Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den!
With Flaming Fowl Studios, a company comprised of staff members of the now closed Lionhead Studios, making a Hearthstone-like game called Fable Fortune, I've been thinking about, and playing, the games that I own in the series, and thought about what the games are and what they did. I'm going to talk about storyline, graphics, gameplay and interface.
Now, the only main series game that I have not played is Fable the Journey, so I can't talk about it from personal experience, since I don't own a Kinect. However, I will mention what I've seen on youtube when it comes to graphics and storyline. I've also not played the Pub Games and Heroes Xbox Live games, but those are unimportant in the scheme of things.
Storyline: Fable 1 is the only game in the series that is self contained. It sets up the world, makes it seem lived in, gives you lots of exposition, but does not explain more than you need to know. It is a common fantasy story where a boy survives his village's destruction, gets training at the Guild of Heroes, and goes off to make his way as a Hero, only to find out that he's the only one who is able to defeat a great evil. And this story is told through the narrative; yeah, there are books in the game that give you some extra info about monsters, weapons, and some background info, but the story is told through the game. The story is good from start to finish, making me want to drive through and see the resolution, even though I know how it ends.
Fable 2 is set 500 years after the events of Fable 1, and pretty much tells a story of revenge, with a "save the world" thing as secondary. This game, through a couple of books, tells what happened between the games, what the MacGuffin is, insight into your enemy, and a lot of side and background information. However, the story is engaging, and keeps you moving toward the end, despite the somewhat disappointing final boss. However, the 2 DLC packs more than make up for it, giving you a fun story about Knothole Island, whose people are the descendants of those from Knothole Glade in Fable 1, and a link to Fable 3. However, this is the game that tells why "Hero" is capitalized in this series; those called "Hero" have power in their blood, rather than deed.
Fable 3 picks up 50 years after Fable 2, and follows the child mentioned in Fable 2's final DLC. You're playing as the newest descent of the Fable 1 Hero, as you start a revolution to overthrow your tyrannical brother, and then, of course, go on to fight a great evil. It kind of falters somewhat in the middle, but a this point, you're committed to see the ending, which, while not as epic as the ending of Fable 1, is dealing with no less of a threat, and you feel satisfied with your victory. It has 2 DLC packs; Understone and Traitor's Keep. Understone is weaved into the vanilla game and adds an extra "dungeon", and Traitor's Keep is a full short story after the ending.
Fable: The Journey takes place after the Fable 3 hero has disappeared, and Theresa, the sister of the Fable 1 Hero and the only character to appear in all 3 previous games, is forced to "create" a new Hero to fight the Darkness that has been hinted at through the rest of the saga. This game is essentially an exposition dump to close out the story, with pretty much all story is between action segments. In fact, due to this game being cutscene heavy, you can actually watch this as a 2 hour movie.
All in all, I like Fable 1's story the best, with 2 and 3 being a close second. As for The Journey? I'll stick to youtube, because unlike its predecessors, your actions do not change based on morality.
Interface: Fable 1 is definitely an Xbox era title, with usage of menus to access lore, stores, game save, everything. Everything works the way it should, though unfortunately, it is broken into 2 menus; the game menu, which is tied to the back button on the Xbox controller, and the save menu, which is on the start button.
Fable 2 streamlines the interface, consolidating all menus under the start button, and no longer requires you to return to somewhere specific to level up.
Fable 3 tries something new with the Sanctuary, which is tied to the storyline, but is not as extensive as Fable 1 and 2. You can look at your clothes, your weapons, your spells, but not your items. You can't see how many healing items you have left until you've actually taken damage. Same with your spell potions. It also removed the health bar, and replaced it with the whole "beating heart" thing that I mentioned in my earlier retrospective. It also brings back the whole "go to a certain point to level up" that Fable 1 did, but unlike Fable 1, new abilities and levels are gated off via the Road to Rule.
I don't own Fable: The Journey, so I can't speak of the interface, since that would require me to buy a Kinect for the Xbox 360 AND the game, and I'm not willing to spend that much on a motion control game.
Gameplay-Quests: Fable 1 is FULL of quests, which are actually integrated into the storyline! Since you're part of the Guild of Heroes, nearly all side quests are centralized via quest cards left at the guild, and all the guild quest cards have boasts that give an increased challenge for some extra gold.
Fable 2 is also full of quests; more than Fable 1, in fact. And some of them are repeatable. Unfortunately, this game only rewards with renown, but not gold, so you've got to work for your gold. Fortunately, real estate nets you all the money you'll ever need, if you put in the effort to make the money to buy it early enough. Real estate rent also when you're not actively playing the game, since you gain rent based on the console's time clock.
Fable 3 is full of side quests, and like Fable 1, they are integrated into the plot. So is your money, due to you needing 6.5 million gold to save all your people. And when it comes to rent, you gain it faster while playing, but not when you're not playing.
Based on my research, Fable: The Journey has no side quests. It is linear and story driven from beginning to end.
So, again, Fable 1 and 2 did it best.
Gameplay-Combat: Fable 1 is odd to go back to after playing 2 and 3; it's clunky, despite how dynamic it is. This game is heavy on spell casting, and spells can affect your melee and ranged combat, healing, summoning, AOE and direct damage. Ranged combat works fine, giving you both sniping and lock on combat. But melee can be clunky; if you don't lock on to your foes, you can swing wildly and completely miss your target. And combat also used too many buttons; 1 to draw and sheath your melee weapons, one to draw and sheath your ranged weapon, another button to bring up your spells, another to roll, and another to block. Thankfully, Anniversary streamlines a LOT of that and makes it conform more to the Fable 2 and 3 combat system, which I have finally gotten used to, and find it a LOT better than the "Traditional" style from the original Xbox versions.
Fable 2 streamlined combat a LOT, making combat far more fun that it was in Fable 1 four years earlier. Locking on to an enemy was a convenience, but not a necessity, heavy weapons were far less unwieldy, ranged weapons were faster and didn't require a charge up, and spell casting was tied to a single button. It also eliminated a lot of spells, eliminating the healing spells and spells that augmented your melee and ranged abilities, and making all spells AOE and targeted.
Fable 3 uses Fable 2's combat system, but eliminated more spells, but introduced Spellweaving, a way to combine the effects of 2 spells in one spell casting. However, the lack of a health bar in this game makes it more difficult than it should be.
Fable: The Journey. Motion control. 'Nuff said.
So, to me, Fable 2 did it best.
Graphics: Fable 1 is definitely an Xbox Original title, taking full advantage of the console's graphical capability. All models looked great, and you saw textures that you wouldn't have seen on the Playstation 2 or Gamecube. Unfortunately, the Anniversary version, made 10 years later for the Xbox 360, looks like an updated version of this engine, and does not look as good as Fable 3, which came 4 years earlier.
Fable 2 is an early Xbox 360 title, utilizing the more powerful hardware as well as they could. The world looks more lush, colors are more vibrant, animations are more fluid. However, faces lack any real emotion, due to a lack of familiarity to the hardware.
Fable 3 has the best graphics engine, using what Fable 2 did and made it better. Shadows are better utilized, and characters are far more expressive.
Fable: The Journey uses Fable 3's graphic engine, but I have to deduct points for changing Theresa's look, making her look slightly older than she did in Fable 1, instead of the 500+ year old character we saw in 2 and 3.
So Fable 3 wins when it comes to looking the best, but only by a narrow margin.
So, based on what I've come up with, Fable 1 is the best game, but Fable 2 is the most fun to play. And, while I'm not one for card games, I'm actually looking forward to see how Flaming Fowl Studios does with Fable Fortune. Who knows? Maybe we'll see a real Fable game in the future, and not a card game or motion controlled piece of shit if it's sucessful!
But for now, stay Beautiful Freaks!
Showing posts with label Fable Retrospective. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fable Retrospective. Show all posts
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Fable Retrospective: Fable 3
Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages! Welcome back to the Assassin's Den!
"One step forward, two steps back" is the best way to describe the changes made between Fable 2 and Fable 3. Don't get me wrong, everything that was changed works properly, is intuitive to use, and is fun. But some of the changes that were made changed things that worked far better in the two previous games. So for this review, I'm going to do a list about the changes that were made.
1. Combat. This game brings back the ability to block, flourish and manually aim with your gun from the start. You even get a charged shot with your gun, which does double damage, but doesn't drop the amount of shots you have in your gun before reloading. (Don't ask me how it works, though.) And spells work exactly the same as Fable 2, with one awesome addition; Spell Weaving. What this allows is you to cast two spells at once, giving you different effects with different combinations. They also got rid of the Chaos Spell (which was useless in my book) and the Slow Time and Raise Dead are now potions. So you can cast those two spells at will, giving you a huge advantage in battle. However, you lose two things; the ability to focus on one enemy in melee combat, and the loss of the health bar. The former has no excuse for, but the latter, they replace it with a system that brings had red creeping around the borders of your screen and the quickening of a heart beat. And while that's all well and good, unless you know the system well, you're either going to waste healing items when you don't need to, or you're going to wait too long to use them and get knocked out. And getting knocked out makes you lose all progress on the guild seal you were building toward. (Something I'll get to when I get to leveling.)
