Fable oozes style, is fun to play and overall is an incredibly fun experience that will keep you playing for many hours
The game sets you upon an epic journey following the story of an unnamed hero threw out his life. Your father killed, as you were just a small boy, and your mother and sister presumed dead. The story in Fable as the name suggests has Fable like qualities its the true scenario of the long lost hero with the world at his feet, looking for existence. As I stated above the story has a very dramatic start to it, you start of the life as a small boy, who’s life is turned upside down by the events of bandits raiding his hometown and killing his father and presumably his mother and sister. You are later rescued by a mage named Maze and brought to the heroes guild to be trained as a hero by the Guild master along side a girl named Whisper, the hero then trains in the heroes guild for the last remaining years of his childhood then embarks on a journey to find out the reason of his villages destruction and discover the true fate of his family and his destiny.
In Fable the gameplay element of the game has got to be one of its biggest strong points, as it doesn’t adopt a turn based style like the final fantasy series or the star wars Kotor games but instead plays like games such as the Zelda games where you have full control over your character and there action in battle, the action is smooth and is easy to get used to if your new to the style basically it works where you use the X button to strike your enemies, but as you probably assumed that all enemies wont just simply stand there and take the blow they will attempt to block your attacks, so if you keep repeatedly hitting your enemies block eventually you will build up a flurry and be able to strike your enemies with an unblock able attack using the B button. Also in Fable there is magic and Archery, the Archery element of the game works that you can either manually aim using a zoomed over the shoulder view, or use the traditional third person view but with the lock on feature so your character follows the enemy by itself while standing still to help with aiming. And then there’s the magic basically this also like the previous elements of the game work incredibly well and is used by simply holding the right trigger in then selecting the spell you want to cast, like the quick selection of the bow to the melee combat weapon by using the black and white buttons for simple changing between the two weapons, the magic can also be used in a quick menu where you can use it mid battle without having to exit the game to cast, this for me was one of the best elements of the game as battles could have a mixture of all the three elements making the combat always fun and interesting.
There are numerous different weapons in fable and one really cleaver part with the weapons that they included was depending on how strong you character is whether he will be able to lift the weapon he is holding, if you edge towards the archery and spells in the game but don’t use melee combat enough and pick a super heavy weapon you will see your character dragging his weapon behind him as it is too heavy for him to handle, which was a nice touch to the game.
The sound to fable is excellent also, it has a brilliant orchestral score that really compliments the game, the games sound also changes depending on what you are doing, say if you were just walking around there would be a very calming tune playing in the background, but when you fight your enemies the music changes to a more alert, faster paced piece of music. The Dialogue in the game is also very good, and most of the characters have a very post old English accent which is of very high quality, also the sounds of the towns folk can be very amusing and in times quite fun to listen in to, as you are walking threw towns you will hear them speak of you by your chosen name or by what they think of you. The Sound in Fable is arguably the best part of the game.
One of the aspects of the game that it focuses on a lot is the character customisation and levelling up. This works very simple, basically you have three categories that you can improve stats wise, strength, skill and will in these three categories there are several different sub categories from improving your skills of your character such as buying new magic spells, improving your stamina and speed or just simply increasing your characters power, to upgrade all these elements it is simple, basically all you have to do is kill and enemy in a certain way like threw using melee combat, archery, spells or a mixture of the three and once the foe is dead it will drop green orbs in which you collect, the more of these orbs you get the more attributes you can acquire, basically you buy these attribute with the orbs to level up your character. But as you level up your character you age will increase and your body and face will change to the way that your character is leaning towards, if you choose to use close combat weapons a lot your character will get more muscle and have greater resistance to damage, if you use the bow a lot your character will have increased accuracy over long distances and will be faster, and if you use the magic the most your character will have more powerful spells and be able to use them for longer. The Best way is to use a combination of the three so you get a charecter that is good at all three aspects.
One of the things that I didn’t like about this was that every time you level up you age, so if you was to go threw the game, and go out killing loads of enemies while you were still in your 20's and then go to upgrade your character a lot, when you exit the upgrade menu your age would have increased immensely and this changes your appearance as you start to loose your hair acquire wrinkles and loose your hair, this is a good idea but I think they should change how and when you age for future games in the franchise.
Regarding your appearance as you go threw the game and collect gold you will be able to buy new clothes for your hero from armours to robes, knights helmets, shoes etc, you can also have tattoos done, change your hair style and grow a beard. Depending on the clothes you buy and the styles that you acquire will help you towards how you attract the opposite sex, a simple attraction bar does this, and each style has a positive or negative impact on how well you attract.
Your actions in the game are taken into high account over your appearance and the way people talk to you, if you go around doing good deeds and helping others your respect amongst towns will go up and you will look more youthful and eventually a blue aura will start to glow around you and you will develop a halo around your head. But if your evil and go around destroying and murdering innocent people, the towns folk will dread and fear you, your respect will go down and you will sprout a pair of horns and adopt a red aura, also your facial appearance and skin colour will start to fade due to how evil you are and in the end you will have a very pale skin colour and bloodshot eyes, due to your evil deeds. But regardless of how you play the game all can be erased at the final decision in the end of the game, depending on what you do.
There is also an menu where you can load up several expressions and depending on what they are the people around you will respond to them in a positive or negative manor, there is one where you flirt or pose to attract the opposite sex, which eventually you can get married, there is also a expression where you can apologise or laugh people around you with these will either non accept you apology and be sarcastic towards your jokes or accept and laugh along depending on whether you are good or bad, this system works incredibly well and some of the expressions can be quite amusing. One of my gripes about this system thou was that there wasn’t many expressions to deal with and eventually they get a bit repetitive, and the fun wears of.
The characters in Fable are amazing and are one of the games many highlights they are incredibly fun and have interesting backgrounds, and some like maze for example are very mysterious and you don’t really know what is going on. One of my favourites Jack Of blades is the arena champion and is a very mysterious character that wears a theatre mask, and not much is known about him as a character when you first meet him, but eventually you will find a lot more out about him.
Also from a Graphical stand point Fable is also a very high contender. The World of Albion is beautifully detailed and you can tell that the designers have really paid attention to old English buildings, countryside and woodlands while designing this game, the character look amazing and have there own look, you can see that they didn’t want to go for a realist look on there characters but non the less they still look excellent, also the visual effects on some of the spells are just amazing.
Sadly thou sometimes the graphics don’t always look amazing as of how big and well detailed the world of Albion is you will sometimes stumble across an area of unloaded textures and you will just be walking on some grey like background for a while until the textures eventually load.
Fable takes roughly around 10 - 12 hours to complete, which for an RPG is very short but after you complete the game it offers you the opportunity to go and live out the rest of your life so basically you can go threw and complete everything, like the side quests, max up your character etc, by doing this the time you play for will go easily the 20 - 30 hour range.
Over all Fable is an amazing achievement, it oozes style and is incredibly fun to play, it may not have lived up to the huge hype surrounding it but still is an amazing game, and has many unique moments that will keep you coming back for more.