Fable, what I don't understand

[Baelinicus]

Well, when I bought Fable, I had never heard of Molyneux. And I bloody loved it. Still do, actually.

I borrowed the Lost Chapters recently, and it annoyed the crap out of me. It had virtually zero new content, which annoyed me. Loved the Guardian people in the demon door though.

(And what the hell was up with that Silver Key Demon door?! Biggest piece of crap ever!)

 

[NickCaligo42]

If you watch Yahtzee's review of it (not shown on this site; go to his personal site www.fullyramblomatic.com to look it up) it should give you a pretty clear idea of what people dislike about Fable--better even than Khell_Sennet and mitsoxfan sum it up here, which I think are pretty good analogies. I'd love to rant on it myself as I think Fable is second only to Kingdom Hearts 2 as a prime example of how not to design an action RPG, but that'll have to wait.

 

[qbert4ever]

Well, just about every aspect of the game has been covered already, but I will say this.

What the HELL happened to Jack of Blade's voice in Lost Chapters? When Fable first came out he came across as a patronizing bit of slime that you could just tell by hearing him he was always one step ahead of you. Just something about him came across as "I'm better then you" in just the right way to make you hate him as a person, but love him as a villain.

And then Lost Chapters went and made him sound like every other generic bad guy in the world. I loved the game, but that is one "update" I could have gone without.

 

[ReepNeep]

It was very shallow and empty-feeling. There was much fun to be had playing with the different spells and how they interacted withe each other and the weapons, but the game as a whole was pretty lame.

For a game thats supposed to have morality as one of it's major selling points, not having any characters the player can develop an emotional attachment to is a pretty big blunder (then again, I felt the same way about most of HL2's characters so you might not want to take me seriously). Case in point: Jack of Blades. Fantastic visual design and voicework but with the most generic, boring 'evil dude' personality imaginable.

Overall I enjoyed the game but am very glad I didn't pay full price for it.

And what is up with you ending up older than your mother?

 

[ilves7]

I didn't know that much about it when I played, but I have played a lot of RPG's prior.
To me Fable was:
Shallow, both in story (cliche a bit?), combat (hack slash hack slash roll roll)
Linear. There was really no variation or choice in this game. Your choices DID NOT MATTER and the game was purely linear in terms of geographic space and actual storyline.
Good and evil choices meant nothing.
There was no satisfaction in doing any of the social things. Why do I care if I have a house with a wife in it? It really doesn't do anything. It just is. If I wanted the sims I'd play that because they did it better.

So, overall, the game was just run-of-the-mill average, bleh. Nothing stood out, nothing amazing or new that hadn't been done before. Nothing unique that would make me go, hey, this is cool.

 

[Tacroy]

Fable was good, but it should not have been released at $50. It was a $20 game at most, and honestly was a terrible deal.

For instance, my final save in Fable was at 12 hours. My final save in Mardek chapter 2 was at 12 hours. I paid for one of these, and to be honest enjoyed them both about equally. I have played longer demos.

 

[Grampy_bone]

The combat was shitty and unbalanced. Enemies could block your attacks at any time; so if you were fighting a group of enemies is was guaranteed one of them would block causing you to recoil and the others would assrape you while you were stunned. This didn't work in reverse; if you blocked an enemy's attack there was no period of stun for them where they were defenseless, they could still block right in the middle of their recoil animation. This made the combat frustrating and random.

So then you just take the shield spell and it makes you invincible. Or cast the ultimate death super spells to kill everything. *sigh*

 

[greygelgoog]

I personally enjoyed Fable, but I was introduced to it well after its initial release and I had never heard any of the hype. I suspect that had I known what they claimed would be in the final release I would have been a tad pissed off. My biggest complaint about the game proper (rather than it's failure to deliver what was promised) was the whole morality aspect of the game. I had kill 2 of the major NPCs (they were really pissing me off) and had gone the "evil" route on some quests, and my alignment still marked me as a paragon of virtue. In Fable being evil is a lot of work. It's not, per se, easier to be good, it just seems to take less effort. At least in OverLord it felt more like a matter of choice than convenience.

 

[Uncle Comrade]

And what is up with you ending up older than your mother?

And I also was wodnering about the aging myself. Simply through spending experience you get older? And when I finished I was well over eighty? WTF???

I especially hate the bit in Lost Chapters where taking a journey on a ship somehow leads to you automatically getting gray hair and a full-on bushy beard, no matter what you looked like before.

 

[Toomuchcake(WDW)]

I felt that Fable was one of the funnest Action/RPG games i had played (Poor me back then no Photo-relistic graphics) The escort missions were a kick in the balls but the fact that you could be what u wanted to be was very appeling even though u didnt get as much as u thought u would u got a fair bit of it and i hope u all played and finished Fable (Original)because

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
At the end the fact that if u wanted to u could kill ur sister for the ultimate power or just be a good fellow and let her live while giving up the most awesomest weapon in game arpart from the Frying pan of doom now thats what i call cooking (Sorry really bad joke) But then it was ruined in Lost chapters where if u go over to the grave stones for the best heroes and u gave up the awesome blade u get another one exactly like it arpart from in good form
SPOILER END SPOILER END

 

[stompy]

Basically, I didn't hear the hype for Fable, so I thought it was pretty good. I mean, it had action, with a sprinkling of RPG elements.

Course, many people didn't, but the reason is probably best said by Khell.

- A procrastinator

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

You know what, I avoided all of the hype leading up to Fable's release and I thought it was utterly brilliant. For us ADHD types the brevity of the quests was like a breath of fresh air. In Fable only my character aged; after playing Final Fantasy I physically aged just trying to get though the game. It's fun, charming and pretty.

It seems that peoples' ire toward the game was mainly caused by Molyneux and his empty promises. Knowing this, I pay no attention to what he says about Fable 2 and I'm just going to go ahead and enjoy it as it is presented to me.

 

[mitsoxfan]

It's one of those games that, if you see it in a bargain bin, you should pick it up. It's incredibly entertaining, and damn fun. It has it's moments, and combat is a bit frustrating, buit overall, it's worth a play-through (or two).