2. Pause menu. Instead of a simple text menu, you have the Sanctuary, a place that you retain control of your character, and walk around to view the weapons, spells, clothes, tattoos, beards and hairstyles you have, how much money you have, as well as your stats that will be viewable by your Xbox Live partners. You also have a map that allows you to fast travel to the different areas of Albion and take on quests, and a later ability to transfer your own funds into the kingdom's treasury (which is a plot point on the game, which I will get to later.) The problem with this is twofold; first, you've lost the ability to view your quest and healing items. So if you've forgotten how many healing items you have or what quest items you have, you're screwed. The other is that if you need to pause to use the bathroom, Jasper won't shut the hell up. And that can get annoying if you have to leave the game paused for a while.
3. Money. Money actually has importance to the plot this time, and is far easier to the come by this time. The jobs this time are more enjoyable, and are more QTE than "hit the sweet spot". And while QTE are annoying, they are more of a game than what you had to do in Fable 2. You also gain money far faster from rent, and you gain more per building too. And while you no longer get money when offline, it doesn't bother me. I felt like I was cheating using that "reset the clock" trick, it was a necessity with how annoying it was to get your initial capital in Fable 2. However, you now how to buy the ability to buy property and shops in with the leveling system. And while it's not that bad (you get the ability to buy houses at the second gate, shops at the 4th), it sucks that you can't buy what you want when you want. The other bad thing is that houses now deteriorate; you have to repair houses every few minutes, or they will deteriorate so far down that you won't get rent from them until you repair them. And when cash flow is low, that is annoying. However, you won't need to worry too much early on, if you manage to get all 10 silver keys that you can get your hands on before you get to the second gate; you get 50,000 gold from a 10 key silver key chest in Brightwall Village, and you can have all 10 keys by the time you have your hero weapons (full details are on the Fable wiki, but the you'll get 2 in the Castle you start in, 3 in Mistpeak, 3 in Brightwall Village, and 2 in the dungeon you get your hero weapons.)
4. Weapons. You're restricted to 4 types of weapons this time; longsword and hammer, and pistol and rifle. But you don't lost any customization; there are a TON legendary weapons (50, to be exact), and you have the weapon morphing for your hero weapons. The morphing is done by how you play your character; everything from how much income you've generated, to how many chests you've opened, to how you interact with the people in the world, to what spells you use, etc. The problem with this is that you can't get all 50 legendary weapons in a single game, and the weapon morphing doesn't work the way you hope. You get maybe a dozen legendary weapons in a save file, so you're going to be trading either over Xbox live, or between save files. And weapons morphing? You qualify for certain morphs by performing the needed actions, but all the morphs are considered when you upgrade a chest, and one is chosen at random. So if you want your weapons to look a certain way, you're going to need to save and reload your game. Which means, unless you have multiple characters saved, you're going to be quitting out of your game each time. (PC gets multiple save files, Xbox doesn't. So if you're a PC player, ignore that line.)
5. Villager interaction. This game introduces the Expression and Dynamic Touch mechanisms, allowing for interaction that wasn't possible in the previous 2 game. You no longer have the "follow" and "wait" expressions; you take the hand of a villager instead. Even if they don't want to follow you; then, you drag them. Expression touch allows you to personally interact with villagers; you can now shake hands, hug, kiss, dance with, fart on, and threaten villagers in ways impossible in previous games. However, the way the previous 2 games does things was better. You can no longer choose what expression you want; you do what the game wants you to do. And I've gotten people I've been pulling along stuck on objects when performing escort missions, and I had to push their character model with mine.
6. Leveling. This game centralizes renown, job rating, and combat leveling into one place; Road to Rule. The currency of the Road to Rule is the Guild Seal, which you get from combat, completing quests, and interacting with villagers. However, you gain VERY little toward your guild seals in combat, and a LOT from villager interaction. And since enemies stop respawning in areas you've cleared out after a few missions, and won't start respawning until you've completed the next story mission (unlike Fable 1 and 2, where they respawn every time), you've to go supplement your guild seals with making villagers either like or hate you. However, you can safely ignore the job upgrades, since I told you about the 50k gold silver key chest in Brightwall, so it's still entirely possible to max out your combat skills by the end of the game.
Despite all these gripes, however, the game is fun to play. Yes, it sucks that I can't target a hob mage in combat, but I can still kill him with my gun and AOE spells no problem. Yes, it sucks that houses deteriorate, but they still make you money, and it's not quick and easy to repair them. Yes, the leveling system sucks, but once I learned it, it never worked against me. And above all, you don't lose out on any customization for your character either; there are still a TON of clothes you can acquire, and you can dye them any way you like. I enjoy playing this game, and you will too.
As for the story; 50 years have passed since the events of Fable 2. The Hero of Bowerstone unified Albion under his/her rule (though only her if you have a female hero save file on your hard drive. Otherwise, it the Hero of Bowerstone's gender defaults to male), and has died and been entombed under the Castle. You play as the second child of the Hero of Bowerstone, and you learn the new system through the story; how to change your clothes, the dynamic and expression touches, and the combat system. After combat training, you find out your brother, Logan, is about to execute protestors, and your boyfriend/girlfriend wants you to stop them. You're forced to choose who Logan executes; the protestors or your boyfriend/girlfriend? After you've chosen (or if you don't choose, Logan executes both), you scream to your brother "I will NEVER forgive you for this!" and he has you escorted to your bedroom. From here, Sir Walter Beck, the old king's/queen's (that's what the previous game's Hero is called in game) closest adviser, takes you away from the castle, and into your parent's tomb to get the Guild Seal, and your first spell on the Road to Rule. You're then led to the Sanctuary, where you are given your mission; gather allies, supporters and gain the necessary strength you need to lead a revolution against your brother. Once you've gathered your army and made yourself strong enough for the fight, you're off to Aurora to find out why your kind-hearted brother turned into a tyrant, and gain the last bit you need; a navy. From there, the invasion begins, and you fight your way to the castle to depose your brother.
After you take the castle (not a spoiler, btw. I mean, did you REALLY think you were going to lose this fight?), you are coronated as king/queen, and put your brother on trial. It is here that you learn the plot for the second half of the game; that "the darkness" that took Aurora is going to invade Albion in one year's time, and Logan was doing what he could to prepare for it. But since he wasn't a Hero, he is unable to fight it effectively. It is your job to prepare for the upcoming battle; both yourself, and your kingdom. And it is here that I bring up the treasury; you need 6.5 million gold in order to save everyone in your kingdom. If you choose to be a good and benevolent monarch and keep your promises to the people who helped you in the revolution, you will need to transfer either either 8.5 million from your personal funds if you choose to done 2 quest items into the treasury, 9.7 million if you don't. If you choose to break your promises and continue the way Logan did things, you will need to transfer 2.05 million if you choose to keep the quest items for your personal funds, 850,000 if you donate them to the treasury. You have 1 year to do this (which is broken down into 5 sections) before the final battle is at hand. You need all the money you need in the treasury by the end of day 121 (on Xbox. You have 1 more time period on PC), so make sure you factor in your choices for that day into your funds transfer. You get all the information how much each day of judgement will cost you on the Fable wiki, so I won't do it here.
Once you reach Day 1, you are warped to the Road to Rule one last time, given your heroic form, and are sent to the day of the battle. And I must say this is the second best ending out of the three; not as good as the fights against Jack of Blades, but FAR better than Lucian. I won't spoil it, though.
At this point, you can play the Traitor's Keep DLC, which occurs after the end of the game, but I haven't played it, because Fable DLC requires a constant connection to Xbox live. Same with Understone, which can be played after the Masquerade quest before you become a monarch.
All in all, despite its problems, Fable 3 is fun. Do not pay more than 15 dollars new for it, though.
I won't be tackling Fable: The Journey or Fable Heroes, because I don't own or want to own either. Heroes is an Xbox Live download, and requires Xbox Live to play, and The Journey is Kinect, and I hate motion control.
I may do a wrap up like I did with Mass Effect, and I'll figure out what I'll do next. Until then, happy gaming!
"One step forward, two steps back" is the best way to describe the changes made between Fable 2 and Fable 3. Don't get me wrong, everything that was changed works properly, is intuitive to use, and is fun. But some of the changes that were made changed things that worked far better in the two previous games. So for this review, I'm going to do a list about the changes that were made.
