Fable Review

Synopsis

When the Hero is a child, his village, Oakvale, is raided and destroyed by bandits on his sister's birthday; it seems the Hero's entire family perishes. An old hero named Maze arrives on the scene, rescues the Hero, and convinces him to join the Heroes' Guild to be trained to become a champion; Maze sees great potential in the boy. The Hero then embarks on a journey to discover the reason behind his village's destruction, discovering his destiny, and the true fate of his family along the way.

After a time, and after honing his skills, Maze informs the Hero of a blind seeress living among a bandit camp near Oakvale, and advises the Hero to infiltrate the bandit camp. To the Hero's surprise, the blind seeress is actually his older sister Theresa who was taken in by Twinblade, a former Hero and the present Bandit King. After a showdown with Twinblade, the Hero is given the choice of killing or sparing Twinblade.

Later on in the Hero's life, after he has gained more recognition among the people of Albion, he is invited to fight in the Arena, where he meets the legendary Hero named Jack of Blades, who is running the arena battles and, as a final show, issues a challenge against the Hero and his rival and friend Whisper. When the Hero defeats her, he is given the choice to kill her or spare her life.

It eventually becomes clear that it was Jack of Blades himself who destroyed Oakvale during the Hero's childhood. Aided by Theresa, the Hero makes it his mission to defeat Jack of Blades one way or another, either through good or evil. The Hero tracks down his mother, and attempts to rescue her from Bargate Prison, where Jack has kept her since the day of the Oakvale raid. However, the Hero is captured and spends a year or more in the prison. When he finally escapes with his mother, the Hero attempts to track down Jack. Maze, however, is revealed to be a traitor and working with Jack. Maze kidnaps Theresa. After defeating Maze, the Hero is led into a final confrontation with Jack where his mother is killed. Jack reveals that The Sword of Aeons can only be wielded if it receives the blood of Archon. Upon the death of their mother, the Hero and Theresa are the only two remaining descendants of Archon, and if Jack destroys them both the sword will be even more powerful. After defeating Jack, the Hero must choose whether to keep the Sword of Aeons by killing his sister, or cast it away forever into a portal created by Jack of Blades' death. Depending on the Hero's alignment and the player's choice of using or destroying the sword, there are a total of four different endings. Once the ending credits roll, players can resume their games.[3]

In The Lost Chapters special edition, the story continues. After the defeat of Jack, the Hero must find passage to the Northern Wastes to aid a legendary hero named Scythe in stopping an unknown great evil from returning. Should the hero have discarded the Sword of Aeons he will have the opportunity to gain the sword "Avo's Tear", a sword of similar design and equal power but that holds a light alignment rather than dark. After a series of quests revolving around this new evil, it is learned that Jack of Blades has returned. He must then defeat Jack of Blades a second time, Jack having returned from the dead in the form of a dragon. Upon the death of Jack, the hero then uses Jack's mask to capture Jack's soul, with Scythe telling him that the battle is not over and that he must destroy the mask. The hero then has the final choice of putting on the mask and assuming Jack's persona, or destroying it, along with Jack, forever.

Setting

Fable as well as 2,3 is based in albion, once know as the old kingdom, where a grand ruler named the archon, i think thats how you spell it, he was ment to be a pure ruler but his sword made him evil, the one thing i loved about the setting was the different areas were all different, also the free roam ability that most gamers love was perfect for Fables word due to its largeness and the sidemissions or doing jobs, buying supplies and all of that. also the good/evil element of this game was fantastic but ill talk about that in the gameplay.

Setting Rating 10/10

Gameplay

I can remember playing this game when i was 7/8, as i got an xbox after my second ps2 had broke, and the game at the time i couldn't understand much of what was going on/ being said. But i was amazed by the fact that you could change the story and events that take place depending on what choices you make, if you want to be good or evil that was just simply amazing, Lionhead Studios are just super-smart. The way your facial features and the way people think about you change either buy killing/doing evil quests or saving people,keeping costs down, aiding good people. I was blown away by that. The Magic element to the game i really liked, it was fun to use and i got to admit looked epic when you set someone on fire. I thought the experiance orbs were a good touch to the game but sometimes i forgot to collect them, these experiance orbs are used to buy more abilaties or increase that ability. I was dissapointed when fable 3 made it so you earned experience for everything you did, i miss the orbs orbsorbing into you, and that glow that happens was just sick. At the end of the game it was hard to choose either to kill your sister and keep the sword for TLC of just throw it into the Aybass- if thats how you spell it. Fable fans will know what im talking about.

Gameplay Rating 10/10

Graphics

The graphics were pretty good, the way blood came out and the shine when you hit people looked nice, the 3rd person element made the graphics look better than they were, because if it was first person it would make it seem asif the world looked funny/low-quality but that is actually down to lionheads artists, and i personally loved the way the characters looked and there feet, they were strange.In all the graphics were pretty good!

Graphics Rating7/10

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