Fable III wasn't THAT bad... was it?

[Fudj]

The jump in time in the 3rd act of the game ruined it for me, for a game that sat there and said buy all these properties you will get rent for them as a way to make money to pull the "lets jump half a year" move and then not give you half a years worth of rent broke the system for me.

I enjoyed the game up until that point and the catacombs with the dripping shadows was hugely atmospheric and occasionally scary, but once it pulled that it just all felt like a waste.

 

[Hades]

I just found the game devoid of soul which is strange for a fable game.

The first Fable wasn't the best game ever but I loved it, the second game was a clear step backwards in almost all but graphics but I still loved it...but Fable III was just to many step backwards, in some instance's even stepping away from the previous two games.

While you can still slaughter everything you see i still feel Fable III did away with the very good vs evil concept the series is known for to begin with. Can anyone tell me an instance where you got a good vs evil choice before taking the throne? Because I can't!. Once you get the crown you don't get them either, you don't to choose between good and evil, you get the choice between saving money for an invasion or wasting money on things like making a lake look pretty and for some reason the former is considered the evil one...really?

The game world seems awfully limited for a sequel spanning two continents, I counted the actual towns in Albion(Not just two houses in the woods) and it had two towns, two whole towns with half of Bowerstone being recycled from fable two. The new continent of Aurora had only one town which brings Fable III on 3 towns in total, one less then previous game taking place on just one continent.

The world also just didn't feel like Albion to me. You had an updated Bowerstone and bowerlake but anything else? I never once heard anything about the places we visited earlier. whatever happened to bloodstone or Oaktown? two far more interesting places that that brightwall town or whatever that new boring farming village is called. We never hear what became of blackwood/marsh or brightwood either. Fable two only had one town of the first fable which was fine because you still had some nice callbacks to know you where in the same Albion as the hero of Oakvale while this Albion may as well be a different world entirely.

The game suffered in the characters as well especially the villain who was just a monster in a cave screaming ''Daaarkness!'' and shaaaadows!'' the entire time, quite the step backwards from Jack of blades or even Lucian. None of your allies are all that interesting either. I won't say Fable is know for its good characters but the first two at least had characters like Whisper, Mace or Garth(especially Garth).

Despite being the third game of a running series I can't think of anything it has over the games that came before, not even one thing. The cheesy morality system is mostly gone, the world is more boring, The characters extremely bad and the combat easier then it had ever been.

While I loved the first two games I did notice the second wasn't as good as the first and the third not as good as the second, is this a trend? Will the fourth game be even worse then this one? That seems a bit chilling to imagine.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Well, to anyone who's been following the releases and heard the promises being made that you'll be able to do, then yes Fable 3 is a poor quality game.
Luckily for me, I didn't follow up on any of the promises for any of them and as a result I've been left with a feeling that Fable 3 is an okay game that lacks replayability.

Yes, on its own merits in a vacuum, it is a decent game. I don't regret the time spent playing it. That game had so much promise, though. The ruler section could have been amazing, but it is too short and you can break the game's economy beforehand by going into real estate and rendering the choices meaningless. You can't die, which I felt took accessibility too far. They tried to make the gooey so accessible to new players that it became a detriment and I was wishing for a classic RPG menu system. But I was entertained while playing, so it isn't that bad.

 

[afroebob]

I never had a moment of Fable 3 I absolutely hated (well, that stupid fucking 'moral choice' kingdom running at the end was pretty tedious in reflection, as well as its plot) but there was never a moment when I was having fun either.

 

[Hoa_Binh]

I very much disliked Fable 3, played Fable 2 and had lots of issues with that too. Here is the reasons why I think it was "THAT bad".

The combat felt unbalanced and was quite easy.

The whole Reaver was just annoying, where is the choice to A) Kill him? B) Seal him inside a chest on the bottom of the sea? I'm the damned king/queen, my word is law ... but not when it comes to the favourite of Stephen Fry that the developers obviously had a crush on.

I liked the whole Evil Slime from the Other Continent but the whole war was just silly ... it was only down to the amount of money and not anything else.

The choices as King/Queen that boiled down to Being Good (and making sure that everyone died) or Being Evil (and making sure that people survived) was just stupid. Of course there was always the third option, be rich ... I can choose to cut down trees as agreed or I can let the Horrors From Beoynd kill everyone? Trees regrow, we cut them now and replant next year. It was so forced binary when they could have done something interesting with the choices.

Interacting with the NPC was just silly, no choice and all the NPCs felt like they had no personality. I just started to ignore the lot of them.

Stupid menu system when equipping things or levelling up. Felt like it was made to be cool, never mind that it took a minute to change weapons/level and you needed to do that a lot.

The economy felt rather broken too, was way too easy to get rich and it never felt like that it was used for something.

Played through it once with my GF but never started it again.

*Edit* And the crap 120 days that all of a sudden goes missing .... gah!

 

[Jenvas1306]

another of those games that get torn appart by the internet.
In my opinion it was quite alright and enjoyable, but obviously we all hate games now as that the cool thing to do (hi there yahtzee, spoony and the likes)

 

[piinyouri]

Snip

Are you just repeating what Yahtzee used in his review or did you have a similar experience?