1. Combat. This game brings back the ability to block, flourish and manually aim with your gun from the start. You even get a charged shot with your gun, which does double damage, but doesn't drop the amount of shots you have in your gun before reloading. (Don't ask me how it works, though.) And spells work exactly the same as Fable 2, with one awesome addition; Spell Weaving. What this allows is you to cast two spells at once, giving you different effects with different combinations. They also got rid of the Chaos Spell (which was useless in my book) and the Slow Time and Raise Dead are now potions. So you can cast those two spells at will, giving you a huge advantage in battle. However, you lose two things; the ability to focus on one enemy in melee combat, and the loss of the health bar. The former has no excuse for, but the latter, they replace it with a system that brings had red creeping around the borders of your screen and the quickening of a heart beat. And while that's all well and good, unless you know the system well, you're either going to waste healing items when you don't need to, or you're going to wait too long to use them and get knocked out. And getting knocked out makes you lose all progress on the guild seal you were building toward. (Something I'll get to when I get to leveling.)
2. Pause menu. Instead of a simple text menu, you have the Sanctuary, a place that you retain control of your character, and walk around to view the weapons, spells, clothes, tattoos, beards and hairstyles you have, how much money you have, as well as your stats that will be viewable by your Xbox Live partners. You also have a map that allows you to fast travel to the different areas of Albion and take on quests, and a later ability to transfer your own funds into the kingdom's treasury (which is a plot point on the game, which I will get to later.) The problem with this is twofold; first, you've lost the ability to view your quest and healing items. So if you've forgotten how many healing items you have or what quest items you have, you're screwed. The other is that if you need to pause to use the bathroom, Jasper won't shut the hell up. And that can get annoying if you have to leave the game paused for a while.
3. Money. Money actually has importance to the plot this time, and is far easier to the come by this time. The jobs this time are more enjoyable, and are more QTE than "hit the sweet spot". And while QTE are annoying, they are more of a game than what you had to do in Fable 2. You also gain money far faster from rent, and you gain more per building too. And while you no longer get money when offline, it doesn't bother me. I felt like I was cheating using that "reset the clock" trick, it was a necessity with how annoying it was to get your initial capital in Fable 2. However, you now how to buy the ability to buy property and shops in with the leveling system. And while it's not that bad (you get the ability to buy houses at the second gate, shops at the 4th), it sucks that you can't buy what you want when you want. The other bad thing is that houses now deteriorate; you have to repair houses every few minutes, or they will deteriorate so far down that you won't get rent from them until you repair them. And when cash flow is low, that is annoying. However, you won't need to worry too much early on, if you manage to get all 10 silver keys that you can get your hands on before you get to the second gate; you get 50,000 gold from a 10 key silver key chest in Brightwall Village, and you can have all 10 keys by the time you have your hero weapons (full details are on the Fable wiki, but the you'll get 2 in the Castle you start in, 3 in Mistpeak, 3 in Brightwall Village, and 2 in the dungeon you get your hero weapons.)
4. Weapons. You're restricted to 4 types of weapons this time; longsword and hammer, and pistol and rifle. But you don't lost any customization; there are a TON legendary weapons (50, to be exact), and you have the weapon morphing for your hero weapons. The morphing is done by how you play your character; everything from how much income you've generated, to how many chests you've opened, to how you interact with the people in the world, to what spells you use, etc. The problem with this is that you can't get all 50 legendary weapons in a single game, and the weapon morphing doesn't work the way you hope. You get maybe a dozen legendary weapons in a save file, so you're going to be trading either over Xbox live, or between save files. And weapons morphing? You qualify for certain morphs by performing the needed actions, but all the morphs are considered when you upgrade a chest, and one is chosen at random. So if you want your weapons to look a certain way, you're going to need to save and reload your game. Which means, unless you have multiple characters saved, you're going to be quitting out of your game each time. (PC gets multiple save files, Xbox doesn't. So if you're a PC player, ignore that line.)
5. Villager interaction. This game introduces the Expression and Dynamic Touch mechanisms, allowing for interaction that wasn't possible in the previous 2 game. You no longer have the "follow" and "wait" expressions; you take the hand of a villager instead. Even if they don't want to follow you; then, you drag them. Expression touch allows you to personally interact with villagers; you can now shake hands, hug, kiss, dance with, fart on, and threaten villagers in ways impossible in previous games. However, the way the previous 2 games does things was better. You can no longer choose what expression you want; you do what the game wants you to do. And I've gotten people I've been pulling along stuck on objects when performing escort missions, and I had to push their character model with mine.
6. Leveling. This game centralizes renown, job rating, and combat leveling into one place; Road to Rule. The currency of the Road to Rule is the Guild Seal, which you get from combat, completing quests, and interacting with villagers. However, you gain VERY little toward your guild seals in combat, and a LOT from villager interaction. And since enemies stop respawning in areas you've cleared out after a few missions, and won't start respawning until you've completed the next story mission (unlike Fable 1 and 2, where they respawn every time), you've to go supplement your guild seals with making villagers either like or hate you. However, you can safely ignore the job upgrades, since I told you about the 50k gold silver key chest in Brightwall, so it's still entirely possible to max out your combat skills by the end of the game.
Despite all these gripes, however, the game is fun to play. Yes, it sucks that I can't target a hob mage in combat, but I can still kill him with my gun and AOE spells no problem. Yes, it sucks that houses deteriorate, but they still make you money, and it's not quick and easy to repair them. Yes, the leveling system sucks, but once I learned it, it never worked against me. And above all, you don't lose out on any customization for your character either; there are still a TON of clothes you can acquire, and you can dye them any way you like. I enjoy playing this game, and you will too.
As for the story; 50 years have passed since the events of Fable 2. The Hero of Bowerstone unified Albion under his/her rule (though only her if you have a female hero save file on your hard drive. Otherwise, it the Hero of Bowerstone's gender defaults to male), and has died and been entombed under the Castle. You play as the second child of the Hero of Bowerstone, and you learn the new system through the story; how to change your clothes, the dynamic and expression touches, and the combat system. After combat training, you find out your brother, Logan, is about to execute protestors, and your boyfriend/girlfriend wants you to stop them. You're forced to choose who Logan executes; the protestors or your boyfriend/girlfriend? After you've chosen (or if you don't choose, Logan executes both), you scream to your brother "I will NEVER forgive you for this!" and he has you escorted to your bedroom. From here, Sir Walter Beck, the old king's/queen's (that's what the previous game's Hero is called in game) closest adviser, takes you away from the castle, and into your parent's tomb to get the Guild Seal, and your first spell on the Road to Rule. You're then led to the Sanctuary, where you are given your mission; gather allies, supporters and gain the necessary strength you need to lead a revolution against your brother. Once you've gathered your army and made yourself strong enough for the fight, you're off to Aurora to find out why your kind-hearted brother turned into a tyrant, and gain the last bit you need; a navy. From there, the invasion begins, and you fight your way to the castle to depose your brother.
After you take the castle (not a spoiler, btw. I mean, did you REALLY think you were going to lose this fight?), you are coronated as king/queen, and put your brother on trial. It is here that you learn the plot for the second half of the game; that "the darkness" that took Aurora is going to invade Albion in one year's time, and Logan was doing what he could to prepare for it. But since he wasn't a Hero, he is unable to fight it effectively. It is your job to prepare for the upcoming battle; both yourself, and your kingdom. And it is here that I bring up the treasury; you need 6.5 million gold in order to save everyone in your kingdom. If you choose to be a good and benevolent monarch and keep your promises to the people who helped you in the revolution, you will need to transfer either either 8.5 million from your personal funds if you choose to done 2 quest items into the treasury, 9.7 million if you don't. If you choose to break your promises and continue the way Logan did things, you will need to transfer 2.05 million if you choose to keep the quest items for your personal funds, 850,000 if you donate them to the treasury. You have 1 year to do this (which is broken down into 5 sections) before the final battle is at hand. You need all the money you need in the treasury by the end of day 121 (on Xbox. You have 1 more time period on PC), so make sure you factor in your choices for that day into your funds transfer. You get all the information how much each day of judgement will cost you on the Fable wiki, so I won't do it here.
Once you reach Day 1, you are warped to the Road to Rule one last time, given your heroic form, and are sent to the day of the battle. And I must say this is the second best ending out of the three; not as good as the fights against Jack of Blades, but FAR better than Lucian. I won't spoil it, though.
At this point, you can play the Traitor's Keep DLC, which occurs after the end of the game, but I haven't played it, because Fable DLC requires a constant connection to Xbox live. Same with Understone, which can be played after the Masquerade quest before you become a monarch.
All in all, despite its problems, Fable 3 is fun. Do not pay more than 15 dollars new for it, though.
