Fable has everything you would expect from a game of this genre, but isn't well polished, and has some visual problems.
The basic controls follow standard conventions, using the left and right sticks to control character movements and camera position respectively. The white and black buttons unsheathe your currently equipped melee and ranged weapons. Pull the left trigger, and you'll lock on to a target, allowing you to circle them while keeping the camera focused in their direction. Holding the right trigger enables magic on three of the face buttons, leaving the fourth to scroll through spell sets as assigned by the player. Sword and bow attacks are made with the X button, but you need to hold it down a while to fully charge an arrow. After a few consecutive hits, you can deliver a Flourish strike with a hand to hand weapon by pressing B, which may behead your opponent. If you want to deliver a fatal head shot from afar, zooming in by clicking the left stick can help you aim with precision. Sometimes you'll want to take evasive action though, which is accomplished by moving the stick and tapping Y to dodge and roll. If you simply stand still and hold Y, the hero blocks incoming attacks. The more successful you are in battle, the higher your Combat Multiplier gets, which translates into more experience to improve your skills. If you wait too long between attacks or get hit, the Multiplier will drop, so it's important to stay on the offensive to maximize your potential. You can explore most of the world immediately after leaving the Guild, and the areas are fenced off so you don't have to worry about getting lost. However, if you venture too far too early, you could find yourself in over your head facing deadly creatures. In such an event, you can always use your Guild seal to teleport back home, so you never have to worry about finding a safe haven. There are also Cullis Gates you can warp to once discovered, offering fast transit throughout the realm. When the road ahead appears treacherous, you can save your progress in the Start menu before investigating. If you are on a mission, only the Hero save will be available, which saves vital stats, but will put you back at the beginning of the task if you need to reload. The towns are full of NPCs to interact with, and Fable uses an inventive way to communicate. You have access to a number of expressions to convey your emotions, which can be mapped to the D-pad. If someone bothers you, belch in their face, sneer, or flip them the bird. When trying to woo a lover, try a few manly poses and flirt while showering them with gifts. Who could resist the urge to let out a battlecry in the face of your enemies, followed by a menacing laugh at their defeat? If you accidentally brandish your sword in public, a quick apology to the guards, and all is forgiven. The thieving skills are also integrated in this system, allowing you to pick locks and shoplift at the touch of a button. Through your adventuring, you'll acquire experience points in four categories: Strength, Skill, Will, and General. Strength is gained through melee combat, Skill by using your bow or crossbow, and Will in the exercise of magic. You can also gain a significant amount by feasting after a battle. Certain foods give you a small amount of experience (or alignment) points, but your Combat Multiplier is factored in, so it's vital to finish with style and grace before you gorge on Will developing fish, Skill enhancing carrots, and Strength bolstering meats. Each of the three specific categories is further divided into attributes and spells which you can upgrade by spending the associated type of points. General can be applied to anything, and will be automatically consumed if you go over your supply when purchasing improvements. For example, if you want to buy a new spell, but don't have enough Will XP to cover the cost, your pool of General XP will be used to make up the difference. Your stats aren't the only way to set yourself apart from the pack, though. You can customize your appearance with what you wear, your hairstyle, and tattoos. Your armor isn't just there to take punishment, it's also a fashion statement. Each piece of apparel has an affect on your desirability, how intimidating you look, and even your alignment. The same goes for hair and body art, from the aggressive "Warrior Stripe" mohawk to the proud "Fire Monkey" tattoo, it all factors into how you are perceived. Last but not least, you can tailor your weapons as well, applying a few augmentations to increase the damage they cause or provide beneficial effects, such as increasing the experience you collect, regenerating your health, and more. Ultimately, how your character looks, fights, develops, and behaves is in your hands.
The graphics are somewhat of a mixed bag. Some of the creature designs are interesting, but there aren't nearly enough of them. Likewise, the armor selection is severely limited, creating a cookie cutter effect. The vast majority of the armor that offers any kind of protection is basically light, medium or heavy, and either good, neutral or evil; so your choices amount to the heavy design with dark texture, sleek leather model with light texture, or some such derivative. The weapon selection is by no means huge, but I like what's there and the designs are generally quite intricate. Also, the special effects are stunning, adding flair and excitement to combat. All the traders I saw on the roads seemed to be either the "big mustache" or "freaky hat" variety, and most of the villagers may in fact be clones for the Imperial army. This lack of variety really hurts the appearance of a living world around you. The environments are phenomenal however, and the gradual progression from day to night is both beautiful and natural. Throw in some nice weather effects, and it doesn't look so bad anymore. What does look bad is the main character's appearance. The changes that evolve are all too subtle, such that you can't even tell the difference between a fat or slim man in general gameplay if you're wearing any kind of clothing. Even without apparel, the changes are far too minor to be appreciable, particularly when zoomed out as you need to be most of the time. Also, the hero's facial build always looks pretty much the same, damaging the idea that everyone makes their own champion. Some form of character building at the beginning of the game could help this immensely, if a suitable amount of features could be altered, such as face structure, height, skin color and eye styles. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have a female role available either. Also, your hair color is effectively out of your control, being directly dependant on your alignment. If you want to play a good role with dark hair, you're simply out of luck. For all the detail that can be onscreen at once, Fable runs quite smoothly, with very few drops in frame rate. It isn't always perfect, but it's better than Sudeki, which was certainly playable. I did experience a few glitches, such as textures not immediately rendering and the grass in front of the first town occasionally appearing very blotchy until I was right on top of it, but such instances were few and far between. The music of Fable features a great range, from pleasant background tunes while strolling through town, to thunderous violent movements during intense battles. The pace is so well controlled, you won't even notice the transition. This is not to say you won't feel it, as the intensity of combat is suitably magnified. The progression of events in the story is also well tracked, adding dramatic balance to what occurs during cutscenes.
Overall, Fable presents some good ideas, and even implements them well. At the beginning, I was rather pleased with Fable, but the more you play, the worse it gets. The failure here is a general lack of content on nearly all fronts. It's too short, the world is too small, there aren't enough monster types, missions, NPC designs or dialog. I almost think more should have been dumped, so that other features could be fleshed out. The icing on the cake is a small set of endings which give you no sense of accomplishment whatsoever. My only real gripes as far as gameplay mechanics are concerned is the slightly cumbersome magic system, and the sometimes uncooperative targeting controls. Not as good as Fable 2, but a solid game.
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+ Great gameplay
+ Solid sound and music effects
+ Perfect music transitions
+ Awesome story mode
- Some visual issues
- Graphics are not perfect
- Some annoying glitches