Good evening fellow Escapists, I've had quite a long day and I feel inspired to tell you all a story. It is the story of my Fable 2 hero, and the reason it caused me to dislike Fable 3. Fear not, this isn't a rant, Fable 3 is still a good game and there are lots of nice things that can be said about it. I'm not making another thread to insult the gameplay decisions made within Fable 3, this is about the storyline. Now, onto business. This does contain spoilers from Fable 2 so I'll put the story in a spoiler box to be safe.
So Fable 2 began, and I, the excited gamer, came home from Florida back to the UK with a nice shiny and sealed copy of it awaiting me for when I returned. When I booted it up, I decided upon a male hero to continue with the trend, after all, I had enjoyed playing a handsome male hero in Fable: The Lost Chapters and I felt it appropriate to continue like so. So there I was as an impoverished child in the streets of Bowerstone- [Skipping intro] So there I was a young man entering Bowerstone market for presumably the first time in my life. I eagerly looked to the world around me, I spoke to the good people, I earned a little money at the blacksmith and bought a shiny new weapon with some stylish threads to accompany it. After conversing with a certain Seer, I was encouraged to perform tasks for the little people in order to get stronger and let the people know my name, and that I did. After a few basic quests that involved little, I chanced upon a bitter ghost who was unable to pass on to the next life and being the resolute hero of the people that I was, I set out to help the poor sod. As it turned out, he was spurned at the alter; his beautiful young wife didn't turn up. Struck with grief, the poor man took his own life in a rather Shakespearean manner. Since that day, his ghost has been trapped, assuming his torment to be caused by the anger he felt towards his young bride. After all, was this not all her doing?
His vengeance was assured, he had it all planned out. He needed me to go and seduce his ex-fiance and when she had fallen for me, give her a faux love letter that was heart breaking. He wanted her to suffer as he had. So, off I set to go torment a young woman... wait what?
I had doubts about this plan, the woman was responsible for the ghosts condition but, was this the right answer? It made me uncertain. Reaching Bowerstone, I met this woman and her name was Alex. I could agree with the ghost, he was right, Alex was a beautiful woman. Carrying out his plan, I proceeded to flirt with her a little, present her with gifts and then when the timing was right, seduced her. She fell hook like and sinker for me in terms of what Lionhead considered appropriate romancing. AHEM anyways, she was smitten with me, and there was no denying it, and she was ripe and ready for the plan... but then she did something unexpected. You see, Alex approached me and confessed her history to me; she explained that she got cold feet on the day of the wedding and ran away. She didnt know her fiance would take his own life but she had felt guilty for it every day since. I was listening to the words of a woman who was truly remorseful for her actions, and she wanted to put the past behind her to get a new start with me. Oh, crap, this threw a gear in the plan. The ghost needed vengeance to move on, but this girl was appealing to me, I couldn't help but like her attitude. After pondering my options, my hero decided not to go through with the ghosts plan. He's dead, that sucks, but breaking Alex's heart wont change that now, right? Well, I made my decision and I went through with it; I married Alex. We moved into a little house within the market and bought some basic furniture for it, home is home, right? Having settled into the house, my hero knew it was time to report back to the ghost, after all leaving him waiting would be a discourtesy after he introduced me to his lovely wife! And well, he was cool with it. He was actually at peace now that his fiance wasn't feeling the guilt anymore. Content with the situation, he moved on, a happy result for us all! I went back to visit my newlywed wife and after a few glasses of fine Albion wine, we went upstairs for [blah blah, sex scene]. In the morning I was woken with some sudden news; Alex was pregnant (wait what it normally takes weeks to tell if you're pregn-- oh wait, Lionhead logic!). After a quick timeskip, Alex gave birth to a daughter, little baby Kira.
How the hell am I meant to handle this?! I'm a fresh adventurer, still green from my training! I have little money and no experience with this type of thing, how am I meant to be a father?! As I look upon my child in her crib, I see how she has the features of both myself and her mother, she's something that we created and it was a beautiful thing, and although I might be a runt of a hero with bad equipment and only a few leveled up skills, I would protect her to my dying (or undying and scar ridden-- oh wait, Lionhead logic) breath.