I won't be tackling Fable: The Journey or Fable Heroes, because I don't own or want to own either. Heroes is an Xbox Live download, and requires Xbox Live to play, and The Journey is Kinect, and I hate motion control.
I may do a wrap up like I did with Mass Effect, and I'll figure out what I'll do next. Until then, happy gaming!
Monday, November 4, 2013
Fable Retrospective: Fable 2
Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages! Welcome back to the Assassin's Den!
The time has come for me to talk about the changes between Fable 1 and Fable 2.
First off, the interface has been streamlined. All menus have been centralized under the start button. You no longer have to hit the start button for the options and ability to save, and you no longer have to hit the back button for character stuff; it's all under the start button. Second, you no longer have to draw your weapon; hitting the attack button for that weapon draws it, or uses the spell you have set for that weapon. And while this takes away the ability to do my favorite mini game from Fable 1, the fist fighter's gang, you no longer have to worry about attacking someone without a weapon drawn.
Spells have been streamlined too; you don't have as many, but all spells have an AOE and a single foe attack, but they are the same spell. All spells charge to 5, and like the previous game, some spells are more useful than others (in my book, at any rate). Spells that return from Fable 1 are fire, lightning, slow time, force push, ghost sword (though now named blades and function as an attack spell), summon (summon dead now), and two new ones, vortex and chaos.
Weapons have been streamlined as well. There are still separated into one and two handed versions, but now one handed weapons are exclusively swords, while two handed weapons are exclusively not. Swords are longswords, katanas, cleavers (though with a different model), and the newcomer, cutlass. Two handers are the mace, axe and hammer.
Ranged weapons have expanded immensely, now that guns are part of the picture. This also makes armor obsolete, but you don't sacrifice customization for your character without it. Anyway, there are four types of ranged weapons; crossbows, rifles, pistols and blunderbusses. Furthermore, the crossbows, rifles and pistols have their own subdivisions. The crossbows have light, heavy and repeater variety. Rifles and pistols have the flintlock, clockwork (which screams "revolver" in my mind) and turret, which appears to function as a hand held Gatling gun.
All weapon types have 5 tiers; rusty (or splintery for crossbows), iron (yew), steel (oak), master, and legendary. But in this game, the legendary weapons are not always the best; only the crossbow, blunderbuss, turret rifle and katana are the best in their class. The others are meant to give you an edge in the early to mid game until you can get your hands on the master variety of your chosen weapon.
Now, since guns are part of the picture, armor is obsolete, but in the place of armor, we have a variety of clothes and dyes for your character. You can use these dyes on all aspects of your clothing, as well as your hair and beard.
Furthermore, customization of your character goes further as you can play as both a male or female character. And yes, I realize this isn't an innovation in the industry, but it is a welcome addition to the game.
And they gave us a dog! I know nothing of dog breeds, but I've read that he's a mutt, and he changes with your alignment just like you do; he turns golden when you're good, and he darkens when you're evil, and his eyes start to glow red when you get at least 75% evil. He also notifies you of dig spots based on his exploration level, and finishes off enemies based on his combat level.
The only real gripe I have with this game is making money; gone is the ability to make money through questing. Now, all your income is either found in chests, through real estate, and through jobs. And let me tell you, working in this game sucks just as much as working in the real world does. Which is why you see tons of guides online on how to make money in this game. My way, though, is an easy one, and requires very little effort on your part.
1. After you get to to Bowerstone, buy all the property you can. This will amount to only the shops on the bridge at this point.
2. Run around town with your dog. Since he should have exploration 3 from your journeys in Bower Lake, you should find a couple thousand more, as well as gifts you can sell for more gold. Purchase any other shops you can, and upgrade your weapons.
3. Save your game and quit. From here, disconnect from Xbox live by removing the LAN cable from the console.
4. Modify your clock settings to 12/31/2025. You make money every 7 minutes of game time, but you also make money while the game is off, but at a slower rate.
5. Boot up your game, and wait a few moments until your income shows up. Save your game, and go back to your desktop.
6. Go back to your clock settings, and set it to 1/1/2005. Return to the game, and buy any property with the money you just gained. Save your game when this process is complete, and quit the game to the desktop.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until you have purchased every piece of property in Bowerstone Market. Once you have done this, set your clock to 1/1/2005 again, enter the game, save it, then set it to the current date, and you should have either just under or just above a million gold.
I'm not sure how well this will work with the PC version, and you will temporarily lose access to any DLC you have up to this point. But I figure that, if the game is that stingy with money unless you perform monotonous jobs in order to buy property, then I feel justified in this.
One more thing before I move on; the mini games. I don't know anything about them, because I don't play them. They aren't fun to me, so I can't recommend playing them for anyone else. They are gambling games, and others swear by them, but I don't like gambling.
Oh, and the shooting gallery in Westcliff is fun, but requires a LOT of practice to win anything. If you don't have the patience, I'd say pass on it.
As for the game's story, it's still very by the numbers. The boy or girl you play, who is later revealed to be a descendant of the Hero of Oakvale, is a homeless child in Bowerstone Old Town who is swept up into events that far outshine your expectation. Theresa from Fable 1 advises you and your older sister Rose to buy a magical music box that ends up being a plot device at the end of the game. Lucian Fairfax finds out that you and your sister are able to use this artifact, and has you brought to his castle, where you and your sister are revealed to be Heroes. But since you're "not of the three" and that "one of you must be the fourth", he shoots your sister dead, and shoots you as well. Somehow, the shot propels you out the window, down the castle and onto the streets of Old Town far below. But as Theresa says, "death is not your destiny today", and she nurses you back to health. She spends the next decade training you as a Hero, and when you finally come of age, she sends you off to the "final test" to unlock your true potential. Once that is done, the next time you see Theresa, she gives you your mission; find "the three", so you can stop Lucian. (The three being the Heroes of Strength, Will and Skill. Basically, one individual who exemplifies one particular discipline.)
I enjoy this game, as well as the two DLC packs, Knothole Island, and See the Future. I haven't played these in a while, since if you don't have a constant connection to Xbox Live, they aren't available, and I haven't had that in almost a year. I do remember them as fun, and that See the Future's ending gives a teaser for Fable 3; you become a Monarch, and you have at least one child, who goes on to have a greater destiny than yours ever was.
This game is part of Microsoft's "Xbox Platinum hits" and can be bought for 20 bucks new. It's a fun game, so long as you get the issues with money out of the way early.
I'll be tackling Fable 3 soon, and after that, I'll figure out what my next review will be. Until then, Happy Gaming!
The time has come for me to talk about the changes between Fable 1 and Fable 2.
First off, the interface has been streamlined. All menus have been centralized under the start button. You no longer have to hit the start button for the options and ability to save, and you no longer have to hit the back button for character stuff; it's all under the start button. Second, you no longer have to draw your weapon; hitting the attack button for that weapon draws it, or uses the spell you have set for that weapon. And while this takes away the ability to do my favorite mini game from Fable 1, the fist fighter's gang, you no longer have to worry about attacking someone without a weapon drawn.
Spells have been streamlined too; you don't have as many, but all spells have an AOE and a single foe attack, but they are the same spell. All spells charge to 5, and like the previous game, some spells are more useful than others (in my book, at any rate). Spells that return from Fable 1 are fire, lightning, slow time, force push, ghost sword (though now named blades and function as an attack spell), summon (summon dead now), and two new ones, vortex and chaos.
Weapons have been streamlined as well. There are still separated into one and two handed versions, but now one handed weapons are exclusively swords, while two handed weapons are exclusively not. Swords are longswords, katanas, cleavers (though with a different model), and the newcomer, cutlass. Two handers are the mace, axe and hammer.
Ranged weapons have expanded immensely, now that guns are part of the picture. This also makes armor obsolete, but you don't sacrifice customization for your character without it. Anyway, there are four types of ranged weapons; crossbows, rifles, pistols and blunderbusses. Furthermore, the crossbows, rifles and pistols have their own subdivisions. The crossbows have light, heavy and repeater variety. Rifles and pistols have the flintlock, clockwork (which screams "revolver" in my mind) and turret, which appears to function as a hand held Gatling gun.
All weapon types have 5 tiers; rusty (or splintery for crossbows), iron (yew), steel (oak), master, and legendary. But in this game, the legendary weapons are not always the best; only the crossbow, blunderbuss, turret rifle and katana are the best in their class. The others are meant to give you an edge in the early to mid game until you can get your hands on the master variety of your chosen weapon.
Now, since guns are part of the picture, armor is obsolete, but in the place of armor, we have a variety of clothes and dyes for your character. You can use these dyes on all aspects of your clothing, as well as your hair and beard.
Furthermore, customization of your character goes further as you can play as both a male or female character. And yes, I realize this isn't an innovation in the industry, but it is a welcome addition to the game.