If it was yours, is that time skip thing a glitch that happens, or the way the game is supposed to function?

That's how the game is supposed to function. There is no warning of any kind, and the only way to not lose is to know about the time skip before hand.

That then, is fucking terrible and certainly would have soured my thoughts a bit toward the game had I got to that point.

 

[saintpinhead]

We all agree that Fable 1 is the best in the lineup. What I think they started doing wrong is trying to force things on us that they hope is worth while. Most times I would say at least they are trying something new, although this time I would have to say they should of learned from the mistakes. They promised us that our worlds in Fable 2 would all be different, and that we will see people playing differently. There were many more promises that were thrown out that never lived up to the hype. Then with Fable 3 it seems like they were impressed with what they did in 2 that they would just add on to the old.

Then there is the dog, and I know it is popular. I just don't know why they focus on this aspect when there are many others facets that need their attention. While I'm talking about the dog, why make him fundamental to certain aspect (digging), and not get the path finding tuned in better. I don't know how many times my dog was found hung up on the smallest thing. As for the dlc, I don't mind because that is the new way to continue making money after a game releases. My only complaint would be if you want to make money off me with dlc, the release content that will improve the game or at least make it more enjoyable.

While I don't know about this problem being on 3, because I refused to use it after Fable 2, but the multiplayer irritated me. It all felt too limiting when two players wanted to move away from each other. It's fine that they wanted to keep the players together, but it seemed like we were holding hands the whole time. Then the limitations on my character was to much. I understand one hero per world, but to give me a generic in place of my hero was to limiting. Find some happy medium for everyone other than saying that only one player gets to enjoy the experience at a time. I'm almost certain that Fable 3 was about the same way in this aspect. (If not let me know)

Lastly, am I the only one that misses the AoE social actions. I would say at least 2+ hours is social activity. I remember gathering people around and doing a social action and making a group like or hate you all at once. I understand they want you to connect with the people like they had you connect with the dog in the second installment, the downfall is there is to much time consumed in this and it is dumbed down in the worst possible way. While there are plenty of other problems, I think this hits a lot that I feel are very bad for the franchise.

 

[theaudioprophet]

the two standout thing that bugged me was the horrible pause thing, I just wanted to equip a rifle not sit through an entire loading screen and fiddle with mannequins for 10 minutes. The other thing be the actual weapons themselves, they were supposed to "evolve" with you but invariably they all ended up fugly.

Oh, and easy combat, creepy social hive mind where farts excuse murder blah etc bla

 

[leeprice133]

I enjoyed Fable 3. It was a decent game. I think that's the problem though. It was merely decent, when it had the potential to be great.
The story and characters are pretty damn awesome though.
I'm personally hoping for a franchise reboot with a more open world and a better effort at feeling an emotional connection. Maybe take out the "Marry the nameless NPCs" to "build relationships, romantic or otherwise with defined Characters such as Whisper, Thunder, Briar Rose, Hammer or Reaver". I like the dog though. That was a good start.
Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing Lionhead partner up with Bioware to make it. That would be perfect.

Not at all. It was far too short even for a fable title and wrongly focused on tedious pie making-esque filler/fluff material with an expectation you will keep playing after you beat it but never really gave you all that much motivation to play it before beating it.

As negative as that sounds, I have been in support of the franchise since the begining. Fable 3 was by no measure bad, but by no measure good and suffered from multiple detractors such as short story and failing to hit the bar set by prior installments. However if you actively look for it, there is a good amount there but its not a 5lb Tbone, its more like an all you can eat salad bar with a wide variety of potential things to entertain yourself with if you are so compelled.

Side Note: It is interesting to note many people dislike fable as a series or its individual installments. Often citing similar things. Usually in the vein of "not enough" because they find one element such as say Combat or Story lacking. Its fair criticism but by that same measure if you want to see what Fable would be like devoid of its trademark ADD approach to content? Play Kingdoms of Amalur. Focused like a laser on RPG toon dev, Combat, Story. The meat most RPG fans look for. THe interesting part is that despite all the benefits from the added focus it does not take long to realize how tedious and repetitive those gameplay mechanics get when they are lacking the "what will entertain me right now" randomness that Fable does in fact provide.

I dunno. Although Kingdoms of Amalur is by no means perfect, I really have a soft spot for that game. Do the mechanics get repetitive? Yeah, but that happens in every big open world game. I just didn't find anything in Fable 3 particularly entertaining.

 

[Arafiro]

A game that is almost impossible to fail and die? Yeah that's pretty bad. If a game doesn't have a challenge, then what the hell are you doing for most of it? Mindlessly pushing buttons? I remember spamming some AoE magic attack and it working like every time. It's been a while, so my memory might be hazy, but I just never felt challenged.

So? Why does a game have to be challenging?
I often enjoy games where my success is essentially foregone conclusion. What about hack n' slash games? I love power fantasy game design.

Yes it was. It was a fucking terrible piece of shit that has no redeeming No challenge to it, combat was shit

In what way was combat "shit"? I thought it had extremely solid, fun combat. Better than a lot of other games I've played.

