PixlBit

I don't have much experience with Fable, other than three hours of unimpressed play with the very original. So for all intents and purposes I went into my playtime with Fable III completely unhindered by any past biases, and I must admit, I loved what I found. The gameplay is a wonderful combination of varied experiences that allow players to explore a torn world in any way they desire. There's dozens of quests to take on, hundreds of people to meet, an unbelievably expansive and diverse universe to explore, and a great combat system. Best of all, those aspects are simply scraping the surface of why Fable III is an unbelievable experience from beginning to…well, right before it ends.

At the start of Fable III players will have the opportunity to select either a female or male protagonist; I selected the female, taking the role as Princess of Albion, so I will refer to the main character in this manner throughout the review.

The empire of Albion is in absolute disarray, due to the heartless actions of Logan, the princess' older brother. The people of the world are poor and starving, demanding immediate change in order to improve the conditions of their world. It is up to players to defeat the tyrannical Logan, though the manner in which they choose to do so is completely up them. Like past Fable titles, players will make particular choices that fall into three categories: good, neutral, or bad. The beauty of the game lies in the fact that either path, whether it be good or evil, is completely acceptable, and simply changes up the player's experience. During my playthrough I selected the virtuous path, choosing to always help those in need no matter what the cost.

Early on it is explained to players that their father was the famed hero of Albion, and for displaying similar attributes, they are welcomed into the Sanctuary; a secret location only accessible to The Hero. There they are able to change clothing, equip weapons, view trophies, manage Xbox Live access, and view the world map. The sanctuary will be the player's most vital tool throughout the game, as they will undoubtedly visit often for many reasons, the most common of which is viewing quests and traveling swiftly between locations.

I was quite impressed at the short span of time it took for Fable III to become an open experience. After completing the initial theatrical sequences, the game smoothly transitioned me into the main quest, which required me to recruit allies in order to defeat Logan. Roughly one hour into the game I had unlocked three unique areas, giving me plenty of control over my gaming experience.

While the main goal of the game is recruiting allies, the real purpose of Fable III is exploring a vast world full of unique creatures and individuals. Initially the limitless gameplay potential is nearly overwhelming, as players could easily spend well over fifty hours completing side quests, either designated by the game or given to players by non-player characters.

These quests come in a wide variety of forms, and become more varied as players unlock new areas, whether through the storyline or through exploration. Instead of merely being rewarded with generic "quest complete" items, such as trinkets or money, players will earn guild seals; by far one of, if not the, most precious commodity within the game.

As the new hero of Albion, the princess was also granted access to a secret path in addition to the privilege of entering the Sanctuary: the Road to Rule. Along this path are chests, containing an assortment of spells and upgrades, amongst other miscellaneous additions, that can only be opened by spending a certain number of guild seals. As players progress, additional sections of the Road to Rule are opened, revealing stronger weapon/magic/firearm upgrades, new spells, etc. While several of the chests are filled with arbitrary contents that many may consider useless, the majority are vital to the player's success. The number of seals required to open these chests range from five to one hundred, and with many to unlock, one can imagine how side-questing is absolutely essential to success.

However, as stated before, though players will undoubtedly spend tens of hours side-questing to earn shields, the variety of quests makes it the highlight of Fable III. This is where the map found within the Sanctuary really comes in handy. Thankfully, players won't have to randomly wander around the enormous world looking for something to do; instead, a quick look at each area on the world map will give a detailed view of the quests within an area. In addition, any quests set by the game itself will appear on the all encompassing quest list. On this list, players can view any tasks set forth by the game, as well as any side missions they picked up on their own, along with the number of seals they will earn for completing the mission. One of the greatest features of the map system, and the quest checklist, is that all players must do is select a quest, and the game will offer to zoom them to the closest spawn point; eliminating any need for an extremely tedious and lengthy walk.

These predetermined game quests come in a wide variety of forms, some being simple fetch quests, and others requiring exploration along with combat. My absolute favorite found my character being shrunk down to size and placed within an artificial game world, where my goal was to save a princess from an evil man. Basically, the quest itself was a satire on the game development process, so as I progressed and encountered both friends and foes, I was treated to some delightfully hilarious dialogue in which three individuals plotted, argued, and insulted one another over the progression of their game.

In addition to these types of quests, which almost always feature colorful characters with bold personalities, are the three general quests that are found in each area. They consist of finding silver keys, gold keys, and killing gnomes; of which the specific number of each can be viewed on the world map within the sanctuary. The silver keys are usually the easiest to find and there are several in each area, though I barely cared about locating them since I never found the contents of the silver chests to be particularly useful. On the other hand, gold keys are extremely rare when compared to their silver brethren, and often require quite a bit more work to obtain. In exchange, players will be able to open the few golden doors hidden throughout the world, containing items such as a full unique clothing set.

By far the best of the three general quests is finding, and killing, the gnomes. Now, what could be so entertaining about killing gnomes you may ask? Well, for that question to be truly answered, you will have to experience first-hand the dozens of fantastic insults these lovely little creatures will spit out. A few of my favorites include, "I'd like to come around your house for tea, and then I'll have your mum." "You know what I like most about people? They die." "I'd like to know someone like you, and then drown them." In total, there are fifty of these wonderful little guys hidden throughout the world, and a string of insults will clue players in to their location.