And they gave us a dog! I know nothing of dog breeds, but I've read that he's a mutt, and he changes with your alignment just like you do; he turns golden when you're good, and he darkens when you're evil, and his eyes start to glow red when you get at least 75% evil. He also notifies you of dig spots based on his exploration level, and finishes off enemies based on his combat level.
The only real gripe I have with this game is making money; gone is the ability to make money through questing. Now, all your income is either found in chests, through real estate, and through jobs. And let me tell you, working in this game sucks just as much as working in the real world does. Which is why you see tons of guides online on how to make money in this game. My way, though, is an easy one, and requires very little effort on your part.
1. After you get to to Bowerstone, buy all the property you can. This will amount to only the shops on the bridge at this point.
2. Run around town with your dog. Since he should have exploration 3 from your journeys in Bower Lake, you should find a couple thousand more, as well as gifts you can sell for more gold. Purchase any other shops you can, and upgrade your weapons.
3. Save your game and quit. From here, disconnect from Xbox live by removing the LAN cable from the console.
4. Modify your clock settings to 12/31/2025. You make money every 7 minutes of game time, but you also make money while the game is off, but at a slower rate.
5. Boot up your game, and wait a few moments until your income shows up. Save your game, and go back to your desktop.
6. Go back to your clock settings, and set it to 1/1/2005. Return to the game, and buy any property with the money you just gained. Save your game when this process is complete, and quit the game to the desktop.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until you have purchased every piece of property in Bowerstone Market. Once you have done this, set your clock to 1/1/2005 again, enter the game, save it, then set it to the current date, and you should have either just under or just above a million gold.
I'm not sure how well this will work with the PC version, and you will temporarily lose access to any DLC you have up to this point. But I figure that, if the game is that stingy with money unless you perform monotonous jobs in order to buy property, then I feel justified in this.
One more thing before I move on; the mini games. I don't know anything about them, because I don't play them. They aren't fun to me, so I can't recommend playing them for anyone else. They are gambling games, and others swear by them, but I don't like gambling.
Oh, and the shooting gallery in Westcliff is fun, but requires a LOT of practice to win anything. If you don't have the patience, I'd say pass on it.
As for the game's story, it's still very by the numbers. The boy or girl you play, who is later revealed to be a descendant of the Hero of Oakvale, is a homeless child in Bowerstone Old Town who is swept up into events that far outshine your expectation. Theresa from Fable 1 advises you and your older sister Rose to buy a magical music box that ends up being a plot device at the end of the game. Lucian Fairfax finds out that you and your sister are able to use this artifact, and has you brought to his castle, where you and your sister are revealed to be Heroes. But since you're "not of the three" and that "one of you must be the fourth", he shoots your sister dead, and shoots you as well. Somehow, the shot propels you out the window, down the castle and onto the streets of Old Town far below. But as Theresa says, "death is not your destiny today", and she nurses you back to health. She spends the next decade training you as a Hero, and when you finally come of age, she sends you off to the "final test" to unlock your true potential. Once that is done, the next time you see Theresa, she gives you your mission; find "the three", so you can stop Lucian. (The three being the Heroes of Strength, Will and Skill. Basically, one individual who exemplifies one particular discipline.)
I enjoy this game, as well as the two DLC packs, Knothole Island, and See the Future. I haven't played these in a while, since if you don't have a constant connection to Xbox Live, they aren't available, and I haven't had that in almost a year. I do remember them as fun, and that See the Future's ending gives a teaser for Fable 3; you become a Monarch, and you have at least one child, who goes on to have a greater destiny than yours ever was.
This game is part of Microsoft's "Xbox Platinum hits" and can be bought for 20 bucks new. It's a fun game, so long as you get the issues with money out of the way early.
I'll be tackling Fable 3 soon, and after that, I'll figure out what my next review will be. Until then, Happy Gaming!
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Fable Retrospective: Fable:The Lost Chapters
Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages! Welcome back to the Assassin's Den!
Today, I'm going to tackle Fable: The Lost Chapters. (Fable: The Lost Chapters being the game that Lionhead wanted to release when Fable was released back in September of 2004, but due to time constraints, they had to chop it down. TLC gave us bug fixes and extra content at 1/5th the cost. As such, both Lionhead and I consider the TLC "expansion" the true first game, and I will be referring to this as "Fable 1".)
Now, when we talk about Fable 1, we must consider what it isn't, and what it is. Those of us who followed this game in the gaming magazines and websites know that Peter Molyneux excitedly talked about what he wanted for this game in the media, and was unable to keep to these "promises" due to technology and time constraints.
What this game isn't:
Fable 1 is a game where you play as a descendant of William Black, whom I spoke about in my last blog entry. As such, he is able to control all three Hero disciplines. It is also very cliched when it comes to its setup. It starts with our protagonist daydreaming about being a Hero, and being woken from his father and told "Hey, it's your sister's birthday! You got her a gift, right? NO? Well, for each good deed you do, I'll give you a gold piece. Use that to buy her a present." And this is is where you are introduced to movement, interacting with characters and objects, the basics of the combat system, the alignment system, and the game's sense of humor. In short, it's very British. :)
After you get your sister's gift, you go and meet her playing in the field at the edge of town. (Before you go and see her, you should go inside your house and read her diary. You learn that she's got the gift of prophesy, even at a young age.) After giving her your gift, you are just about to head back home with her when you witness a villager being murdered by bandits. Your sister screams for you to hide, you do so, and you witness the "your home is burned, your family killed cliche" cutscene, are saved by Maze of the Guild of Heroes, and go into the second phase of the opening: becoming a member of the Guild, and learning the intricacies of the combat system. It is here you get your first melee weapon, your first ranged weapon, your first spell, and the all important Guild Seal, which is crucial to the next two games; it is implied that the Guild Seal that the Fable 2 and 3 Heroes get is the one that the Fable 1 Hero gets.
Upon graduating your training, you're taught how to level up, and the game truly opens at this point. Since this game's protagonist is a member of William Black's bloodline, you can build your Hero any way you want. Want a ranged based character? A melee fighter? A mage? A hybrid of two? Completely possible, though it's very easy to build a Hero that's maxed out on all three disciplines.
The game starts you slowly; once you get past the opening, the neophyte Hero takes on minor quests (like killing the Wasp Queen), and slowly moves in difficulty and notoriety until you finally are allowed to fight in the Arena. It's here where you are taking on quests and creatures that normal people have nightmares about, and you continue like this until you become a legend.
The story unfolds slowly as well; after the Wasp quest, Maze meets you, reminds you of your desire for revenge, and tells you that your sister may still be alive. After a few more quests, you are told to meet Maze in Oakvale, and are told "meet the Blind Seeress" at Twinblade's quest. You do so, find out she's your sister, and move forward to the Arena after a few quests. At the Arena, you are introduced to Jack of Blades, the game's villain, and are told that your mother lives after winning. You meet your sister shortly after, and head off to break your mother out of prison. Once you break her out after being imprisoned for a year, the game heads toward the original game's ending. It is here where you chose to either kill your sister and keep the Sword of Aeons, or toss it away (though future games say you tossed it away, since your sister shows up in every game after this one). After this, you make a time jump, and are awakened from a year long boredom to find that Jack survived your battle, and is stronger than he was before. You do a few more quests, and face down Jack in his ultimate form. And this is where the game gives your its final morality choice, though I won't reveal it.
Which gives me a good segue into the morality system. In addition to its role as training and housing for the Heroes of Albion, the Guild also acts as a job broker for Heroes. If anyone has any needs for a Hero, they create a Quest Card and the Guild has them set out for the Heroes, so long as they have enough renown. The Guild works as a contract broker, leaving the morality of the Quest to the Heroes who take them. Which means you can be as good or as evil as you want, and your appearance reflects this. If you are good, your hair lightens and you eventually gain a halo. But if you are evil, your start losing your hair, you grow horns, and gain other unsavory additions to your appearance.
This game is LOADED with mini games. You've got the pub games; coin golf, card pairs, cart sorting, spot the addition, shove ha'penny and blackjack. I have no idea the rules for any of these besides blackjack, because I don't play them. You've also got the fist fighter's gang, where you fight do something you can't do in any game after this; fight a group of guys with your fists (and feet if you manage to get a flourish) for money, renown, and when you get to the one in Knothole Glade, a trophy. There's chicken kickin', which is self explanatory. And finally, you've got the fishing competition.
Now, I briefly mentioned type of fighter you can be, so I will go into it here. This game has 5 tiers of weapons; Iron, Steel, Obsidian, Master and Legendary. You have two types of melee and ranged weapons; one or two handed weapons, and longbows and crossbows. Furthermore, you have different types of melee weapons within those types; longsword, katana, cleaver, mace, and axe (the two handed weapons forgo the katana and cleaver, and pick up a great hammer in their place). So you see, you have quite a few options for your playstyle.
