vibrant and clean. Fable III has this layer of "film" over everything. It's especially noticeable when you're moving the camera around in darker environments. It feels especially washed out and unpolished and it tends to detract from the game's visuals and design (which can be amazing in the right situations and areas).
The combat feels a little broken to me. Enemy encounters are either too easy and fast or too easy and with an attempt at difficulty that focuses on "bullet/spell/sword sponge" enemies which tends to feel cheap. No enemy is particularly challenging, so they felt the need to make certain enemies take longer to kill. It doesn't make it any more fun, though, since those same enemies cannot be staggered or thrown off kilter. If I shoot a guy in the face with a gun, he should at least react to it, instead of just standing there and rattling off another attack like nothing happened. The main offenders are those giant, 7 foot tall bald guys that throw bombs/shoot fireballs at you. I HATE fighting them because it just feels tedious. At least when the Balverines do this, it's not as bad since they're a little more interesting to fight.
The only method of attack that feels fun is the gun, since it feels like it actually packs a punch. I remember the spells in F1 and 2 feeling powerful and worthwhile...sometimes feeling a little too powerful. This lent itself rather nicely to F1/2 because since the game was already easy, having attacks that made it even easier didn't really take away that much from the gameplay. Sure, I could kill someone in a few sword hits if I wanted to, but why not punch the ground and have fire erupt out of the soil instead? The charged up spells feel amazing to cast, but they seem like they do little to no damage. They aren't as satisfying as they were in the previous games and since their impact on enemies feels weaker, I find myself sticking to the gun. Also, the fact that you have to charge spells to unleash more powerful attacks doesn't feel as polished as it did in F2. If I have to charge an AoE fireball for 3-4 seconds, it sure as hell better mess some bandit's shit up. In F2, if you pulled off the level 5 version of the attack, you knew that everything around you was toast. This was part of the fun of it, though. It took longer to cast and it made you vulnerable, but if you managed to finally pull it off, you wiped out everything. I don't feel like charging an AoE fireball for 3-4 seconds if it's going to take 3-4 charged magic attacks to kill the enemies around me.
I have the same beef with the sword. It takes WAAAY too long to kill the regular, run of the mill enemies with the sword. This would be ok if the combat in the game was intuitive and challenging, but it's not. The flourishes are awesome and fun to watch, but the fact that enemies swarm you constantly and there is no counterattack make the flourishes less urgent to pull off. Throw in the fact that it might take 2-3 flourishes to kill an enemy and it starts to feel more worthwhile to just mash the X button while dodging. This might change for me, though, since I'm working to upgrade my sword to Rank 4.
The lack of a mini-map or even a functional map is hugely annoying. If there was a button I could press to instantly go to the map that is currently in the game, it might not irk me as much. The fact that you have to push start, wait for the Sanctuary to load up, then run forward to the map table and push A again really detracts from something as simple as trying to make sure that you have the right path to an area. Maybe make use of that empty Select button and put a quick map in place that shows you where everything is and the path it takes to get there and reserve the Sanctuary map for buying/managing property and quick travel.
Do not. And I mean DO NOT make me do fetch quests to further my relationship with someone once I'm king. I mean...really? Sally Sue, the poor, drunk person begging on the street is going to make me run a package to someone in Mistpeak in order for me to become her friend? For one thing, it's stupid that I have to do this in the first place to advance the relationship, but I would never ask someone of authority over me to do something like that. It's entirely unbelievable. It's even worse when you're at the castle and servants are asking you to do this. I'm not saying that I'm better than this person since that would betray my "nice guy" character, but still...
Time for the positives.
I'm actually a fan of the Sanctuary idea. I think that with some more tweaking, it could be incredibly awesome and intuitive. The fact that you can warp to the rooms the second that you're in the Sanctuary is a big plus. I was worried that the Sanctuary would be a mansion and there would be far too much running around to change something like a hat. The fact that it's smaller and has just enough room to house all of the important stuff is good. Maybe in F4 (which, I'm assuming there will be since this will probably sell well), they should expand on the Sanctuary and make it worth exploring ala the Lara Croft mansion. Keep the functional, "getting down to business" rooms so there isn't a lot of unneeded running around, but an extra area to explore and customize would be nice.
The dialogue is superb, as well as the sense of humor most of the quests bring to the table. When the game wants to be funny, it does it in the most absurd way possible that takes away from the doom and gloom that the game likes to wash over you.
The graphics, when not being washed out and grainy, are rather pretty to look at. The settings are interesting and the design of the land is whimsical and instills a sense of mystery. Some of this mystery is due to a lack of backstory in many of these areas, but there's just enough to intrigue you. Same thing goes with enemy/monster design. I've always thought that the Fable games had awesome monster design...the Balverine in particular with the Hobbes being a close second.
I didn't bash the gold earning portion of this game because I don't really have a problem with it. My only issue is that I wish there was more stuff to spend it on, but I don't have a huge complaint regarding it. Buying up houses and businesses is addictive and back before I was making a cool 80k every five minutes, playing lute on the street corner so I could afford to buy the nearby tavern made me feel like a man of the people just trying to make his way in the world.
While I bashed the combat above, when the combat works, it's awesome. The flourishes are brutal...especially the canned animations that pop in from time to time. Some of the animations involving the gun make me feel like such a bad ass. It breaks up the monotony of the fighting just enough to make you feel like the Hero the game is hyping you up to be.
------->John Cleese. <-----
Gripes aside, I'm having a good time. I omitted some complaints because this is long enough, but despite all of the negativity and stupid crap that shouldn't have made it into the retail version of the game, I'm enjoying it and quite a lot at that. I'm sure that when F4 comes out, I'll have just as many complaints as I do with this game and the ones before it, but I'm almost positive I'll have a blast all the same.