A miniscule departure from Fable II, however featuring Lionhead's effortless charm, colorful characters, and humor.
Whats here is a solid story mode experience with typically colorful humorous characters, and some fantastic art. The regions of Albion and parts beyond Albion have fitting personalities. The grass and trees feel weighty and blow in the wind. Great British Voice actors, physical humor, its all in tact from the core of the Fable series. What I never found myself doing was finding myself a wife and having kids, buying a house and all that. It was either the stripped down interaction system, or the fact that I felt little reason and reward in it. In the others this consumed alot of my time in the game, and I had fun improving the furniture and buying the biggest houses etc. The crucial aspect of fun social interaction is lacking here due to its being stripped down.
Whats also been stripped down, is the combat, leveling and such, instead of having different branches to level you have treasure chests which you open in order to level melee, ranged, or various spells. For some reason Lionhead also decided to limit the amount of spells you can have at once, to two. Limiting possibilities in combat. Limit, it seems is one of Fable III's largest distinctions from its predecessor. Its unfortunate really, since the combat in Fable II was really nailed tight.
However the combat is still fun, it looks flashy, and later on you unlock good/evil looks that only reveal themselves during combat. One problem, consistent through all fables I think, is content. Other RPG's are thick with sidequests, and armor, secrets to be found. This game is not neccesarily short, but it lacks the staying quality of other role playing games, and Albion is a world you want to stay in longer.
Play it for the fun side quests and main quest, meet some new characters, laugh a little, deal with the prickly failures of Lionhead in the meantime.