As for magic, there are three schools of magic, with a half a dozen spells within each school, give or take. Some are far more useful than others, which is why I'm going to go into my preferred spell load out here.
Now, I tend to build a hybrid of all three character types, so my load out is built for that, but I'll first discuss my recommendations for melee and ranged based character. First, the melee; you're going to want Heal Life, Assassin's Rush and Multi-strike to three, then Slow Time, Berserk and Enflame to 3. From there, bring all that you can to 4 (Heal Life and Berserk are dependent on your alignment; Heal Life can only be mastered by good Heroes, and Berserk for evil.) For ranged, you want Heal Life, Enflame and Multi-arrow to 3, then Ghost Sword, Slow Time and Force Push to 3, then all to 4. Once you master all the spells, go with whatever you wish, though there are a few spells to avoid no matter how you play; Summon, which you don't get XP from the kills your ghosts make, Drain Life, which is time consuming and plants you in the spot, and Turncoat, which is the same as Drain Life.
As for my loadout, I go with Heal Life, Assassin's Rush and Multi-Arrow to 2, then Slow Time, Enflame and Berserk to 2, then bring them all to 4 (depending on alignment, of course), before hitting Ghost Sword, Multi-strike and Physical Shield to round it out. I mandate Heal Life on all my builds, because there are three mandatory escort missions in the game, and since enemies can attack your escort, and Heal Life heals both you and allies, it's pretty much a necessity. I also have Enflame on all builds, because it is great crowd control; it has both knock down and heavy damage. And Slow Time is self explanatory; slows everything around you, allowing you to move and attack freely.
With all this said, though, this game does something that feels strange to come back to after playing Fable 2 and 3; you've got to draw your weapon before you can use it. If you don't, you're hitting people with your fists. More than once early on, I would want to hit something with my sword, only to swing my fists at it. (Same with my bow, though I'd roll or block, since the gun button from the next two games is the block button in this game.) So if you're coming back to this game after playing the next two, make sure you refamiliarize yourself with the controls while you're still weak.
Now, even beyond combat, this game is all about customizing your character. There are dozens of hairstyles, beards and tattoos to modify your base appearance, and clothing that boosts your good or evil alignments, or neutral ones that boost neither. You've got villager clothes, leather armor, chainmail and heavy plate, and you've got will user clothes, and dresses if you choose to cross-dress. The TLC part gives you a slew of hats, and two new armor sets. And you can mix and match your clothes any way you want.
This game has an epic story, but never takes itself too seriously; it has a TON of humor. For example, the book quest. Hearing Mr. Gout read some of those books to his students is hilarious. And there's this game's obsession with chickens; too funny. And there's a LOT of other stuff that I don't want to mention, since it would spoil the fun for you.
This game is fun, though watch out if you play it on the Xbox 360; the emulation isn't perfect, and it crashes randomly. I have played this game through 4 times for this review (1 each for the spell load out that I recommended for melee and ranged only, and 1 each way I normally play for good and evil), and it has always crashed at random intervals. So my tip in this situation is save often; after every quest and whenever you enter a new area between quests.
And for those who don't want to worry about the intermittent crashing, there's good news. Lionhead has announced that they are working on Fable Anniversary, a HD remake of Fable: The Lost Chapters, with updated graphics, achievements, faster load times, and the option to use a control scheme more in line with Fable 2 and 3. This game is expected to drop in February 2014 (though it says December 2013 through pre-order on Amazon), so look forward to it if you're interested in the game.
You can pick this game up for 10 bucks new for Xbox, 15 for PC, and you'll enjoy yourself thoroughly.
For now though, look forward to my Fable 2 review, and happy gaming!
Today, I'm going to tackle Fable: The Lost Chapters. (Fable: The Lost Chapters being the game that Lionhead wanted to release when Fable was released back in September of 2004, but due to time constraints, they had to chop it down. TLC gave us bug fixes and extra content at 1/5th the cost. As such, both Lionhead and I consider the TLC "expansion" the true first game, and I will be referring to this as "Fable 1".)
Now, when we talk about Fable 1, we must consider what it isn't, and what it is. Those of us who followed this game in the gaming magazines and websites know that Peter Molyneux excitedly talked about what he wanted for this game in the media, and was unable to keep to these "promises" due to technology and time constraints.
What this game isn't:
- A free roaming RPG. You have to play an Elder Scrolls game for that.
- A game where NPCs emulate your appearance.
- A game with family development (though you see this in the next two games)
- A game where your choices affect the world around you (though you see this in the next two games)
- A game with multiplayer (though you see this in the next two games)
- Overhyped by its own developer (though most of it was excitement about the ideas he had)
- A by the numbers action RPG
- Funny
- Fun
Fable 1 is a game where you play as a descendant of William Black, whom I spoke about in my last blog entry. As such, he is able to control all three Hero disciplines. It is also very cliched when it comes to its setup. It starts with our protagonist daydreaming about being a Hero, and being woken from his father and told "Hey, it's your sister's birthday! You got her a gift, right? NO? Well, for each good deed you do, I'll give you a gold piece. Use that to buy her a present." And this is is where you are introduced to movement, interacting with characters and objects, the basics of the combat system, the alignment system, and the game's sense of humor. In short, it's very British. :)
After you get your sister's gift, you go and meet her playing in the field at the edge of town. (Before you go and see her, you should go inside your house and read her diary. You learn that she's got the gift of prophesy, even at a young age.) After giving her your gift, you are just about to head back home with her when you witness a villager being murdered by bandits. Your sister screams for you to hide, you do so, and you witness the "your home is burned, your family killed cliche" cutscene, are saved by Maze of the Guild of Heroes, and go into the second phase of the opening: becoming a member of the Guild, and learning the intricacies of the combat system. It is here you get your first melee weapon, your first ranged weapon, your first spell, and the all important Guild Seal, which is crucial to the next two games; it is implied that the Guild Seal that the Fable 2 and 3 Heroes get is the one that the Fable 1 Hero gets.
Upon graduating your training, you're taught how to level up, and the game truly opens at this point. Since this game's protagonist is a member of William Black's bloodline, you can build your Hero any way you want. Want a ranged based character? A melee fighter? A mage? A hybrid of two? Completely possible, though it's very easy to build a Hero that's maxed out on all three disciplines.
The game starts you slowly; once you get past the opening, the neophyte Hero takes on minor quests (like killing the Wasp Queen), and slowly moves in difficulty and notoriety until you finally are allowed to fight in the Arena. It's here where you are taking on quests and creatures that normal people have nightmares about, and you continue like this until you become a legend.
The story unfolds slowly as well; after the Wasp quest, Maze meets you, reminds you of your desire for revenge, and tells you that your sister may still be alive. After a few more quests, you are told to meet Maze in Oakvale, and are told "meet the Blind Seeress" at Twinblade's quest. You do so, find out she's your sister, and move forward to the Arena after a few quests. At the Arena, you are introduced to Jack of Blades, the game's villain, and are told that your mother lives after winning. You meet your sister shortly after, and head off to break your mother out of prison. Once you break her out after being imprisoned for a year, the game heads toward the original game's ending. It is here where you chose to either kill your sister and keep the Sword of Aeons, or toss it away (though future games say you tossed it away, since your sister shows up in every game after this one). After this, you make a time jump, and are awakened from a year long boredom to find that Jack survived your battle, and is stronger than he was before. You do a few more quests, and face down Jack in his ultimate form. And this is where the game gives your its final morality choice, though I won't reveal it.
Which gives me a good segue into the morality system. In addition to its role as training and housing for the Heroes of Albion, the Guild also acts as a job broker for Heroes. If anyone has any needs for a Hero, they create a Quest Card and the Guild has them set out for the Heroes, so long as they have enough renown. The Guild works as a contract broker, leaving the morality of the Quest to the Heroes who take them. Which means you can be as good or as evil as you want, and your appearance reflects this. If you are good, your hair lightens and you eventually gain a halo. But if you are evil, your start losing your hair, you grow horns, and gain other unsavory additions to your appearance.
This game is LOADED with mini games. You've got the pub games; coin golf, card pairs, cart sorting, spot the addition, shove ha'penny and blackjack. I have no idea the rules for any of these besides blackjack, because I don't play them. You've also got the fist fighter's gang, where you fight do something you can't do in any game after this; fight a group of guys with your fists (and feet if you manage to get a flourish) for money, renown, and when you get to the one in Knothole Glade, a trophy. There's chicken kickin', which is self explanatory. And finally, you've got the fishing competition.
