[Review] Fable III for PC

Oh, Fable III. Right now, I am very angry at it because it refuses to work on my desktop computer even though it will work on my sister's laptop. It causes a great amount of hatred to accumulate in my soul when things like that happen. Especially when no one answers me as to why this "Fable III Main Executable Error" keeps occurring. v_v

Let's ignore that for now.

For the sake of expediency, I'm pretending that Fable II didn't exist, since for PC players, it didn't. Jerks. To sum up before I even begin, Fable III is no where near as good as Fable: The Lost Chapters. It isn't challenging in the least, and isn't very interesting in general.

Story

The player is the Prince or Princess of the Kingdom of Albion. Your brother is evil and insane, and you have to wrest control of the kingdom from him by gathering followers throughout Albion. This is sometimes problematic, because your brother has damaged your reputation, and you have to regain the trust of the Kingdom of Albion.

Rating: 4/5

Battle

There are very few random battles while wandering the countryside. For quite a while, I was certain that there were none besides a few wolves, but then bandits finally appeared. When there is finally a battle, the hit and will points are completely invisible everywhere and virtually don't exist. These points direct health and magic, in case you're not familiar with Fable. I assume they're invisible because the character in Fable III doesn't have any and is both immortal and superpowered. I certainly have never had any problems with a diminished amount of either. Not having hit/will points makes it far too easy to just blitz out on the opponent.

I love the guns. I loved the bows in the original Fable, but the guns are easier to use all the time rather than just some of the time, though the lack of lock-on feature is occasionally annoying. Not super-annoying, however, and I got used to it quickly. Magic seems boring this time around, and it's a little bit hard to switch between types of weapons, since it requires the center button and scrolling, which means I tend to miss the button I want. A lot.

Rating: 2/5 

Quests

The quests are going to seem very familiar. What's this? A bandit camp? A missing child? A guard to traders? A cave of Hobbes? A rare book quest? The problem with this is that they aren't anywhere near as challenging as the first time around, even. The Hobbe cave is pretty easy where the last one was killer, though it's actually been a game high point so far; the missing child case involved a couple of attacks by a couple of wolf packs-- yes, wolves, not even balverines, and definitely no killer fairies; the trader got set on by a few bandits. There was never any tense situations in any of the quests. They were all just things I did rather than things I accomplished. There was no complexity, no missing child retrieved for a crochety granny with a BDSM cave guarded by a Demon Door in her backyard. And the Hobbe cave was too easy because the player has a companion during the entire thing to kill things for them. The most fun quest so far has been the gnomes, by far. A bunch of garden gnomes escape their collector, who is absolutely obsessed with them and brought them to life. THAT was what I was looking for. The first game was chock full of the kind of humor that spawns nasty, smart-talking garden gnomes. Fable III severely lacks it.

Rating: 1/5

Things That Fable III Is Missing

Things that are missing in Fable III? The ability to destroy your environment, since there is very little available to control. Guards that actually chase you down. The "eye" view that tells you when people are looking at you (though stealing is far too easy anyway). The fight clubs. Gambling. Female mercenaries/bandits, because since there is a female mercenary costume, there should be female mercenaries in the camp. Gay women; I saw several gay men, but no gay women. Demon Doors-- yes, there are a handful, but that's it: precisely one handful. Balverines. Monsters of pretty much any kind. Interesting quests. Interesting characters, even side characters whose names you never get, like that granny. Most importantly, the ability to really choose your morality.

In Fable III, I had a hard time finding times where I could make a consciously "bad" moral decision. I desperately wanted my Princess to turn evil after witnessing the death of the love of her life due to her brother. I couldn't. I wanted a bandit princess, but I was never given the option. The game sets you up against it because your brother is evil, and since you're against him, you're shoved into the role of a "good" character. The player character speaks, too, and is so earnest that it didn't seem in character for her to even make "bad" moral decisions, and occasionally those "bad" decisions aren't really "bad" at all. For example, there's a quest in Brightwall where the player gets sucked into a play. When I was cast as a Fool in the play, I could either tickle or kiss the king who ordered me to make him laugh. Kissing him has "bad" morality associated with it. Why? Both would provide laughter. Are we assuming that the player is male and that being gay is morally bad? I don't recall ever being told what the Fool is scripted to do in that situation, so I could hardly be going off script. (On that note, I could kiss a mercenary (*cough*bandit*cough*) in their camp when I was disguised as a male bandit for a quest. He proceeds to hurl for several minutes straight.) I desperately wanted to be a sneaky evil character. I was never allowed.

The Good Stuff

The graphics are nice. Such a paltry offering of "the good stuff," but there you have it. I like interacting with the townspeople and how the player can be friends with them, etc., though I would like it if they had more distinct personalities. I like questing to gather followers. I really like the guns. As in, I wish I could just carry a pistol and a rifle and leave everything else behind. The job mini-games are interesting, and would be more interesting if there was still some sort of gambling besides chicken races. As in, I want the card match game again. I like that Theresa has reappeared as the guide for the Road to Rule, in all of her red-clad Seer glory.

The Bad Stuff

I really don't like the new magic system and the lack of any sort of hit/will points. There aren't as many spells, either. ANGER! I want Demon Doors; they added a layer of depth. The lack of a Heroes' Guild completely removes the meta-quality of Fable: The Lost Chapters, making it a standard RPG rather than a funny, humorous, poking-fun-at-RPGs-yet-still-awesome RPG. I want there to be monsters. I want back the hard monsters, like Balverines, and Hobbes that come at you in hordes. I want the combat multiplier. I want the humor back, because Fable III just isn't very funny. I want the voice actor for my character done away with, so that I can decide what my character is like. Most of all, I want the morality aspect back. Fable III made me feel like I was being led into "good" decisions, and even though I wanted to make bad ones, I haven't yet even had the chance.

Why Play It?

I've been playing Fable III for 13~ hours. I obviously haven't finished the game yet, but I keep playing it. 1) Because I paid for it. 2) Because I am liking it somehow, despite finding it utterly subpar, largely because 3) I want so badly for it to be what it should be, even though it never is. If it gets better, I'll update this review, but as it stands, I am incredibly disappointed.

Fable III is a dumbed-down version of Fable: The Lost Chapters, right down to the same quests. Of all the things they should have kept-- and there were a lot of them-- they kept the one thing they shouldn't have. They kept the quests that I, the player, have done already, rather than the aspects of the game that I enjoyed, which they kept almost nothing of.

Overall Rating: 2/5


Review is continued, with some more in-depth (less angry) analysis, here.