Moving on a bit, I carried on being a stalwart hero of the people, doing my best to serve the good of all and trying to solve the Lucien thing. I kept returning to my family, I would often come to check on my wife and daughter, and occasionally to give them a shiny gift or two! Eventually I ended up in a difficult situation, I needed to go infiltrate this spire cause Lucien was trying to do something with it that we would probably prefer that he didn't. You know how it is with these evil villains. Aaaaanyway, the infiltration took 10 sodding years of my heroes life and after breaking someone out of prison (wait what, it didnt take Michael Scofield that long-). 10 whole years slowly trickling away as I posed as a guard within the spire. Due to timeskips, I honestly don't know how my hero coped with being away from his family for that long, but I imagine it was a very sad time within his life. 10 years later, we broke out and set some boats on fire, because screw methods of aquatic transportation! After all that time, I took the long walk home to Bowerstone and found my way to Alex. She had aged a little but it didnt show (probably due to NPC's not aging in this game-), but little baby Kira was now a 10 year old little girl Kira, and she got to meet me for the first time. It was hard to imagine that her entire life she had likely heard of me but had no memories, and that was a bitter pill to swallow. Even so, it was a touching Re-union. I had been presumed dead but Alex knew otherwise, and she waited 10 years for me to return. If that doesn't confirm the endurance of a beautiful relationship, I dont know what could. My daughter was thrilled to finally meet me, and Alex was waiting in our little family house. I resolved to spend more time on my family, and try to make up for 10 years of absence.
So, after collecting 10 years worth of business earnings and making some clever deals, I upgraded all of our furniture to that of the highest quality. I bought the finest toys for Kira and the most extravagant jewelry for Alex. We spent those happy days of game time together reestablishing ourselves as a family, and it was touching. Inevitably however, I still had a heroes commitments and the people of the land still needed their stalwart protector, so off I went to carry on with my quest. Eventually I ended up in a bit of a predicament where I had to make a decision of whether or not to sacrifice my youth or let some innocent girl (*cough*REDSHIRT*cough*) lose it instead. The girl was unknown to me, but she was innocent. She had no idea what was going on, last she remembers she was with some friends but I had only a split second to make the decision. I, the stalwart hero of the land, should make the sacrifice... but I couldn't. In that time, my mind flashed to Alex and Kira. They had been alone for 10 years without me, and if I made this sacrifice, we would only have a few more years left with each other. They needed me and I them, and I could not allow anything to come between us. With a heavy heart, I forced the burden onto the girl. She would have to make this sacrifice for the greater good of all. I had a family to consider, this isn't just about me anymore.
I went home after that adventure to discover a horror awaiting me, Kira had run away. She was perfectly happy at home, but aspired to be a hero like myself and so packed her bag and went adventuring. Naturally, I knew this meant trouble so I recklessly set out to go find her. It wasn't hard, she went to a hobbe cave to try and slay da few, and I found her within minutes. If I had been even minutes later, she would have been dead or worse. I shudder to think of it. Thanks to my diligence, she got home unharmed. My mute of a hero was incapable of saying all the words I would have said about how it was reckless and stupid and she could have been killed, what her mother and I would have done if something had happened... and yet for it all, I was just glad she was safe. When I finally got home to Bowerstone, I made the resolute decision that nothing would ever hurt my little girl, *nothing*.