Now, I briefly mentioned type of fighter you can be, so I will go into it here. This game has 5 tiers of weapons; Iron, Steel, Obsidian, Master and Legendary. You have two types of melee and ranged weapons; one or two handed weapons, and longbows and crossbows. Furthermore, you have different types of melee weapons within those types; longsword, katana, cleaver, mace, and axe (the two handed weapons forgo the katana and cleaver, and pick up a great hammer in their place). So you see, you have quite a few options for your playstyle.
As for magic, there are three schools of magic, with a half a dozen spells within each school, give or take. Some are far more useful than others, which is why I'm going to go into my preferred spell load out here.
Now, I tend to build a hybrid of all three character types, so my load out is built for that, but I'll first discuss my recommendations for melee and ranged based character. First, the melee; you're going to want Heal Life, Assassin's Rush and Multi-strike to three, then Slow Time, Berserk and Enflame to 3. From there, bring all that you can to 4 (Heal Life and Berserk are dependent on your alignment; Heal Life can only be mastered by good Heroes, and Berserk for evil.) For ranged, you want Heal Life, Enflame and Multi-arrow to 3, then Ghost Sword, Slow Time and Force Push to 3, then all to 4. Once you master all the spells, go with whatever you wish, though there are a few spells to avoid no matter how you play; Summon, which you don't get XP from the kills your ghosts make, Drain Life, which is time consuming and plants you in the spot, and Turncoat, which is the same as Drain Life.
As for my loadout, I go with Heal Life, Assassin's Rush and Multi-Arrow to 2, then Slow Time, Enflame and Berserk to 2, then bring them all to 4 (depending on alignment, of course), before hitting Ghost Sword, Multi-strike and Physical Shield to round it out. I mandate Heal Life on all my builds, because there are three mandatory escort missions in the game, and since enemies can attack your escort, and Heal Life heals both you and allies, it's pretty much a necessity. I also have Enflame on all builds, because it is great crowd control; it has both knock down and heavy damage. And Slow Time is self explanatory; slows everything around you, allowing you to move and attack freely.
With all this said, though, this game does something that feels strange to come back to after playing Fable 2 and 3; you've got to draw your weapon before you can use it. If you don't, you're hitting people with your fists. More than once early on, I would want to hit something with my sword, only to swing my fists at it. (Same with my bow, though I'd roll or block, since the gun button from the next two games is the block button in this game.) So if you're coming back to this game after playing the next two, make sure you refamiliarize yourself with the controls while you're still weak.
Now, even beyond combat, this game is all about customizing your character. There are dozens of hairstyles, beards and tattoos to modify your base appearance, and clothing that boosts your good or evil alignments, or neutral ones that boost neither. You've got villager clothes, leather armor, chainmail and heavy plate, and you've got will user clothes, and dresses if you choose to cross-dress. The TLC part gives you a slew of hats, and two new armor sets. And you can mix and match your clothes any way you want.
This game has an epic story, but never takes itself too seriously; it has a TON of humor. For example, the book quest. Hearing Mr. Gout read some of those books to his students is hilarious. And there's this game's obsession with chickens; too funny. And there's a LOT of other stuff that I don't want to mention, since it would spoil the fun for you.
This game is fun, though watch out if you play it on the Xbox 360; the emulation isn't perfect, and it crashes randomly. I have played this game through 4 times for this review (1 each for the spell load out that I recommended for melee and ranged only, and 1 each way I normally play for good and evil), and it has always crashed at random intervals. So my tip in this situation is save often; after every quest and whenever you enter a new area between quests.
And for those who don't want to worry about the intermittent crashing, there's good news. Lionhead has announced that they are working on Fable Anniversary, a HD remake of Fable: The Lost Chapters, with updated graphics, achievements, faster load times, and the option to use a control scheme more in line with Fable 2 and 3. This game is expected to drop in February 2014 (though it says December 2013 through pre-order on Amazon), so look forward to it if you're interested in the game.
You can pick this game up for 10 bucks new for Xbox, 15 for PC, and you'll enjoy yourself thoroughly.
For now though, look forward to my Fable 2 review, and happy gaming!
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Fable Retrospective: Backstory
Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages! Welcome back to the Assassin's Den!
Today, I'm going to tackle some of the backstory in the Fable series. Most of this is taken from the Fable wiki, which was taken from a previous version of the Fable websites. And if you truly want to verify anything I'm going to say, the Lionhead forums have this information somewhere.
That said, on with the show.
Centuries before the events of Fable 1, before even the Old Kingdom of legend, there were three demonic beings known as the Court from a realm outside Albion known as the Void. The Court consisted of three powerful entities: the Knight of Blades, weakest of the three; the Jack of Blades, and the Queen of Blades, most powerful and highest of the three. They came to the world seeking dominance over its people, demanding that they bow down in obedience. The people refused, and in turn, Albion was burned until the earth was as black as the smoke that filled the sky. Once again, the Court demanded total obedience, and again were refused. The result was the raising of the sea into the sky and the flooding of the world. After this next disaster, the Court asked for worship again, this time promising peace, but met the same result. Angry at being refused by lesser beings, the Court twisted the minds of the people of Albion until the entire land was insane. Finally, after many years of suffering, the people bowed down. The Court had won.
As time went by, there came a challenge from one of the denizens of Albion: a man named William Black, who wielded the Sword of Aeons, rose to the highest peak of Albion to fight for the freedom of his people. First to answer the challenge was the Knight, who was quickly slain by Black. Next came the Jack, who proved to be more of a challenge than the Knight. However, the Jack met the same fate as his ally, yet was still able to cheat death by having his essence escape into his mask. Finally, Black challenged the Queen of Blades. Their titanic battle was waged for weeks on end, with mountains and valleys forming as the result of their seemingly endless fight. At last, William threw down the Queen, ending the reign of the Court over Albion.
Once he had vanquished the Court, the Archon set his mind to unifying Albion into a great kingdom. His powers of Will were so great that it seemed the world reshaped itself in accordance with his wishes. Cities were built in a week's time and marvellous machines were constructed that ran on Will alone. Through a thousand years of peace, Albion reigned as the greatest centre of commerce and philosophy the world had ever known. The Archon had many descendants during this age of fortune, all of whom shared his powerful Will abilities through his bloodline. These descendants were also called Archons.
But without an enemy to vanquish, the Archons grew petty and cruel. They called themselves Heroes and used their powers of Will to terrorize the people. The first Archon might have stopped them, but his battle with the Queen and his time in the Void had infected his body and mind with a wasting illness. To combat this illness, he returned to the Void and cast it from his body, fearing that it would one day control him and use him to rule Albion and twist it to the dark wishes of the Void. William successfully managed to cast out most of this illness, which became the Corruption and its leader, The Corrupter, who would repeatedly try to take over Albion. With remnants of the disease still decaying him, William wrapped his body in golden mail and a royal blue cloak before vanishing.
Thus began the corruption of The Kingdom.
A descendant of the Archon later constructed a great tower that stretched thousands of feet into the sky. This tower was named the Spire, and it had the power to concentrate all of Albion's Will into a single area. This caused a rift to open between the Void and Albion, a rift through which the Crawler, the Corruptor's chief lieutenant, attempted to invade Albion through. The Old Kingdom's greatest Three Heroes, Stone, Sol, and Blaze responded by combining their power and targeting the Spire. Though they managed to imprison the Crawler within Shadelight dungeon in Aurora, the explosion also destroyed the Old Kingdom, wiping out William Black's empire in an instant.
Black returned centuries later as Scythe (which is speculation, mind you, but Lionhead has pretty much "confirmed with out actually saying it officially"), and began to council a bandit named Nostro. Young Nostro was not without a sense of decency, but could not reach his full potential until he met Scythe took an interest in him. Scythe saw in Nostro the power of the Archon and his descendants, the former masters of the Old Kingdom, and believed that with proper guidance, Nostro could perhaps even unite Albion and undo the damage that Archon's children inflicted. With Scythe as his teacher, Nostro founded the Heroes' Guild, and using his newly taught powers of Will, he raised an army and enforced peace on Albion's people.
Nostro's reign was a glorious one, marked by a return to peace enforced by the Heroes of the Heroes' Guild. Nostro commissioned the Witchwood Arena in order to solve disputes between Heroes, and had the Avo's Tears created to further defend Albion. Unfortunately, he was eventually corrupted by a courtesan named Magdalena. Seeing her chance to acquire power, Magdalena became Nostro's wife, and through him undid all of Nostro's great achievements. Under her influence, the Arena degenerated into a source of violent spectacle provided for the masses, and the once-mighty Heroes' Guild was reduced to a house of mercenaries. Scythe, disgusted by the slow erosion of Nostro's achievements, left him to his fate: death by the hands of an assassin who slipped poison into his food. Seeing how his power had corrupted him, Nostro called upon Scythe to stand vigil with him in his final hours, at peace with himself. However, a warrior at heart, Nostro's soul haunted Lychfield in perpetual torment, seeking a Hero's Death with sword in hand.