So yea, it wasn't nearly as good as Fable 1, but >99% of other games aren't either.

 

[JEBWrench]

We all agree that Fable 1 is the best in the lineup. What I think they started doing wrong is trying to force things on us that they hope is worth while. Most times I would say at least they are trying something new, although this time I would have to say they should of learned from the mistakes. They promised us that our worlds in Fable 2 would all be different, and that we will see people playing differently. There were many more promises that were thrown out that never lived up to the hype. Then with Fable 3 it seems like they were impressed with what they did in 2 that they would just add on to the old.

Please don't speak for everyone. I've already had more actual entertainment in Fable 3 in a few hours than I did with the first one.

A game that is almost impossible to fail and die? Yeah that's pretty bad. If a game doesn't have a challenge, then what the hell are you doing for most of it? Mindlessly pushing buttons? I remember spamming some AoE magic attack and it working like every time. It's been a while, so my memory might be hazy, but I just never felt challenged.

Relaxing and having fun. Why does a game need to be challenging?

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

My theory about the Fable franchise: they started with a pretty damn good game in Fable 1, then proceeded to grow/introduce features no one really wanted while simplifying/removing the action/rpg meat-and-potatoes responsible for most of the first game's appeal. Fable 3's combat and story were worse than Fable 2's were worse than Fable 1's. The sequels kept expanding the "promise" without refining (or even equaling) the original package. Fable 1 felt like Zelda. If they'd continued down that path, building on the story and combat already in place, it might have ended up a great series. Instead, every time I try to play 2 or 3, I just go back to 1 again.

I think of Molyneux a little like George Lucas. He created something very entertaining, but he didn't know why it was entertaining. So his efforts to expand upon it were misguided and disappointing.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

I've not played it. Fable 1 was brilliant, Fable 2 was meh... so was #3 worse or better than #2?

 

[RaNDM G]

It was that bad, and this is coming from a fan of the first two games. The first Fable was excellent, great story, great atmosphere, engaging game play, and a dark and twisted sense of humor underlying the whole thing.

For its faults, Fable II succeeded in being different. It still had great story, characters, and atmosphere, and although combat was more streamlined, it still allowed different and equally viable ways to attack different situations.

Fable III was a major step down from the other games. It did nothing to differentiate itself from II, except for streamlining combat even more. It's a more polished game, but the story is unengaged, the characters are flat, and combat is reduced to the point where melee and spells are worthless compared to rifles. The game relies on beating the player over the head with Monty Python references that stop being funny the first time. It's a shallow experience overall.

That's just scratching the surface. I don't think I need to put Angry Joe's 32 Reasons on here seeing how popular that is.

If you never played the other games, I suppose you may find something to like. I thought it was a very disappointing follow up.

 

[erbkaiser]

We all agree that Fable 1 is the best in the lineup.

Well I don't agree. I don't have an Xbox so never played Fable 2, but Fable:TLC is a boring and annoying game IMO.

Fable 3 is easy, but is at least fun. Plus it's gorgeous.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I'd say Fable 3 was decent. Simply decent. Not memorable, not even vaguely annoying - just decent.

I enjoyed it for Albion's charm and for how utterly British it all is. It feels like a distant cousin to Terry Pratchett's works in some elements and, hey - they got John Cleese to voice Jasper. That, Simon Pegg and Ben Kingley seemed to be enough so I'd have at least some amount of enjoyment out of it.

I will admit there's just not a whole lot of cause to go back and do an evil run, though. There's something in the presentation and tone that doesn't give you the same perverse rush that going full-on Sith gives you in KOTOR.

Not to mention that the act of prepping for the endgame is a massive slog that pretty much requires that you dip in the game's pithy multiplayer support. Either you do that and have some pubber on Xbox Live invest in your Albion's properties, or you sloooooooowly gather the cash needed to purchase every ounce of the gameworld. Then you jack your prices up and sit pretty for a couple real-time days while you finally reach the absolute minimum needed in order to defeat the Generic Black Evil Whatsit.

If anything, I'm almost tempted to shell out for a preformatted 360 USB drive so I can use Fable 3 as a guinea pig for Modio and a few savegame-modding utilities I found. I wanna start the game with a fuckton of cash and just dick around.

That's pretty much Fable 3's biggest strength. Dicking around in Albion between Main Story objectives.

 

[Eggsnham]

The reason behind why you can't explain yourself to the people is actually quite simple: You are your father's son.
Your heroic bloodline is littered with examples of people lacking in communication skills. Chickenchaser spoke only in single word commands (wait!) and curses (Shit!), Sparrow had an expanded vocabulary which included the clucking taunts of a chicken and the phrase used to inquire a dog as to "who is a good boy?".
The fact that your character can speak in full sentences at all is (like you being forced to wear mittens in order to command the Will) merely due to a weakening of your heroic Bloodline. Remember, your character's poor communication skills are not unique to himself, as even Logan is forced to bear horns while he works for the greater good, and even he suffered a lapse in explaining his motives to his subjects.

You, my friend, are a genius.

Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.