Another time jump later, I'm approaching end game. I go to a hill to do something with the other heroes of the game when Lucien appears. He ambushes us, tries to shut down our little resistance operation and informs me that to try and stop the hero gene from spreading, he found and killed my family. That bastard. He killed my wife and our 10 year old daughter to try and stop his plan from going awry. Despite the fact he enacted a Greek tragedy and set in motion the events that would set me against him in the first place. Alex and Kira are dead, and I'm speechless. My dog tries to defend me, so he kills my dog as well. And now to finish it off, he tries to kill me. Due to a music box deus ex machina (Lionhead logic-), I survive the ordeal and hunt down Lucien. I find him along with my three comrades in the spire, and there he stands taunting me more about my failures. [long story short] I shot him in the face and he died. My family is avenged and yet, it doesn't feel better. They're still dead, and nothing can change that, other than a convenient amount of magic stored in said spire that will allow me to have a single wish. I'm presented with three options; revive all the workers who died to build the spire (roughly 1000), have 1 million gold coins, or have my loved ones returned to life. My conscience wonders, should I bring back the workers? There are too many of them, they all suffered countless injustices. Throughout albion, countless families were mourning the losses of a thousand, exactly the same way I was mourning the loss of my own family. It was the right thing to do, and a righteous hero would know that... Except I was not that righteous hero. The wish was my reward, my entitlement for saving the land from a foul dictator. For all my struggles and efforts, this is what I would be granted for saving the day, and Avo damnit I am claiming it for myself, not the world. In an instant, Alex and Kira were resurrected almost as if it had never happened in the first place. I'd put them through too much, and now I was going to make sure we had a chance to be together again, even if that meant a thousand slaves would stay dead. To me they were nothing more than a number, as cold as that may sound.
I got home to Alex and Kira's loving embrace. They didn't seem to remember the events and I'd rather it stay that way, lest their memories haunt them. Nevertheless, it was hard to go back into our home knowing what had happened in my absence. The memories haunted it, and I couldn't live with it. Alex and Kira had spent 10 years living in that house, I decided it was time for us to move somewhere bigger, somewhere grander, somewhere we could live out our days in bliss. And thats when I discovered Bowerstone Castle was up for sale.
Setting out on another adventure, I entered the world of business for real and set out to purchase every piece of real estate in all of Albion. It took a long period of working as a blacksmith to finance it but after a time, my dream was a reality. Alex, Kira and myself moved into our new family castle together, and the town crier named me king (because a town crier has the authority to do that--- oh wait, Lionhead logic). There was some minor trouble with bandits at first which I quickly resolved, but after that it was peace. My wife was the queen of the land, and my little princess was now literally a little princess. All was well for my hero, who had saved the land and became ruler of it. After a hard 10 years of adventuring, it was time to settle down and rule the kingdom that had prospered due to the decisions I had made. All was well for me.
And then Fable 3 happened.
So, I import my save into fable 3 on the day of its release with the promise from Lionhead that the decisions I made in fable 2 would change the way the world begins in fable 3. I also discover that I will play as the offspring of my character from the previous game, does this mean I can only play as a grown up Kira? Well, nope, I get both options regardless which I figured was okay, after all, Alex and I likely had another child later, right? Well, kinda.
I start the game again as a Male champion for the third time consecutively, and I find myself as prince. Woop, Kira is the heir I guess.
Wait, where is Kira? I can't find her anywhere and no one seems to know of her. I find that my old hero and Alex are dead due to unknown reasons (a terrible disease known as "plot device"), and the heir to the throne is my older brother called Teyrn Loghain--- I mean erm, Logan. Where did he come from? I never had a child called Logan, it was just Alex, Myself and Kira. But the realm did not know their names because according to Fable 3, they did not exist. My hero was the king, the name of the queen was unknown and Kira dropped off the face of the planet without reason. Despite my best efforts, she would never be known. So I played Fable 3 with an expression on my face worthy of Warhammer 40k standards, but I found it hard to enjoy the game when all of my efforts from before were lost and forgotten.
