Fable: Is the Xbox the new king of RPGs?
Written: Oct 09 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: -Entertaining story, graphics, controls
Cons: -Load times, replay value
The Bottom Line: Fable is a very good RPG, it isn't the greatest RPG ever though.
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| pavona21's Full Review: Secret of Evermore for Super Nintendo (SNES) |
Intro: Fable has ego
Unlike other projects, such as the human genome project and “the projects”, Project Ego has been causing xbox owning adolescents to cream their pants since the system debuted. Even as far back as the year 2000, Project Ego was labeled the soon to be “greatest RPG of all time”, the next Zelda only different, and the game that the xbox would have that would put it head and shoulders above the rest. Much like many “soon to be great” games though, (Halo 2, every Mario game, ect) big project ego went through months upon years of delay, and even a name change. Finally, this fall, and only 4 years late at that, Project Ego was released as Fable. Now, at this point, no one questioned that Fable would be a good game. The real test would be as to whether or not Fable would live up to ridiculous hype. I have the answer, read in to find out.
Story: 9/10-Little boys, 2 person graduating classes, and blind girls….of fun
You begin your quest as a little man, on your sister’s birthday, still developing your personally, and trying to heed your fathers word. One minute, your biggest decisions and worries encompass whether or not to tell on the town’s cheating husband, what to do about the local bully, and what to buy that sister of yours for her birthday. The next minute, bandits storm the town walls, “kill” your family, and leave you for dead in the forest. What a hellacious turn of events! All of sudden, by some act of god, a renown wizard, Maze, saves your life using his powerful magic powers. He takes you to the guild of heroes, where you will develop into whatever man you will become. Good, evil, renown, feared, gay, straight…only time will tell.
The beginning of the game was bit tutorial, and somewhat tedious, but the real fun is about to begin. As soon as you become an adult, you are essentially free to do as you please. Want to get through every quest in the game, ranging from killing giant bugs, to taking down the king of the bandits that destroyed your life? Do it. Would you rather go from town to town, trading good, earning a profit, and killing the occasional townsman when you feel like it? No problem. Would you rather become the biggest ladies man(or man’s man that’s your style) in the history of the kingdom? Are you looking to have 3 wives and 5 other lovers? It’s all up to you. Fable, of course, does recommend that you spend your time progressing from mission to mission, in order to gain valuable gold, renown points, and experience so that you may increase the skills of your character. But, the great thing about this title is that it allows you to these things at your own pace.
Skills and Personality
Progressing your character though, is the true strength of fable. This is one of the few games that make it fully rewarding to gain experience. While in the heroes guild, the center of all things progress, you are able to progress your little angel or demon in three different ways. Stregnth, Skill, and Will. Using your experience to increase strength can cause your character to do more damage or have more health. Adding on to skill can make you more accurate or stealth(which I will discuss later). Finally, increasing will essentially make your character more magical, allowing your character to learn spells that use lightning, fire, and everything in between.
The other intricate side of character development comes in the “character alignment” realm. As you go through the game, everything that you do, everything that you hurt, the way that you look, and the quests that you complete shape your personality. As time passes, you’ll begin to realize whether your character is becoming demonic, or angelic. Kill a nasty wasp or a dirty bandit in the forest, add a couple of good points. Randomly kill a defenseless trader or steal from a shop(a personal favorite of mine), you’ll soon start to grow devil horns(literally). What does it all mean in the end? Essentially, if you’re a bad person people will still respect you as a hero, but they will fear you greatly. A hero with a spotless record, on the other hand, will be embraced, as well as respected wherever they go. Personally, I find being closer to the evil side of hero alignment to be more entertaining, but at the same time, I like prefer the appearance and personality of the good hero. In any event, it’s your choice.
