Fable is my absolute favorite action-rpg, but with this newest edition I'm starting to become a concerned fan.
You were just a young man in a dark fantasy world hellbent on revenge. Along the way you encountered many ferocious enemies: goblin-like Hobbes, murderous bandits, balverines, sorcerers and demons and finally even a dragon! Where you mastered magic: being able to teleport across the field, summon the undead, change the enemy to your side, or grow to a titanic size in a berserk rage. Where you had to fight long and hard in your favorite manner of combat to gain your skills and strengths. Where the characters truly felt special to you: Maze and the Guild Master, father figures, the mysterious Sorceress who turns out to be your sister and the menacing Jack who turns out to be everything you hate (or perhaps... respect?) remember Whisper and Thunder and Twinblade? Where you had to make difficult and sometimes unsure choices to designate your allegiance to good and evil? Well... that world is long gone.
Fable II was in my opinion a good sequel in the Fable series. The characters did still feel special, the world was far bigger and there was much more to explore and discover. The dog was a very interesting part of your group, being able to help you find stuff as well as fight with you. The combat system however seemed duller and less impressive although not bad, you still had a hell of a time gaining mastery in any one field. The story seemed longer and was done pretty well, although the choices in the end were not as impressive as the true good v evil choice of the very first game: I mean... resurrect your family or win a MILLION DOLLARS!? Still Fable II was good and still was worthy of being a successor to Fable, still one of the all time favorite games. Fable III however is a hell of a disappointment.
Fable III is similar to Fable II in design and the way the world works, which still feels a bit buggy now and then. The glowing trail is still here and the world has expanded (well... changed). I'll get straight to the point however and address what I think is horribly wrong with the game, and follow up with what is good as well.
Firstly the holding hands system is ridiculous. I mean I cannot explain how annoying it is to have to hold hands with people just to get them to follow you, a guess telling someone to follow your was just too weird? You know whats weird? Holding hands with an adult man and walking across a plain of flowers, from the distance it simply looks like a gay couple when in fact its the legendary hero of Albion bringing the murderous bandit warlord to jail (yeah I kid you not). The interaction system seems a little annoying, having to talk with people and interacting with them to bring up a floating menu of buttons that tell you to do what you can do, if you want to propose marriage you have to go through a series of things to get them to like you etc. Emotes and the such don't exist the way they used to it seems, also the way you learn most of these and other things (like buying houses and stores) seems stupid. You have to go on something called the Road to Rule, a literal road that you enter via portage which is barred by a series of gates. Behind each gate are chests that require not skill or exp but Guild Seals (which you earn by doing quests and beating enemies) to unlock each chest. Each chest offers a different thing such as emote packs or learning how to buy homes, there are also chests for color dyes and the worst part of all in my opinion for advancing as a warrior of strength skill or will.
Yes that's right, to become a better warrior with melee weapons you open a chest that makes you better. No you don't have to kill enemies with melee weapons for good periods of time, that's much too realistic after all. Will probably got the worst part of this deal, remember in fable how you could do a dozen different magic moves like teleport etc well those are gone, replaced by gloves that allow you to do up to the four or five will spells you can learn in the game, it's literally just another form of ranged attack if you don't like guns. Nothing special, no time control no summoning the undead... well they did actually give us something for those two, you can drink a potion that stops time or summons undead beetles (awesome right). Ranged combat isn't much better either, you can target in a first person mode but its much easier and faster to just look in a direction and shoot. The combat system got worse from Fable II,although your weapons change in appearance as you get better with them which pretty cool. Another annoying part is the way you buy clothes and get haircuts and shaves. When you buy clothes they go into your "pause menu" which is actually another area in the game called your sanctuary where you can travel, change clothes, meet with friends, see trophies, change weapons, save the game etc, its not too bad but I still prefer the old pause menu. The most annoying part is when you get a hair cut and shave you have to go to the sanctuary and wear them like clothes, they dont go on automatically. Also buying and selling is annoying as there are no more seller menus, and it often seems like there isn't much to buy.
Much of the lands we knew have changed from the games. Bowerstone is still here and looks like an advanced version of its former self from Fable II as does Bowerlake. Bloodstone is gone, Darkwood and Great Wood are gone, Oakfield, Oakville and Wraith-marsh are gone. Where are all the lands we wanted to revisit? I still remember finding a brothel in dark wood in fable, that was fun. We need weirder crazier places, although Aurora was very cool. Aurora is like a desert badlands continent where many strange ruins and new races (well a race of sand-ninja amazon women) live. Aurora is very cool and should be further developed, and perhaps other lands too like the northern wastes or whatever they were called.
Another thing that was a disappointment in the game was the lack of connection to the characters, including your own to a small degree. Firstly the character in the game already starts off with a love interest, I do not know this person and don't care for her and we part from her pretty early on in the game and later on you do a sidequest where it turns out she is engaged to some guy but kidnapped, when you save her she asks DID YOU MISS ME!? SHOULD I LEAVE MAH HUSBAND!?!?? Your just like... uhh... I don't care? And she gets angry and smothers the bastard in smooches, however you truly don't care and just walk away, even though its supposed to be an emotional moment. Your dog in this one isn't as memorable as your dog in the last Fable, who truly felt like your friend. Theresa is gone for the most part and it sort of feels alien without her constantly talking in your ear (my god... playing Halo and Fable have made me immune to nagging!). Even in the first game the Guild Master was always there to talk to you, in this one your butler named Jasper is but he really doesn't say or do much. Some of the characters seemed cool: Sabin, Page, Captain Swift and Ben Finn, but still you didn't really connect with them that much, not even with your brother Logan (the villain). The one person who I actually did really like was Walter, he is a great character and feels like a mentor and father figure to you, much like Theresa did in Fable II and the Guild Master did in Fable.
The choices in the game are probably the most boring. It's so easy to dictate which is good and which is evil, I want to have to guess, to really use my own initiative, kind of like the first game. I wanted money so I sided with bandits. In this game it goes down to building an orphanage or a brothel (the former highlighted in white the later in fire) gee I wonder what's bad and whats good. When you rule the choices become more interesting but time flies by its obvious: if you want to do good you waste money if you do bad your saving money. Ironically doing good gives a bad outcome for you and your people and vice versa.
I can't think of anything else to say and I think my rant/review has said most of what needs to be said. Still its a good game, however I doubt I will be spending much time on it in the future, possibly one more run until some DLC comes out. The first two games were superior and I would definitely recommend a newcomer to the series to start with one of them. Still I'm a fan of Fable and I am hoping the game will improve in a future installment, hopefully Lion Head may hear the plea of some of the fans who were disappointed by this installment. All I truly hope for is an installment that truly echoes the first fable, where you feel like a hero fighting of fearsome villains like monsters and bandits, saving people and being torn between the choices you have to make. Not just leading a ramshackle rebellion that amounts to the same or worse fate your brothers rule may have brought.