So lets backup for a moment here, why am I making a deal out of this? After all, Alex and Kira were never real, they were a virtual family for a virtual character, but all of which were in a roleplaying game and I roleplayed it, I took the role of my hero and I was a loving husband and father, but the sequel forgot this for the sake of its plot. From a design perspective, I can understand why Lionhead would make this decision, after all it would be a colossal effort to import every aspect of a character into a sequel, but because the one part of my save that I cared about was erased, so was my interest in Fable 3. I will always remember that family, the way they were, what they looked like and the decisions I made for them, but Fable 3 never will. For all of the things that Fable 3 would have to offer, I took interest in none because the canon involving my family was not the one we would be playing on here, so my interest dwindled because it did not feel like the Albion I had been playing in back in Fable 2. It felt like a distorted copy that removed all crossbows and swapped actual magic for unstylish handwear.
So there, end of story. I honestly have no idea why I'm even making this thread at this point, I'm just tired and I wanted to share part of my experience with whoever actually reads all this. If you did, I thank you. I also apologize for all of the spelling/grammar mistakes made, as well as my frequent use of comma's.
TL;DR? Fable 3 made me a saaaaaad hero
His vengeance was assured, he had it all planned out. He needed me to go and seduce his ex-fiance and when she had fallen for me, give her a faux love letter that was heart breaking. He wanted her to suffer as he had. So, off I set to go torment a young woman... wait what?
I had doubts about this plan, the woman was responsible for the ghosts condition but, was this the right answer? It made me uncertain. Reaching Bowerstone, I met this woman and her name was Alex. I could agree with the ghost, he was right, Alex was a beautiful woman. Carrying out his plan, I proceeded to flirt with her a little, present her with gifts and then when the timing was right, seduced her. She fell hook like and sinker for me in terms of what Lionhead considered appropriate romancing. AHEM anyways, she was smitten with me, and there was no denying it, and she was ripe and ready for the plan... but then she did something unexpected. You see, Alex approached me and confessed her history to me; she explained that she got cold feet on the day of the wedding and ran away. She didnt know her fiance would take his own life but she had felt guilty for it every day since. I was listening to the words of a woman who was truly remorseful for her actions, and she wanted to put the past behind her to get a new start with me. Oh, crap, this threw a gear in the plan. The ghost needed vengeance to move on, but this girl was appealing to me, I couldn't help but like her attitude. After pondering my options, my hero decided not to go through with the ghosts plan. He's dead, that sucks, but breaking Alex's heart wont change that now, right? Well, I made my decision and I went through with it; I married Alex. We moved into a little house within the market and bought some basic furniture for it, home is home, right? Having settled into the house, my hero knew it was time to report back to the ghost, after all leaving him waiting would be a discourtesy after he introduced me to his lovely wife! And well, he was cool with it. He was actually at peace now that his fiance wasn't feeling the guilt anymore. Content with the situation, he moved on, a happy result for us all! I went back to visit my newlywed wife and after a few glasses of fine Albion wine, we went upstairs for [blah blah, sex scene]. In the morning I was woken with some sudden news; Alex was pregnant (wait what it normally takes weeks to tell if you're pregn-- oh wait, Lionhead logic!). After a quick timeskip, Alex gave birth to a daughter, little baby Kira.
How the hell am I meant to handle this?! I'm a fresh adventurer, still green from my training! I have little money and no experience with this type of thing, how am I meant to be a father?! As I look upon my child in her crib, I see how she has the features of both myself and her mother, she's something that we created and it was a beautiful thing, and although I might be a runt of a hero with bad equipment and only a few leveled up skills, I would protect her to my dying (or undying and scar ridden-- oh wait, Lionhead logic) breath.
