A highly expansive adventure filled with fantastic moments, charm, innovation, and freedom.
To Start off, the game gives you the power for you to do anything you like at any given time. Whether its buy new equipment, explore the vast world, do side quests, start a family, interact with its peoples, or even just tackiling the main story. Speaking of the main story, it should only take around 10-15 hours to complete if you rush through it, but that would be a giant mistake if you want to truly experience fable II. Being in the interim of the game is the strongest highlight, all your choices are in that stage, wandering around in the huge world of albion is also great, the game world is designed so artiscally vivid that all other fantasy rpgs look obsolete. Technicly its outstanding but its not as advanced to a level such as the 360's top graphical powerhouses.
The story in fable 2 is nothing special,but its adventure aspects is the main treat. Its much darker and grimer than the original but the expressions used to talk with the npcs don't exactly fit in, with a game world that is supposed to be serious with its problems is surrounded by hilarious dialouge and ignorant expressions. The fairly tale look of the original is replaced with a more serious makeup, although it does feel like a nice adventure novel. The beginning events remind me of a harry potter atmosphere but its not as cheesy. The game picks up shortly after that. Its tale is filled with death, destruction, and heroic deeds but its not that far from your typical rpg scenario. A hero either saves the world or destroys it. You start out with you as orphan with your sister rose in bowerstone, a city that is filled with poverty, crime and cold temperatures. many kids have trouble living on the streets such as you and rose. One day, a traveller comes and offers to sell a magical box that supposely grants its users with one wish. Castle Fairfax is far off in the distance next to your shack and your sister wishes to live in a castle like it. The box costs five gold coins and to get it you need to perform several odd jobs such as cleaning a warehouse filled with bees, or finding arrest warrants, each job nets you a gold piece. these quests serve as a giant tutorial, but its also filled with a couple few choices to make. Good or evil, but the rest of the game is filled with choices, which in my opinion is deliverd quite well. your choices have a impact on you and everything around you.But back to the story, after you attain the five gold coins you are notified by the guards that lord lucien, the game's main antagonist, request your presence. you journey to castle fairfax in the middle of the night, without revealing too much of the game's details lord lucien murders your sister and a bullet to your hero sends him flying threw a stain glass windows. this sets the rest of the game, terasa a old blind woman, finds you unconsious with a dog, and she raises you til adulthood. The main objective is get revenge for your sister and save albion from its destruction. Its a short and sweet adventure if you rush, but most players will find themselves in the middle of exploration, family, side quests and much more. Your dog plays a key role in the game, he is your friend, your pet, your battle allie. He can find treasures for you, protects you in battle, performs tricks and other things. Its strange how good the dog's AI is. Actualy, you will care for you dog and i never had a emotional attachment to a virtual animal in any videogame. The dog kicks ass. The game world also evolves over time, trees will grow over once snowy plantations, and locations sometimes will change dramaticly, cities shift and grim spots become glorious amusement parks.
Whats a rpg without its combat right? to get it out of the way, it reminds me so much of assasin's creed top down battles, as you get stronger brutaly, you can parry strikes and counter, chain attacks, strike violenty with flourishes in slow motion, sans assasins creed. The problem with oblivion was that you were held to a few attacks, magic and a repeating strike. but fable fixes that annoyance, the combat is wide open with possiblites and ultra cool magic, but its missing magic strikes with your weapons from the original. thankfully the fights are much more brutal, bloody, and violent, with a much faster pace.
Choosing what character you would like to be is the central objective from lionhead. Your actions affect a ton of attributes, most preferbly your personality. Purity is sided with those who always do good or is aiming for that heroic status, while the uncleansed speak for themselves, killing innocent people, and other non-heroic actions. Whether what you do, the game will claim you as one or the other, with a whole bunch of "middle" titles in between. The game also ranks your attractiveness, you likeablility, your fame, your tendicies, battle stats, travel stats, if you eat a lot of food of course you get fat, but the clever thing about this is that you will become unpure. Vegatarions and non drinkers are pure. the game throws a ton of things at you to decide what morality you have. And yes. you can have sex in the game, morality plays key in the too. if you have unprotected sex(ummm...yeah fable 2 has condoms!!!Sheep skin maybe???)you will get drained of pure points. and you might catch a std or knock up a female. you can have babies too yes,yes. but if you use unprotected sex for the right reasons you would lose points. vice versa, protected sex. if you cheat on your wife that is. Basicly you can start a family, although it is rather an annoynance.your wifes need support,most preferbly gifts and money. if you dont make them happy, they will eventually leave you taking the kids, luckily there is no child support. besides your gold digging spouses, your kids need you to raise them too. if you are a goody too shoes your child will most likely act the same,and if you are a complete devil don't be suprised if you see your child getting involved in gang related activites, although i never saw nothing but bad behavior and nagging. you also can buy every single building in the game, the world is filled with fantastic monuements that you can buy, and luxourious houses, you can even buy castles! decking them out with furniture and other things such as rent. the game lets you make money even when the console is off. also, each location is unique and is filled with wonderous secrets, for instance my castle had a huge ruin in it. getting money, isn't no joke, you actually have to work for it. jobs are rather tedious minigames, but it shows that nothing in life comes easy, work to earn it. although these minigames are quite fun. Character customation is a must in every western style rpg, although fable 2 does very well, it doesn't offer enough. For a game that is centered on you as an individual, you can't really make your perfect hero. the game doesn't let you choose your race, and appearance, actually i haven't seen any other race than humans, and not to mention they are all the same color. clothing/haircuts/and tattoos are decently diverse though.
As for its flaws, there isn't too many. for one, its tremendous hype is cut short, it isn't what peter molyneux said it would be. but it isn't far from what he said. fable II is a truer version of what peter molyneux intended, for good or worse. thankfully, its good, no, its one of the best titles out for this year, and a fantastic rpg for the 360 or any other system. its also a step foward for fantasy rpgs, in most respects it beat elder scrolls oblivion as the dominant rpg of this era, but in some ways, it comes up short. Fable II is the best rpg out right now, and one of the better experiences i've had in a long time. but ultimately its a tad bit short on perfection. The game is missing some key features, its story, all while good, needs some polish and longetivity, its character creation choices needs to be broadened, the camera needs work, and co-op seems rushed. it works, but its stripped of some single player options, the second player has to play as a preset hero, so your dreams of wandering in a world with your buddy's hero remains in dreams. the graphics aren't up close and personal such as oblivion,mass effect, and upcoming fallout 3. but it is darn beautiful and indulges your world, a little more techincal prowness and power would of been nice, thankfully the game has lots of charm and the color palette pops out. its also missing some combat attacks, as i mentioned earlier. but in the end, fable II should be played by every gamer, its so simple to pick up and play, and everyone can enjoy it. its very charming. in my opinion, its the biggest hardcore title out now that can be enjoyed by many.
Final Score-9.75
*subscores are out of 10
Graphics- 8.75,Although it isn't technically powerful,but impressive at a level, its artistic design is so wonderful that its a visual style is unique. its very beautiful and very charming.
Sound 10- Dialouge may have a few hiccups but the music is so moving and adrenline pumping, the sound kicks in always at the right moment to get the best effect, the music box's tune are wonderous and so is the game's main themes that i stared at the tv in awe.
Controls 9.5- simple and easy to play. its combat is not complicated but you feel like you have complete control.
Gameplay 10- there is so much to do in this world, and its packed tightly with quests, minigames,exploration and much more.
Story 9.0- Much darker than the original, its serious enough to make you care, and its funny enough to make you laugh out loud, the ending is one of the best i've seen storywise, but i wish it was a tad bit longer.