Thoughts About Fable II

Your big sister broke my heart.
I didn’t really have high hopes for Fable II. The reason my hopes weren’t high is because the first Fable (for the original Xbox) seriously let me down. The advertising promised great things… a change to fully customize either a fully good, fully evil, or a somewhere in between character and taken them on an adventure where you every action would in one way or another affect the outcome of the story. I hide high hopes of losing myself in this world of fantasy, an epic story and interesting characters. I was let down on all accounts.

That was then. This is now.

It will be hard to make an honest review of Fable II without comparing it to it’s big sister, but I’ll give it a shot.

Morality and purity play a big role in Fable II. The game tries to create the digital world promised in the first game where you’re actions have consequences. Players who take a stand for the moral high ground will find themselves loved by villagers and the bards will sing songs of your deeds. Players who lean more to the evil side will end up being hated, chased by law enforcement but possibly very, very rich. Everything from lying to stealing, to eating rotten food effects your “evilness” level. In my one time play-through I stayed somewhere in the middle most of the time.

Though I tried to remain good and pure of heart, the game presented you with some choices that were actually hard to make. For example. During one chapter of the story you’re a prison guard tasked with the job of ..well… guarding prisoners. These prisoners are hungry and you have the choice to either bring them food, or let them starve. The problem is if you disobey your order to NOT bring them food, the prison warden takes away a hefty amount of your character’s experience. Any player familiar with RPG type mechanics knows that whatever you do, don’t lose any experience.

Another example would be later in the game where you’re faced with the option to either plant an artifact on an innocent young girl, or hold onto the artifact yourself. The moral dilemma here is that a group of dark wizards will take the youth of the carrier of the artifact and leave them old of weak. It might have been the right thing to do, to own up to the possession of the artifact, but who wants to play through a game as a weak old character?

Even with my blatant walk into the evil side of morality, I did enough other good things in the game to keep my character from becoming truly evil. (If only real life worked this way.)

It’s All About Me

Experience in the game is earned by defeating the various enemies you’ll come across. Your experience points can be spent in any of the game’s three specific skill set. Strength: The ability to use weapons more effectively and build your character’s stamina and physique. Skill: The ability to use better use ranged weapons and improve your character’s dexterity. And Will: The ability to use power magic for the purpose of defeating enemies and slowing down time.

I played through the game focusing on upgrading as many will attributes and I could. By the end of the game I was powerful enough to slow time whenever a combat encounter began, and zap all of the baddies with lightning before they even got a chance to draw they swords. I can’t even begin to tell you how fun this was. Battle after battle, I kept waiting for my tactic to get old, but it never did.

A Brief Thought About Story Content

Fable II shinning moments are pulled from it’s story. This time around (again comparing to the first Fable) the story is very well thought out and satisfying. Without getting too much into it, (I don’t do spoilers) it’s a tale that weaves the lives of orphaned children, a heart broken, obsessed widower, interesting heroes of lore, and probably the character I was most interested in, a blind she-monk who may or may not have been the little sister from the first Fable. There interactions with each other as well as their personal intentions pulled you into the lives of the character like a good story should. By the end of the game I found myself actually caring about these fictitious people.

The end is the beginning is the end?
One thing that really impressed me was the game’s final moments. They were very unique and I can honestly say I haven’t encountered anything like them in any other game I’ve played. Rather than having a boss battle you’re sent into a dream sequence where your character is forced to remember all the decisions they’ve had to make throughout the course of the game. It was a very interesting take on the end game, and I feel it brought things with the characters to a tidy close.

If I had one complaint with Fable II it would be that it was too darn short! My play through took about 12 hours and I feel it really ended right when I was at my peak of interest about what would happen next. And I really need to know if the mysterious blind she-monk was the little sister from the first game. I think she was. Hopefully I’ll find out in Fable III. All-in-all, I’m giving Fable II a weak 8.