Moving on a bit, I carried on being a stalwart hero of the people, doing my best to serve the good of all and trying to solve the Lucien thing. I kept returning to my family, I would often come to check on my wife and daughter, and occasionally to give them a shiny gift or two! Eventually I ended up in a difficult situation, I needed to go infiltrate this spire cause Lucien was trying to do something with it that we would probably prefer that he didn't. You know how it is with these evil villains. Aaaaanyway, the infiltration took 10 sodding years of my heroes life and after breaking someone out of prison (wait what, it didnt take Michael Scofield that long-). 10 whole years slowly trickling away as I posed as a guard within the spire. Due to timeskips, I honestly don't know how my hero coped with being away from his family for that long, but I imagine it was a very sad time within his life. 10 years later, we broke out and set some boats on fire, because screw methods of aquatic transportation! After all that time, I took the long walk home to Bowerstone and found my way to Alex. She had aged a little but it didnt show (probably due to NPC's not aging in this game-), but little baby Kira was now a 10 year old little girl Kira, and she got to meet me for the first time. It was hard to imagine that her entire life she had likely heard of me but had no memories, and that was a bitter pill to swallow. Even so, it was a touching Re-union. I had been presumed dead but Alex knew otherwise, and she waited 10 years for me to return. If that doesn't confirm the endurance of a beautiful relationship, I dont know what could. My daughter was thrilled to finally meet me, and Alex was waiting in our little family house. I resolved to spend more time on my family, and try to make up for 10 years of absence.
So, after collecting 10 years worth of business earnings and making some clever deals, I upgraded all of our furniture to that of the highest quality. I bought the finest toys for Kira and the most extravagant jewelry for Alex. We spent those happy days of game time together reestablishing ourselves as a family, and it was touching. Inevitably however, I still had a heroes commitments and the people of the land still needed their stalwart protector, so off I went to carry on with my quest. Eventually I ended up in a bit of a predicament where I had to make a decision of whether or not to sacrifice my youth or let some innocent girl (*cough*REDSHIRT*cough*) lose it instead. The girl was unknown to me, but she was innocent. She had no idea what was going on, last she remembers she was with some friends but I had only a split second to make the decision. I, the stalwart hero of the land, should make the sacrifice... but I couldn't. In that time, my mind flashed to Alex and Kira. They had been alone for 10 years without me, and if I made this sacrifice, we would only have a few more years left with each other. They needed me and I them, and I could not allow anything to come between us. With a heavy heart, I forced the burden onto the girl. She would have to make this sacrifice for the greater good of all. I had a family to consider, this isn't just about me anymore.
I went home after that adventure to discover a horror awaiting me, Kira had run away. She was perfectly happy at home, but aspired to be a hero like myself and so packed her bag and went adventuring. Naturally, I knew this meant trouble so I recklessly set out to go find her. It wasn't hard, she went to a hobbe cave to try and slay da few, and I found her within minutes. If I had been even minutes later, she would have been dead or worse. I shudder to think of it. Thanks to my diligence, she got home unharmed. My mute of a hero was incapable of saying all the words I would have said about how it was reckless and stupid and she could have been killed, what her mother and I would have done if something had happened... and yet for it all, I was just glad she was safe. When I finally got home to Bowerstone, I made the resolute decision that nothing would ever hurt my little girl, *nothing*.
Another time jump later, I'm approaching end game. I go to a hill to do something with the other heroes of the game when Lucien appears. He ambushes us, tries to shut down our little resistance operation and informs me that to try and stop the hero gene from spreading, he found and killed my family. That bastard. He killed my wife and our 10 year old daughter to try and stop his plan from going awry. Despite the fact he enacted a Greek tragedy and set in motion the events that would set me against him in the first place. Alex and Kira are dead, and I'm speechless. My dog tries to defend me, so he kills my dog as well. And now to finish it off, he tries to kill me. Due to a music box deus ex machina (Lionhead logic-), I survive the ordeal and hunt down Lucien. I find him along with my three comrades in the spire, and there he stands taunting me more about my failures. [long story short] I shot him in the face and he died. My family is avenged and yet, it doesn't feel better. They're still dead, and nothing can change that, other than a convenient amount of magic stored in said spire that will allow me to have a single wish. I'm presented with three options; revive all the workers who died to build the spire (roughly 1000), have 1 million gold coins, or have my loved ones returned to life. My conscience wonders, should I bring back the workers? There are too many of them, they all suffered countless injustices. Throughout albion, countless families were mourning the losses of a thousand, exactly the same way I was mourning the loss of my own family. It was the right thing to do, and a righteous hero would know that... Except I was not that righteous hero. The wish was my reward, my entitlement for saving the land from a foul dictator. For all my struggles and efforts, this is what I would be granted for saving the day, and Avo damnit I am claiming it for myself, not the world. In an instant, Alex and Kira were resurrected almost as if it had never happened in the first place. I'd put them through too much, and now I was going to make sure we had a chance to be together again, even if that meant a thousand slaves would stay dead. To me they were nothing more than a number, as cold as that may sound.
