Fable: The Lost Chapters

"The game that the original Fable should have been"

Y'kno, most of the time companies churn out specially "remade" games, or LE games which cost around 10 bucks more than the original. And usually, those kind of deals are pretty crappy, a la "one extra character!!! He's no different from the rest of the cast, yet he LOOKS different !!!" (yeah, I'm looking at you Jade Empire).
Sometimes though, some games have so much extra content, you are pretty much forced to buy the game. Missa Kojima got his hand on a good button with the MGS series, where the extras are damn sexy, or like the DMC3: Special Edition (you can actually PLAY as the evil dude!!).

Then this game Fable: TLC. Y'kno, the original Fable game got pretty mediocre scores as people "expected" too much from it, so missa Molyneux tried to make up for it with this game. And he DEFINITELY made up for it.

Graphics: 9
Punching up first with the graphs my main reader. These are too sexy to describe with words. the details are pretty damn awesome and to show this off, Lionhead has included a button with which you can admire your own Hero...and does he look sweet.

Other than the sweetness, there is a major lackness of graphical hiccups. Thats always a plus, but the reason this department aint gonna get a perfect tenner is because there are still some small small nagging bits. Fx. your Hero with his huge body, his hand would go through the sword he was trying to pull out of the stone. Stuff like that, y'kno? Minor stuff but it still counts.

Gameplay: 9
Ok, lemme get ready for this part....cos its big man.
Right, right, right, right...yeah. So you start off as a The Hero. The main man of the game, and after you've completed your training at The Heroes' Guild, you will really start the game.
The leveling up aspects are split into three parts; Strength, Skill and Will.

The first one is pretty obvious. Strength dictates your Health, Toughness, and Strength. This is more for a Melee character who would rely on brute strength to get the job done. When you enhance any of these attributes, the Hero will look more buff (like an Ahnold clone).

The 2nd is Skill. Skill revolves around Speed, Accuracy and Guile. Speed is obvious, as you depend on it to increase sword speed and rate of fire with bow and crossbows.
Accuracy is more for archers. Accuracy reduces the shaking of the aim when you are in Zoom mode. Its very nifty for when you're taking head-shots.

Guile is more of loner here. Guile basically makes you smarter and sneakier. When you level up Guile, you will gain commands like "Stealing" and "Lock-picking". You will also gain a better bartering skill so when you buy and sell items off traders, you get the best bet out of the deal.
When you level up any of these attributes, your Hero will gain height. Y'kno, the skinny tall archer types who are able to handle bows 10 feet long and all.

The 3rd part is Will. Will is just a fancy word for magic, and this is the biggest area of all three attributes. There are a ton of spells, and each spell can be upgraded a number of times.
Most spells you can just buy, but some specific spells require your Hero to either Good or Bad. Spells like sucking the souls out of your enemies definitely would require a Bad alignment.
If you keep upgrading your spells and be a mage, your character will become totally pimped out with blue arcane (magical) tattos all across your body, and glowing hands and eyes.

Now these things you can upgrade or buy by collecting exp., and you can get that by killing enemies. Theres also a second, more nifty way of earning specific experience. Say you use a sword to kill an enemy, you will get some extra Strength Exp., or you use a magical spell to kill an enemy, you will get extra magical exp. etc. etc.
Lionhead has really made leveling up enjoyable with this mode of leveling. You have total control of how your character will develop and what skills he will have. And this way of freedom is much desirable

That was basically the fighting and leveling up part there. Now on to some other game-play stuff.

As I somewhat explained earlier, your Hero changes shape, suiting your playing style. Besides Buffness, height and glowiness, you can acquire tattoos to make yourself sexy or gross, different haircuts and all kinds of facial hair. Its pretty customisable and has many different styles to chose from.

Then comes in the Alignment stuff, I said before (read up a bit buddy). Basically, right, there are 3 things you can be. The Good, The Bad, and The Neutral !! (get it ?? a pun, or play on words!!......nvm then).

So, you do good things like killing monsters and saving damsels in distress and you become good. With a halo on your head, divine light from the heavens and butterflies all around you. Pretty peaceful if I say so myself.

But if you're a real bastard who steals and kills people who merely look at you in the wrong way, you'll get what you're askin for. You'll get huge horns on your head, crackled black skin, glowing red eyes, red mist around your feet...basically the whole Devil package. Or you could be wimp and chose the middle road; Neutral. The word pretty much says all that there is to say, no?

At last are the tidbits, you can marry people (yes, ladies AND gents), can show off your trophies, play some bar games, get drunk and wander around like a hobo, buy houses and rent them out....all of this is pretty damn well made, albeit with a few glitches, but hey, who doesnt have a few glitches these days.

Sound: 9
Damn right this stuff rocks. Some of the music has actually been made by Missa Danny Elfman hisself !!! Shove that in your pipe and smoke it !! You cant get much bigger than Elfman in this business, and he has pulled out a lot of the stops for this game, and it does, in fact, suit the game very well. Try to imagine a fairy-tale world with dragons and magicians, and whatever music you can play in your head, this game will have it.

The VA, is pretty damn spot on too. Every character has a voice that truly fits their character and the acting is brilliantly done. As a side-note, the voice of Jack of Blades has been altered for TLC, and this time around, it is in a much more serious and deadly note. Remarkable man.

Story: 10
Y'kno, I would've awarded the orignal Fable story with a niner, but this time, everything is expanded, with more lore, more story regarding side characters and all round "more" of everything.

Your a kid, who survives a bandit raid on you village. You are saved by a Hero, Maze, and he recruits you into the Heroes Guild. From there on, you're quest is to find out more about your family and become a famous Hero.
Thats the basic premise, but its get a hellava lot more serious.

In TLC, Lionhead Studios has added about 10-15 more sidequests to keep yourself busy with, and a whole new HUGE main quest. This extra stuff practically seals the deal regarding this score.

All in All: 9
Yeah man, this is one fun game. Its pretty deep, but its also pretty funny. I just gotta say that you should definitely get this game man. You will NOT be disappointed

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/06