Weapons, Items, Trading, Left
Another one of Fable’s strong suits is it’s impressive forte of weapons, clothing, and items that you can buy, sell, trade, or steal. On the weapons side, you can choose to purchase melee weapons from cleavers, to swords, to axes, or if you prefer, you can master ranged weapons like longbows and crossbows. In the clothing section, you can purchase armor made of leather, chain mail, and plate mail, along with various different headgear, shirts, slacks, and full outfits. As for items, you can purchase beer(and drink it too, without even showing valid ID), produce, meat, potions, and gifts for your lived one(s). One advantage of using these shops and traders that are scattered all across the landscape is that you can make good profit off of it. If the trader in Great wood has an excess of fish, he’ll sell them to you for 60% off of the newsstand price. Take them to another shop in a different town that have that many in stock, sell them there, and turn a big profit. It’s like Econ 101 kids. Theft 101 too for that matter. Buy up the stealth meter in the skills section using experienced earned from quests and fighting, and you’ll soon be able to “steal”. Literally my favorite thing to do in this game is to take beer into a shop, give 3 or 4 glasses to the shopkeeper, causing him to be completely belligerent, and then steal all of his goods while he’s inebriated. Just the thought of stealing from a completely drunk guy when he’s ten feet away from you is worth the price of admission. Finally, you can also purchase items that will change your character’s appearance. You can buy all kinds of tattoos, hairstyles, and facial hair that will make your character either more attractive, scarier, or uglier than sin.
Controls: 8/10-Z…errr…L targeting is back
Overall, the control system in Fable is pretty CA$H. The interesting thing about Fable is that it’s one of the few games on any system that pretty much uses every button on the controller, fairly regularly. That said, Fable has a slightly higher learning curve than you’d see in most games. One thing that gamers will enjoy here though is that the combat system is a pretty good spoof off of the “Z targeting” system that we saw in the Zelda’s for the N64. Only here, you use the L trigger to target enemies, with the 4 action buttons being used mainly to attack and block. Aside from that, movement is pretty solid and responsive, and after about an hour of gameplay, all of the different buttons used will easily make sense.
Sound: 8/10-More bad voice acting, but no need to mute
In terms of sound, Fable shows off a nice soundtrack, with some great tunes that you’d expect from the medieval era. The weapon and item sounds effects are also up to par, with various metal clinking sound, grunts, and moans. The voice acting, on the other hand, is somewhere between cartoony and ridiculous. Your character himself has very few options in terms of communication. He can essentially laugh, flirt, tell others to wait or follow, and fart. As for the village characters, they basically all have very bad English accents and say extremely deep things like “Yay” and “Boo” when you come into their presence. To a certain extent, it works in this game, and it certainly isn’t a factor that should sway your buying decision.
Graphics: 8/10Insert semi witty title
While Fable’s graphics aren’t the most realistic or cutting edge, when push comes to shove, this game looks polished. The animation in the game ranges from bright and colorful in certain scenes, to dark and eerie in others, where necessary. The towns are well animated and detailed, showing off well drawn up shops, houses, and characters. Overall, character models are above averaged, although characters could stand to be a bit more detailed. On the other hand, some of the game’s load times are surprisingly high for being specifically designed for a console as powerful as the Xbox. There are just more 5-10 second pauses than I ever would have expected. Once again, nothing extremely important, but just another small shortcoming.
Overall:8.5/10Fun while it lasts
As I said in the intro, there would be no denying that Fable was going to be at least a good game. It was more of a matter of how good it would be. When it was all said and done, Fable was an extremely entertaining and addictive game while it lasted. The only problem being, it didn’t last very long at all. I went through the entire story in about 14 hours, and when I finished, I wished that the game would have been a little bit longer. You’d think they could have gotten at least 20 hours of gameplay out of their 4 years of production, but I suppose they couldn’t. Overall though, Fable is pretty much a must play for anyone with an xbox. Its overall freedom, great story and character development, and pretty graphics will make it one of the year’s best. It’s small shortcomings and lack of replay value though will hold it from becoming “the greatest RPG of all time”.
Thanks for reading,
-Pav
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
pavona21
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Member: Eric Pavona
Location: Scenic Michigan
Reviews written: 105
Trusted by: 67 members
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Well Friends, it'll soon be GTA4 time.
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