I got home to Alex and Kira's loving embrace. They didn't seem to remember the events and I'd rather it stay that way, lest their memories haunt them. Nevertheless, it was hard to go back into our home knowing what had happened in my absence. The memories haunted it, and I couldn't live with it. Alex and Kira had spent 10 years living in that house, I decided it was time for us to move somewhere bigger, somewhere grander, somewhere we could live out our days in bliss. And thats when I discovered Bowerstone Castle was up for sale.
Setting out on another adventure, I entered the world of business for real and set out to purchase every piece of real estate in all of Albion. It took a long period of working as a blacksmith to finance it but after a time, my dream was a reality. Alex, Kira and myself moved into our new family castle together, and the town crier named me king (because a town crier has the authority to do that--- oh wait, Lionhead logic). There was some minor trouble with bandits at first which I quickly resolved, but after that it was peace. My wife was the queen of the land, and my little princess was now literally a little princess. All was well for my hero, who had saved the land and became ruler of it. After a hard 10 years of adventuring, it was time to settle down and rule the kingdom that had prospered due to the decisions I had made. All was well for me.
And then Fable 3 happened.
So, I import my save into fable 3 on the day of its release with the promise from Lionhead that the decisions I made in fable 2 would change the way the world begins in fable 3. I also discover that I will play as the offspring of my character from the previous game, does this mean I can only play as a grown up Kira? Well, nope, I get both options regardless which I figured was okay, after all, Alex and I likely had another child later, right? Well, kinda.
I start the game again as a Male champion for the third time consecutively, and I find myself as prince. Woop, Kira is the heir I guess.
Wait, where is Kira? I can't find her anywhere and no one seems to know of her. I find that my old hero and Alex are dead due to unknown reasons (a terrible disease known as "plot device"), and the heir to the throne is my older brother called Teyrn Loghain--- I mean erm, Logan. Where did he come from? I never had a child called Logan, it was just Alex, Myself and Kira. But the realm did not know their names because according to Fable 3, they did not exist. My hero was the king, the name of the queen was unknown and Kira dropped off the face of the planet without reason. Despite my best efforts, she would never be known. So I played Fable 3 with an expression on my face worthy of Warhammer 40k standards, but I found it hard to enjoy the game when all of my efforts from before were lost and forgotten.
So lets backup for a moment here, why am I making a deal out of this? After all, Alex and Kira were never real, they were a virtual family for a virtual character, but all of which were in a roleplaying game and I roleplayed it, I took the role of my hero and I was a loving husband and father, but the sequel forgot this for the sake of its plot. From a design perspective, I can understand why Lionhead would make this decision, after all it would be a colossal effort to import every aspect of a character into a sequel, but because the one part of my save that I cared about was erased, so was my interest in Fable 3. I will always remember that family, the way they were, what they looked like and the decisions I made for them, but Fable 3 never will. For all of the things that Fable 3 would have to offer, I took interest in none because the canon involving my family was not the one we would be playing on here, so my interest dwindled because it did not feel like the Albion I had been playing in back in Fable 2. It felt like a distorted copy that removed all crossbows and swapped actual magic for unstylish handwear.
So there, end of story. I honestly have no idea why I'm even making this thread at this point, I'm just tired and I wanted to share part of my experience with whoever actually reads all this. If you did, I thank you. I also apologize for all of the spelling/grammar mistakes made, as well as my frequent use of comma's.
TL;DR? Fable 3 made me a saaaaaad hero
