The Fable 3 Journal: Day 1

Fable 2 was my favorite game of two years ago. It grew leaps and bounds over its predecessor, offering a lengthy story, better combat and more detailed customization than ever before, and simply, it was a blast to play.

I hadn’t realized Fable 3 was en route already until about a week ago, but naturally I went out and scooped it up immediately yesterday, and have been playing it ever since.

It’s a new era, as we’ve gone from a medieval landscape in the first game to an industrial one here. Nevermind that took like 800 years in real life, this is Fable! They can do what they want.

The changes are mostly cosmetic. There are a few steam-powered machines lurking about, and everyone dresses like 18th century British naval commanders, but other than that, the look and feel of the game is the same. In fact, it’s so much the same, I’m almost having trouble figuring out what’s different.

The plot of course is an evolution of the last two games. Your character from Fable 2, king of all Albion has passed on, and had two sons, one is a dick left in charge of the kingdom, the other is you, who is trying to figure out whether or not to be a dick as well. But when your evil brother forces you to decide between executing your girlfriend and a bunch of random protest leaders, you storm out of the castle, and vow to overthrow him.

Behold, King Douchebag.

This first moral choice indicates something I’m very glad has been cut from the game, the angel/demon, plus/minus point system for morality. Yes, some choices are labeled wrong and others right, but you won’t have little reminders popping up every time you decide to steal a melon or eat tofu. I still resent being told that deciding to not spare a mercenary leader after he spent the last ten minutes trying to rip my head off is an “evil” action, but thankfully other choices (such as the one in the beginning between the girl and the rebels) are left more ambiguous. Naturally I choose my girlfriend, because I would do the same in real life for anyone close to me, and I’m sure I’ll see the consequences play out at some point as tends to happen in Fable-land.

The plot involves trekking around the countryside getting allies for your coup, which involves slaying large amounts of monster from the last two games, and I have yet to see any new enemy types so far.

Combat is the same as it was in the last game, meaning it’s still easy as shit to kill everything on screen always. I haven’t died once, nor have I used a health potion in six hours, so I suspect this game’s difficultly is going to echo the previous two’s. This makes for a leisurely, fun to play hack n slash, but only rarely do you feel fulfilled by combat.

I don’t care if my armor is made out of rat fur, I will slay you!

And though this is technically a hack n slash, I find the use of a sword almost completely unnecessary. The gun and magic spells allow you to keep practically all enemies at bay, even melee-based ones, and unlike the sword, your foes can’t block bullets or fireball. So far, all the spells from the previous game are the same, meaning the charge up lightning attack is still god (although I have noticed it’s a bit less powerful now), but as an added bonus, you can combine spells to create supercombos, some of which are actually pretty cool, making magic even more of a powerhouse class than it was before. Now instead of just paralyzing and electrocuting my enemies, I can set them on fire at the same time too. They never really have a chance.

But are there classes? No, not really at all. The previous games had a class specific leveling system, where if you used the sword, gun or a spell to kill an enemy, you’d receive experience of that type. here however, you only receive general experience, and often it’s enough that you can level up everything equally, and really the only way to play the game is balanced, at least as far as I can tell so far.

The biggest change in the game actually I’ve noticed so far is the menu system, which curiously eliminates the pause button in what might be a video game first. Rather, hitting start transports you to your “sanctuary,” a nifty way to sort through all your outfits, weapons, achievements and upgrades all in one spot. Peter Molyneux is infamous for trying to take the video games out of video games so everyone can play them, and it is a simple and well executed way to keep everything organized and change your look or weapons on the fly.  It is not however, fun to try an access the minimap of your local area, as instead of hitting say, selecting, you must warp to your sanctuary, walk over to the map, zoom in on map, zoom in on city and there STILL isn’t a “you are here” marker.

I think this may have been trying to capitalize on the whole pirate craze with its styling, but it’s a few years too late.

The jobs system of earning cash is still firmly in place, and is still firmly broken as it ever was. You can blacksmith (which I have yet to locate), play the lute (a lamer version of Guitar Hero with colored button presses), or make pies (which is essentially the same as the lute game, but you make double the money). I’ve upgraded my pie-making to max level, and now in ten minutes I can make around $50,000. I did this for a while, and then bought almost every building in my local village, and now receive around $10,000 every five minutes. Looking over at my TV, I’ve made $65K since I started writing this review. I understand that I’m starting out as a prince, not a pauper, but this is ridiculous, and I laugh out loud every time I find a chest guarded by ten skeletons that contains 100 gold as I can make that 30x time that in one well-executed pie. Yes, my character is male. Pies are delicious, so much so they’re apparently worth $600 a slice.

I’m liking the game so far, as it seems like more of the same from Fable II. But that’s also the problem, it’s more of the same from Fable II and as good as that was, they didn’t fix anything that was wrong with it, and I haven’t seen them add much else so far. But it’s only day one, and that’s what these journal entries are for. See you back here soon.