And yes, I did directly copy most of that from the Fable wiki. It took less time than typing it out myself, though I did fix a LOT of spelling errors.
Now, for Heroes, they are extraordinary humans with knowledge and the power over the three heroic disciplines of Strength, Skill, and Will. It is very rare that a Hero may possess control over all three of the Hero disciplines. The Hero of Oakvale, Hero of Bowerstone and the Hero of Brightwall (who are the protagonists of the three games I own. The only other Fable game that's canon at this point is Fable Journeys, but that is Kinect only, and I don't own it, not do I want to. Fuck motion control) possess control over these three disciplines as they belong to the Archon's Bloodline, and are descendants of William Black. Only a true descendant of the bloodline can master all three disciplines. That said, there are exemplars of the individual traits; Twinblade and Hammer are exemplars of Strength, Reaver and Ben Finn are exemplars of Skill, Maze and Garth are exemplars of Will. You also have hybrids like Briar Rose (who shows some Strength and Will), Thunder (also Strength and Will) and Whisper (whom looks more like Strength and Skill, since she shows no Will).
As for the "disciplines", Strength is built around melee combat, Skill is built around ranged combat, and Will is about magic. It's my theory that all Heroes are technically Will users, but not in the same way; their blood born affinity for their chosen discipline, like Garth, Hammer and Reaver in Fable 2. Some manage to become hybrids, like those I mentioned, but all channel their Will to enhance themselves and affect their surroundings.
The amusing thing is that most of the backstory is not presented in the games, not is it hinted at. We get vague information the Old Kingdom, Jack, the Archon, Scythe and Nostro in the first game, a little bit more in Fable 2 about the Old Kingdom, and a little bit of vague info on the Void and Corrupter in Fable 3.
And with that out of the way, I can talk about the games individually, not worrying about the lore except when how it affects the story of the game I'm focusing on!
Until then, Happy Gaming!
Today, I'm going to tackle some of the backstory in the Fable series. Most of this is taken from the Fable wiki, which was taken from a previous version of the Fable websites. And if you truly want to verify anything I'm going to say, the Lionhead forums have this information somewhere.
That said, on with the show.
Centuries before the events of Fable 1, before even the Old Kingdom of legend, there were three demonic beings known as the Court from a realm outside Albion known as the Void. The Court consisted of three powerful entities: the Knight of Blades, weakest of the three; the Jack of Blades, and the Queen of Blades, most powerful and highest of the three. They came to the world seeking dominance over its people, demanding that they bow down in obedience. The people refused, and in turn, Albion was burned until the earth was as black as the smoke that filled the sky. Once again, the Court demanded total obedience, and again were refused. The result was the raising of the sea into the sky and the flooding of the world. After this next disaster, the Court asked for worship again, this time promising peace, but met the same result. Angry at being refused by lesser beings, the Court twisted the minds of the people of Albion until the entire land was insane. Finally, after many years of suffering, the people bowed down. The Court had won.
As time went by, there came a challenge from one of the denizens of Albion: a man named William Black, who wielded the Sword of Aeons, rose to the highest peak of Albion to fight for the freedom of his people. First to answer the challenge was the Knight, who was quickly slain by Black. Next came the Jack, who proved to be more of a challenge than the Knight. However, the Jack met the same fate as his ally, yet was still able to cheat death by having his essence escape into his mask. Finally, Black challenged the Queen of Blades. Their titanic battle was waged for weeks on end, with mountains and valleys forming as the result of their seemingly endless fight. At last, William threw down the Queen, ending the reign of the Court over Albion.
Once he had vanquished the Court, the Archon set his mind to unifying Albion into a great kingdom. His powers of Will were so great that it seemed the world reshaped itself in accordance with his wishes. Cities were built in a week's time and marvellous machines were constructed that ran on Will alone. Through a thousand years of peace, Albion reigned as the greatest centre of commerce and philosophy the world had ever known. The Archon had many descendants during this age of fortune, all of whom shared his powerful Will abilities through his bloodline. These descendants were also called Archons.
But without an enemy to vanquish, the Archons grew petty and cruel. They called themselves Heroes and used their powers of Will to terrorize the people. The first Archon might have stopped them, but his battle with the Queen and his time in the Void had infected his body and mind with a wasting illness. To combat this illness, he returned to the Void and cast it from his body, fearing that it would one day control him and use him to rule Albion and twist it to the dark wishes of the Void. William successfully managed to cast out most of this illness, which became the Corruption and its leader, The Corrupter, who would repeatedly try to take over Albion. With remnants of the disease still decaying him, William wrapped his body in golden mail and a royal blue cloak before vanishing.
Thus began the corruption of The Kingdom.
A descendant of the Archon later constructed a great tower that stretched thousands of feet into the sky. This tower was named the Spire, and it had the power to concentrate all of Albion's Will into a single area. This caused a rift to open between the Void and Albion, a rift through which the Crawler, the Corruptor's chief lieutenant, attempted to invade Albion through. The Old Kingdom's greatest Three Heroes, Stone, Sol, and Blaze responded by combining their power and targeting the Spire. Though they managed to imprison the Crawler within Shadelight dungeon in Aurora, the explosion also destroyed the Old Kingdom, wiping out William Black's empire in an instant.
Black returned centuries later as Scythe (which is speculation, mind you, but Lionhead has pretty much "confirmed with out actually saying it officially"), and began to council a bandit named Nostro. Young Nostro was not without a sense of decency, but could not reach his full potential until he met Scythe took an interest in him. Scythe saw in Nostro the power of the Archon and his descendants, the former masters of the Old Kingdom, and believed that with proper guidance, Nostro could perhaps even unite Albion and undo the damage that Archon's children inflicted. With Scythe as his teacher, Nostro founded the Heroes' Guild, and using his newly taught powers of Will, he raised an army and enforced peace on Albion's people.
Nostro's reign was a glorious one, marked by a return to peace enforced by the Heroes of the Heroes' Guild. Nostro commissioned the Witchwood Arena in order to solve disputes between Heroes, and had the Avo's Tears created to further defend Albion. Unfortunately, he was eventually corrupted by a courtesan named Magdalena. Seeing her chance to acquire power, Magdalena became Nostro's wife, and through him undid all of Nostro's great achievements. Under her influence, the Arena degenerated into a source of violent spectacle provided for the masses, and the once-mighty Heroes' Guild was reduced to a house of mercenaries. Scythe, disgusted by the slow erosion of Nostro's achievements, left him to his fate: death by the hands of an assassin who slipped poison into his food. Seeing how his power had corrupted him, Nostro called upon Scythe to stand vigil with him in his final hours, at peace with himself. However, a warrior at heart, Nostro's soul haunted Lychfield in perpetual torment, seeking a Hero's Death with sword in hand.
And yes, I did directly copy most of that from the Fable wiki. It took less time than typing it out myself, though I did fix a LOT of spelling errors.
Now, for Heroes, they are extraordinary humans with knowledge and the power over the three heroic disciplines of Strength, Skill, and Will. It is very rare that a Hero may possess control over all three of the Hero disciplines. The Hero of Oakvale, Hero of Bowerstone and the Hero of Brightwall (who are the protagonists of the three games I own. The only other Fable game that's canon at this point is Fable Journeys, but that is Kinect only, and I don't own it, not do I want to. Fuck motion control) possess control over these three disciplines as they belong to the Archon's Bloodline, and are descendants of William Black. Only a true descendant of the bloodline can master all three disciplines. That said, there are exemplars of the individual traits; Twinblade and Hammer are exemplars of Strength, Reaver and Ben Finn are exemplars of Skill, Maze and Garth are exemplars of Will. You also have hybrids like Briar Rose (who shows some Strength and Will), Thunder (also Strength and Will) and Whisper (whom looks more like Strength and Skill, since she shows no Will).
As for the "disciplines", Strength is built around melee combat, Skill is built around ranged combat, and Will is about magic. It's my theory that all Heroes are technically Will users, but not in the same way; their blood born affinity for their chosen discipline, like Garth, Hammer and Reaver in Fable 2. Some manage to become hybrids, like those I mentioned, but all channel their Will to enhance themselves and affect their surroundings.
The amusing thing is that most of the backstory is not presented in the games, not is it hinted at. We get vague information the Old Kingdom, Jack, the Archon, Scythe and Nostro in the first game, a little bit more in Fable 2 about the Old Kingdom, and a little bit of vague info on the Void and Corrupter in Fable 3.
And with that out of the way, I can talk about the games individually, not worrying about the lore except when how it affects the story of the game I'm focusing on!
Until then, Happy Gaming!
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