Fable 2
Fable 2 was one of the first games I ever bought for my
Xbox360. Indeed, this was one of the reasons I chose the Xbox360 over the
Playstation 3; I’d enjoyed the first Fable game and was eager to continue the
story. It took me nearly two years to get from one side of the game to the
other, purely because I kept getting distracted by other games. To be honest,
this happens almost every time I play any role-playing game, and more is the
pity because it means that I’ve only ever finished a couple of them. (Before
now, that would be the first Fable Game, both Knights of the Old Republic
I’ve heard a lot of publicity of from Peter Molyneux that
Fable was supposed to be a unique role-playing experience. And I guess in many
ways, he’s right – but not for the usual reasons. Here are some significant
differences:
Character Classes and
Development
Usually with Role-playing games you create your character at
the start of the game based on how you want to play the game. You would normally
choose ‘classes’ based on how you wanted your character to deal with certain
situations, and they would normally be variations on the Dungeons and
Dragons-style archetypes of Fighter, Wizard or Rogue, (but not very often
Cleric, funnily enough. I suspect this is to do with the Cleric being a
supporting character, and with no party to support, this class would be a bit
redundant in most games!)
In Fable, this doesn’t really happen. Your character always
starts in the same way, with a basic set of attacks, but evolves over time
based on how you play the game. They can be upgraded based on Strength, Skill
and Will. But here’s the thing: You can’t just pick one. If you’re going to
make an effective character, you have to take at least some elements of all
three.
For example, say you’re making a Rogue character. (This was
my choice, as I wanted to create an evil assassin-like character, more on this
later.) You would think that the Skill abilities would be the best ones to
upgrade, and they are – but they’re not the only ones. The game doesn’t really
have a stealth system, so most of the Skill-based abilities concern the way you
shoot your ranged weapons, and one of them gives you a dodge roll (I think.[1])
However, if you want your hero to be any good in melee combat at all you need
to at least give them the Strength upgrades that gives them access to the
combat moves, and investing in Will points isn’t a bad idea either as it gives
access to a ‘time’ spell that can be used as a teleport. So, you can’t make a
pure or ‘mono’ class. Apart from anything else, if you sink all your experience
points into one path, you will find that you’ve run out of things to improve
long before the game ends! I’ve not really tried playing through the game with
a massive focus on any of the other classes, but you can’t for example make a
pure Fighter as certain sections of the game do require you to cast spells, and
you need at least some way to aim a ranged attack for the last boss. And being
a pure Will user is not much use either because you won’t develop any extra hit
points or any means to avoid damage, so as soon as the enemy breaks through you
will be very vulnerable indeed. So the game almost forces you to take at least
some measure of all three.
Incidentally, the archetypes are covered by the supporting
cast, who do seem to be purely one kind of hero.
Alignment
I played the game to the end with an Evil character, for
little reason other than in the three files I have saved onto my Xbox, the Evil
character is the one where I’d made the most progress through the game and I
wanted to wrap this up reasonably quickly...
This is probably one of two games where I’ve played an evil
character and looked for the so-called ‘bad’ ending. I don’t usually like doing
this because I hate being chided for my actions that I know are wrong, or
‘evil,’ during the game. However, because Fable 2 doesn’t take itself too
seriously, and the consequences of evil actions are often quite comical (try
sacrificing someone to the Temple
of Shadows Temple
Incidentally, the other one was Star Wars: Jedi Academy
I did find it a little odd that the game doesn’t force one
particular ending on you. Without spoiling any of the individual endings, at
the end of the game you basically get to choose how it all turns out from a
choice of three endings. One is obviously the good ending, one is the bad
ending and one is the neutral ending.[3] Now,
I’m glad it lets you choose at least the latter, because playing a neutral
character in any game is surprisingly hard to do. Having vastly different
motivations within the same character makes the game feel a little unbalanced;
most quests that have a degree of morality in them have either a good or evil
ending, and if you’re not consistent with your choices you might find playing
the game a rather strange experience. However, Fable 2 seemed perfectly happy
to allow me to choose the ‘good’ ending, even though by that point I was about
as evil as you can get.
Voice Acting
Most games these days use voice actors to one degree or
another, especially RPGs. And with enough talent, some of those voices can be
stellar performances; I’m thinking mainly of Jennifer Hale here because nothing
she’s ever lent her voice to came out badly, that I’m aware of. And I keep
seeing her name coming up in voice-acting credits, so she seems like a pretty
big name!
Fable 2 differs from this in the sense that its supporting
class are people I’ve actually heard of. I’m not sure how famous the British actors
are in America UK would recognise
her as Susan from the TV Sitcom My Family, and our friends in America
So, Fable 2 takes itself less seriously than other role-playing
games, and for that reason I think I had a lot more fun with it than I had with,
say, Skyrim and Dragon Age. Not that those are bad games, but Fable’s pacing just
made it a little bit more fun. I’ll keep the game for now as I’d like to finish
it with the other characters, but I’ll put that on the back-burner as I might try
something a little different for next week
[1]
At the time of writing, the Fable Wiki was either so poorly coded or had such a
lot of traffic on it that it froze up the moment I tried to take it past the
first page. This makes research for this game a little bit more difficult than
I would have liked, so you should be aware that I am making educated guesses
for some of this.
[2]
Don’t ask me why, but where there is a choice, I generally prefer to play
female characters. It’s just my ‘thing.’
[3]
The same was the case in the first Fable game as well, except that there was no
‘neutral’ option.
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