Fable: The Lost Chapters

"Good? Evil? Neutral? It's up to you."

Fable: The Lost Chapters.

Fable: The Lost Chapters is an Action RPG. It's also a game where you have freedom of choice. As with most of Lionware's games of note, you can be good or evil, much like in Black and White. Except you a hero, not a god. There's a large assortment of items, weapons, armor, and other things. Those of you that have played the original fable, skip a few paragraphs until we get to the 'expanded content' (which starts with 'which leads to the expanded content...')

Your character evolves and changes as you go through the game. You start as a little kid, getting a present for your sister. Then your town gets raided, where you parents and your sister die in the flames of a bandit attack. Next, you're in 'hero training' as a kid, continue training as a teen, and eventually get to 18 or 20 and your set loose upon the world, to do as you please. In my case, this lead to killing everyone who... got in my way, pissed me off, or looked at me funny. I'm not joking, my character started growing demon horns until he got red glowing eyes and his feet started emitting red smoke. Being good gives you a nice blue aura with a halo and random butterflies. Not only that, but by the end of the game, your character will more than likely be a scarred old veteran (as you age each time you 'level up'). As you get hit by enemies, you may or may not notice various wounds. Which eventually 'heal' and become battle scars.

Being good is just as it sounds like. Don't randomly kill villagers and don't commit crimes. Being evil is.. Well.. the exact opposite. Randomly kill villagers, commit crimes. Crimes like trespassing, murdering, stealing, break valuables, etc.

What you'll have at the beginning of the game is a bow, a sword, and a lightning spell. Over time you'll have a wide arrange of spells (Will), increase your strength, and work on your dexterity (Skill). At a certain point of the game, everything gets too easy because of your spells, excessive strength and skill, and everything in between. That doesn't make it any less fun, but it seems too easy as bosses get killed pretty quickly.

'Endings' are multiple, but obvious to point out. You are practically given a choice to do the 'good ending' or the 'evil ending' depending on what you do.

Which leads to the 'expanded content' (new people to the game, you can skip this part, it won't really affect you). There's an entire new area to go through, a few new side-quests, couple of new weapons, one or two new locations. Although, the new area is stapled onto the ending of the original game. First of all this 'new area' only adds one or two hours to the game and gives you no quests except for the ones that have to do with the story. The added quests are too few to make the game worthwhile for people who already played the original game. They didn't add too much to it. They could easily make the game a few hours longer by making side-quests in this new area. There's so much that the new area that COULD have been there.

I clocked in on 16 hours for this game (you mileage may vary). The first 14 hours I finished the main story, and did most of the side-quests. And the remaining 2 hours I was amusing myself with the rest of what the game offers other than the quests (which isn't much). So, other than the main story and the side-quests. You can get married (to a girl or a guy), you can rent out your house. You can buy other houses and shops. Although, you need to kill its inhabitants first, so people trying to be good won't dabble much in this area. There are mini-games to bet on in the taverns, and different competitions. So, you have a few things to distract yourself with other than the main story, but there's not much you can do with it. It's better to leave things to your imagination, as the villagers don't have much to say other than praise you (if you're good) or run in the other direction (if you're evil).

There are no penalties for being evil, and no penalties for being good. There aren't 'evil-only' spells/items/weapons/armor (although some change your alignment, but you can wear them either good or evil), and the same goes for good. There's maybe one of two things you can't get too if your pure good, but they're not that important. Now, there are some choices you may or may not make that could want you to play again. But other than that, not much changes (although, a few of the NPCs may or may not look different)

I ran through another time and surprisingly still had fun now that I knew everything. I still went in for about 14-15 hours, but I have no motivation to play through a third time.

I recommend this game for anyone new to Gaming or new to Action RPGs. To anyone else (you Veteran gamers out there), it can still be an enjoyable game, although a little on the easy side. If you played the original game, don't bother with this one unless you want to play the whole game over again, the 'expanded content', again, only adds an hour or two of game play.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/18/06