Fable 2 is living proof that, while good for a few chuckles, the joke's not as funny the second time you hear it.
Sure, it could warrant some criticisms from fans and foes alike. the combat was overly simple, the plot was stripped out of the first page of "Completely predictible motivations for heroes", but i felt it's charm and sense of humor made those faults forgivable, and actually, made the game more accessible for anyone to play.
Unfortunately...
...Fable 2 managed to do nothing to addrress the aforementioned weaknesses, while managing to strip away most of the charm of the first game, replacing it all with a dog.
Now, don't get me wrong. I loved the dog. i thought he was fantastic, and caught myself playing with him in the game more than I did anything else. It's just that, the dog was the only thing charming about the game.
I did like another character...the main character's sister...and unfortunately, she dies within 10 minutes of starting the game...sigh...
the NPC's which made the original Fable so much fun for me, seemed more abundant this time around. which, in theory, should have made the good times better, but in fact, they seemed too much like eachother to seem individual in any way. without any way to tell who was who, I fould myself not getting attached to the characters in the game as much. Sure, there were more emotes this time around, but meh...either the novelty has worn off, or the people I used them on just seemed less likable. i honestly can't say.
So, I just spent alot of my time roaming around the countryside, throwing a ball for my dog, reassuring him he was a good boy, and watching him do the bunnyhop every time I whistled.
The first game did a great job really encouraging you to play evil from the start, and this time around, Fable 2 seems to do very little to compel you to do so. Outside of drinking beer and eating meat, which somehow affected my characters purity in a negative way, evil just wasn't as fun this time around. Sure, you could do all the same things in the first game, marry every woman...oh wait...not quite everything...it seems (unless I missed it, which is entirely possible), that homosexual marriage is impossible in this game. Maybe I just needed to experiment with cross-dressing to unlock it somehow, but honestly, most of the apparel in this game was so atrocious, that I tried to avoid changing out of the only half way decent looking outfit I found.
While the outfits weren't nearly as appealing this time around, I'll use that as a segway into what was good in the game...
The art direction was wonderful. Strolling around the world was genuinely more breathtaking this time around than the first. some scenes were breathtaking. The combat, while still unnecessarily simple, manages to stave off my criticism yet again, because it's a kenetic delight to watch. And, personally, I feel like whoever came up with the concept and behavioral design for the dog deserves a god damn medal!
If Fable 2 simply added what I said was good without screwing with what made the first game great, I'd have no bones to pick. But sadly, they did, and that's a shame. As I said, playing evil wasn't nearly as enriching this time around, which made playing good feel less compelling as well. Odd, I know, but the first game did everything it could to tempt you to play evil, encouraging it around every corner and turn of events, that giving in to it felt like a delight in self indulgance. Which, conversely, madeplaying good feel that much more rewarding, because the game almost seemed to make fun of you for doing so. Trust me, when you do something noble in the first game, and you're taunted and mocked and laughed at for it, it took all my strength not to smack and kick the crap out of every villager who so much as whispered an insult to my character.
This time, the same temptation to be bad's just not there. And without that temptation, there's no rewarding sense in playing good or bad. sure, you can still kill villagers, but honestly, none of them merit enough of anything from me to make me want to. and, as I began before i segwayed into my tanget on fable 2's ban on same sex marriage, you still can marry every woman in every villiage, but honestly, sense they all look the same, act the same, dress and sound the same...who cares.
I was really looking forward to this game. The original is still on my top tier of "games i'll never forget" list. I had to play the game through twice, because upon finishing Fable 2 the first time, I was suprised by my indifference to it. Sadly, it was even less fun for me the second time around, which was dissapointing for me, but it did crystalize for me what was missing. The taste of WANTING to be evil, or STRIVING to stay good. I mean hell, in real life, it takes alot of strength to the the right thing all the time when the wrold does little more than seemingly mock you for it, and everyone at some time or another gives in, and does the wrong thing, cause everyone else is doing it, or just plain because someone else deserved it. Fable did more to replicate that dynamic in a game than anything I had ever seen before.
That same dynamic was lacking In Fable 2. And without that, it made the game feel pointless.
Which is too bad, cause that dog was pretty darn cool.