So now that I've covered there are dozens of varied quests designated to players by the game itself and three seek-and-find missions in each area, it's time to talk about what players can do all on their own. While not out slaying monsters or finding dozens of lost books, players will have the opportunity to leisurely explore the areas they have unlocked. Though each location is unique in some way, generally players will encounter the same types of activities, which include making friends with the locals, buying items, doing jobs (lute player, blacksmith, pie maker), purchasing businesses/real estate (the best way to make money, might I add), and even committing a bit of debauchery, if they'd like. Players can marry (the same or opposite sex, depending on the NPC's sexual preference), move into a homestead, decorate a home, sleep with their spouse/stranger using or not using protection (and as fifth grade health class taught us, this can lead to babies and STDs), sleep with multiple people at a time if they'd like, perform fetch quests for biological children, find chests and dig up buried items with the help of your dog, and there's still much more for players to do.

Now that side questing is out of the way, it's time to move on to the main storyline, which is surprisingly greatly overshadowed by the open exploration element of Fable III. In general, the storyline consists of traveling through a linear path fighting off hordes of enemies in order to reach a new area, finding new individuals to join the opposing party, listening to lengthy dialogue, and then battling more enemies. Thankfully the situations encompassing each chapter within the storyline were unique and interesting, for without such good background distractions players would be left battling the same enemies over and over, completing the chapter with a boss fight.

Though a wider variety of enemies would have made for a richer combat experience, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed battling within Fable III regardless. Players have three weapon types at their disposal: a firearm, magic, and a melee weapon. All three can be used in any combination, and players have unlimited magic and fire power. In order to add depth to the weapons system, players will have several options to choose from in all three categories. With magic, there are several spells for players to utilize, which include, but aren't limited to, fire, electricity, wind, and ice. One particular chest on the Road to Rule even allows players to combine two different spell types, and there are plenty of devastating combinations. When it comes to melee weapons and firepower, the majority of those weapon types can be upgraded by completing a set of objectives for that weapon in particular; however, certain weapons, although very strong, have either good or bad requirements for it to upgrade. So players will have to carefully select what item they wish to use when considering which ethical path they want to stick to.

As always, where there are positives within a game, usually come negatives as well, and though Fable III initially suffers from minor issues and annoyances, the game makes a very unfortunate turn towards the end. Not wanting to get ahead of myself, there is one real main problem with Fable III, concerning the graphics, and a few other smaller problems.

Graphically, Fable III is truly something to behold. It may not be the most detailed game available on the market, but in terms of creating an experience that flawlessly conveys the social and economical situation in each unique area, Fable III masterfully succeeds. Wealthy areas are abundantly decorated with vibrant flowers and the houses are meticulously detailed and individually decorated, whereas poor sections are filled with starving people clothed in rags and living in squalor. The presentation is nothing less than fantastic, though there are a few graphical problems. The worst of it is rampant pop-in of both objects in the world and textures on objects. When there’s a lot going on in a given area, the game will start to putter along, with the frame rate dropping significantly. Though things are good most of the time, these issues show face on a fairly consistent basis, but outside of the slowdown they aren’t horribly distracting.

Another issue concerns the glowing path that directs players towards their current objective. Sometimes after selecting a quest, the glowing path either does not appear at all, or begins sending players in the wrong direction, only to inevitably fix itself and send players wandering back the way they came.

Finally, the last issue is more of a nitpick than anything else, but feels like an obvious oversight on the development end, which could have saved plenty of time and frustration for the player. When players purchase real estate property that is rented, they must keep the building in good shape or else the tenants will refuse to pay rent. In order to do so players must make repairs to the buildings, and eventually players will come to own quite a few of them. Considering this, the lack of a "repair all" option forces players to go into each town and repair the houses one-by-one. It's annoying, and an utter waste of time.

So finally it is time to discuss the tragedy that lies at the end of Fable III. I don't really know what could have possibly been going through the developer's heads when they came up with the idea, but either they just didn't have enough energy left to finish the game, or they were trying really hard to piss players off. As a warning, some of you may not want to read what follows as it can be considered a spoiler, but I feel that it is incredibly important to discuss, since this could very well destroy your experience with Fable III. Basically, at a particular point in the game, players will unknowingly put themselves in a situation where their unlimited freedom will be taken away, their character will be crowned King/Queen and then they'll be given one year to complete a task. Unfortunately, each "day" that passes within the game is equivalent to months, leaving players with less than seven in-game days to complete the mission.

Sadly, it's hard to truly explain in detail just how negatively this section of Fable III impacts the play experience without revealing too many details and spoiling the experience altogether. Ultimately, as a word of advice to anyone planning on playing Fable III, enjoy the unlimited exploration elements and sidequesting, collect as many guild seals as you can, and open every chest on the Road to Rule. Then, once you are absolutely sick of Fable III, and just want to finish the title, go and complete the final main story mission where you initiate the revolution. Thanks to auto-save, if you unknowingly rush into the scenario, you may wind up feeling cheated and utterly pissed off like myself and thousands of others who have already encountered the disappointing ending. Oh, and save up LOTS of money beforehand too.

If it weren't for the horrendous ending, or there was some indication that the atrocity was about to occur, Fable III would be a nearly flawless experience. The unbelievable freedom to explore such an incredible world stuffed full with new tasks and experiences around every corner was a remarkable gaming experience and certainly the most unique and enjoyable one I've had in a very long time. Thankfully, though the ending itself is incredibly tacked on and weak compared to the rest of the game, as long as gamers are prepared ahead of time for it, and encounter it by choice, it won't detract from the experience at all.