Fable 3

By Thegreenback

Fable 3 is the third game of the series, starting with the first on the original Xbox. Taking after the second fable where your father became the king of Albion and you’re his offspring. The story is much deeper then the previous Fables. Where it seems you keep doing stuff to help your way though the game story. The story is very compelling making you want to do the next mission just to see what will come up next. As the people you meet and get to know become more involved than ever before, making you want to know about the people of Albion and help them and have them work with you. As you may have to help them through the areas, taking their hand instead of making them follow you. It makes so you don’t have to wait for them to come to you or the character run off into the middle of a fight. But you get slowed down and have to let them go or get hit by enemies. It's a little annoying.

 There are a number of glitches in the game. Some of them being the trail to find stuff will disappear for a bit and you don’t know the way to get to the spot. Also the people get very quiet and sound distant unless you crank up the sound system or having trouble to get the hand of someone your trying to help lead. But they are few to be seen in the over all scale of the game. As most of it is smooth and looks good with either combat or the cut scenes. But others you can see the game load it as it plays leaving a "Whoa, what?" 

The combat has gotten a lot smoother. You can hit an enemy with a sword then shoot the guy right behind him with a gun, with just a simple push of a button. As your dog will attack your fallen enemies or smash their head with your hammer, or stab them in the chest for the final blow. While the magic system become cool but very limited. You can take one spell and weave it with another to make it a unique, but you only get up to 12 spells max, way less then all of the other spell then you could do in the predecessors. Making the spells you do become your own style of fighting but repeatable. The other, is that you can only have one spell on at that time, you cant switch unless you go to the menu and change it. Giving a drag to wanting to make different spells happen. Leveling up your character is different, too. No longer using, say a gun, then getting better at your ranged skills and leveling that area. Now all things from enemy kills to getting to know your people all goes into one lump sum called Guild Seals. So you can no longer get great at one class anymore, just making an all will user or ranged or melee based. Making all kind of characters just about all around the same type. Though if you find a weapon you can do a certain requirements that it tells you to get special powers on your weapon of choice. Turning your weapon into a killing machine as all your weapons and spells level up with you leaving you not needing to keep upgrading to better ones.

Now the bosses in the game are a little different. You know when you’re fighting one and even get an entrance to when it’s going to start. But after you defeated the boss they will show up later in the game. Just as a harder enemies but not making the value of the boss unique anymore. Losing of how you may have defeated it earlier in the game and now just losses its value. 

The interactions of your character and of other people you meet either in missions or on your way just roaming around. You can select the person you want to have an interaction with, then chose either to be good or evil and even now just funny or neutral. Giving the people of Albion a different outlook on your Hero. But you only do one on one, never doing the big crowds to see how many you can get to give you attention. Also there is no longer trying to get people to know who you are, everyone seems to know. They also changed up how you have a family or adoption or have your own like the old way in fable 2.

The enemies get smarter and some harder. Being the funny with how bandits attack you or how Hobbs want to kill you. Changing some of the old ones into new fighting styles, but also removing others from the other games making you wander if you will see them or not. As you figure out how to handle the combat styles and what fits you.

Then they also added a new feature that changes some of the game. You can play online with other people either joining their game or them to yours. Also you can just jump on a local game as a henchman. It can give you a different way to take on enemies, an example: a melee fighter hitting an enemy as the other hits them from a distance with magic. Leaving an over-the-top view so that you can see both characters, but you cant travel to far away so you can get stuck if you playing side to side players. You can also do the same interactions and even marry them and have a kid. The game even pushes you to play online so if you want to get all of the achievements, you have to. So for the people that play no online features you can play just as normal, but you can’t ever get 100% game completion.

So, the over all is that it’s a good game that is fun to play. With a good story that keeps you going and nice combat system though tends to feel lacking. As you feel some of the game wanting to stretch out in many different directions. Not quite choosing a role of what the game wants to be, making it a little confusing of how you want to be in the game. Being either good or bad or even in the middle for choices, for you to do a replay value to see what would happen if done another way.

So I give the game a 7.8 out of 10.

~Thegreenback~