Fable: The Lost Chapters

"The Best RPG? Riiiiiight..."

Fable: The Lost Chapters is an Action RPG from Lionhead Studios. It is the PC edition of the original Xbox game and it serves as a small expansion adding a few more hours to the gameplay. Like all Peter Molyneux games, this one got hyped to the bone and in the end failed to deliver. After some time in my Never-to-play-again-game-shelf-, I decided to give the game another chance since I've forgotten why I didn't like it. The result? I've remembered why…

Story: 3/10
Presentation: 3/10

Typical this, typical that:
You are a little boy living in a typical medieval village called Oakvale, in a typical medieval world called Albion. Bandits burn your village and you are the only one who survives. A Mage saves you and takes you in the Heroes Guild where you are trained as a hero until you've reached adulthood. After that you are free to roam the world and do everything you want. After completing some quests you learn about a person that threatens the world and that he is connected to your past. Kill him. The end!

My mother is dead? I don't care:
The biggest problem apart from the fact that the plot is too boring is that you won't feel connected to the world of the game. Heroes are treated like superstars and behave like a bunch of stupid teenage boys that fight over who is the coolest. All the “important” characters in the game won't evolve to be something more than cardboard characters and whether they die or not, you won't care.

Gameplay: 6.5/10
Replay Value: 3/10

So what is Fable? Well in a sense Fable is just a run of the mill Hack n' Slash RPG, with its basic search around for stuff and questing. The second half of the game is the sum of all the rest of the stuff available, the mini-games, the good or evil choices you must make, the social life you can have and many more. Now lets analyze these stuff one at a time.

Here comes the mag… warrior… errr archer… rogue?:
Most of the time all you do in the game is travel around the various regions and fight mobs. There aren't many of them and those that are available are easy and require small amounts of skill. Battling is simple, although I have mixed feelings about the controls. Mainly the lock on feature is a bit problematic, something that can be a great pain in the behinds when attacked from more than 5 enemies, (something quite common). You can use three attack types, melee weapons, bows or Will, (magic). Leveling up is supposed to be innovative but it is actually extremely flawed and shows that the developers don't know a thing about RPGs. You gain general Exp from killing enemies but also gain Strength, Skill and Will points when using melee weapons, bows or magic. There are several problems with that. First of all the game forces you to become a hybrid of all the “classes”, so you cannot actually become a mage or just a warrior, etc. When you want to use your Exp points you have to go to a certain region in the game, which is a stupid idea in the first place and then “buy” skills, like more health, more speed or just get\improve magic spells. The problem? After half the game you will have most of your skills maxed out making the whole game a boring piece of cake. Also the weapons and armor are simply bad. You won't see any difference with or without wearing your clothes and secondly weapons are all the same. What I mean is that there are no weapons that are class related, like fast daggers for Assassins, staffs that improve a Mage's powers and finally there are no shields so choosing a single handed weapon over a double handed one makes no difference

I'm a hero because I've saved a cat from a tree:
Another problem are the available quests. Whether you choose a side quest or a “core” quest, all of them are extremely boring, like go there kill that, go there protect this, go there fetch an item and so on and the quests aren't exactly epical, when I say go there kill that I mean go in the small cave and kill this easy to kill creature, when I mean protect this I ain't talking about busty maidens, Kings or key characters but traders and nothing more and when I say fetch that item… aarrgh! You get the point! Adventuring in the game is also boring and without any depth. You go there, cut some bushes and find a chest that can be seen from a mile away and so on. Also a thing that I hate in many “modern” RPGs is the fact that the game confides you in paths so you cannot explore the world like you would in The Legend Of Zelda for example.

You are free… sort of:
No onto the main deal of the game: Here you are supposed to be free to do anything you want. You can be good or evil, change your appearance, flirt marry and have sex, buy houses, play games and many more, but are all or these fun or at least without problems? Well yes you can be good or evil but it's not something so great. Killing bad guys, saving hostages, donating money and so on means that you get more good points and when you kill villagers or guards, steal and team up with bandits on quests means more evil points, BUT either way doesn't really affect the game. Being good means that people applaud you and being evil means they run away in fear. Also even though it is so tempting to be evil, the game's bad design forces you to be good most of the time since killing enemies means that you are… good. Flirting and marrying is very simple. Become more attractive by shaving and wearing shiny armor, give a present or two, offer a wedding ring, that's it. So you have a wife, what now? Oh, you can have sex with her… SO WHAT!!! What does this offer to the game? Nothing. The economy of the game is ridiculous enabling you to buy cheap and sell at high prices becoming rich in no time and getting the best gear available from the start of the game. And finally aging… aging doesn't have anything to do with the time spent but with the experience gained, so since you level up so easy in this game I ended up playing with a heroic grandpa after 4-5 hours or so. Ain't that fun!?!

Expanded mediocrity:
In addition in this PC version we have a couple of new stuff. A couple of more core quests, that are equally boring, some new items, that are equally useless and new enemies that are a bit tougher but by the time you reach them you will be a mass killing walking tank.

Graphics: 9/10
Design: 6/10

One of the game's best aspects are its graphics that are quite astonishing! You'll find yourself staring at the wonderful sceneries of Albion and that involves, medieval villages and town, dark dungeons and cemeteries, beaches. We have a great day-night cycle, weather effects, rivers, seas and waterfalls, sunrises and sunsets and many more, (well not to many to be honest). Good animated characters, especially yours and very good use of effects, especially when using a spell. Everything is quite detailed, looks quite good and makes you feel like you are into a fairy tail. Some may not like the semi-cartoonish style of the characters but that's just a matter of taste.

Beautifully rendered boring stuff
Some things hold me back from giving it a better score and these are variety and lack of imagination. The whole world feels too small and most regions look the same. Most RPGs have many different regions that greatly add to the game, but here we have some typical forests, a forest which is just a bit more rainy, a snowy village, some trader camps, some caves, a cemetery etc. They all look great but they also look the same. What I mean is that we have a great graphic engine and all we see is forests and villages when in RPGs you want to see something “out of this world”. Also the people inhabiting the game's world are way to cloned. There are 3 types of merchants that walk around the regions and 3-4 women\men that walk around in the villages and all look extremely similar. Finally the atmosphere gets a bit too exaggerated making the game look like a cartoon. For example the peaceful village is sunlit, with flowers everywhere, birds flying around, etc, where the Darkwood forest is filled with black trees without leaves, the sky is dark and so on, making it a bit unrealistic.

Sound: 6/10
Music: 7/10

-Oh, the famous chicken chaser! Yayyyyyy!!!
-SHUT UP!!!
Generally the sound effects of the game are quite good. Whether we speak about the battle sounds or the ambience sounds everything is ok. The problem starts with the voice acting and how\when people talk. The voice acting ranges from Mediocre to Bad. All characters have a British\Irish\Scottish accent but it doesn't sound natural and sounds more as if the Voice actors where trying to fake that accent. Also the things they say and more importantly when… men I won't to kill all the people in Albion after some time. When people see you they start making some comments but not only this comments are stupid, there are only a bunch of them and when people are around they won't stop talking, calling your title, applauding you or running away screaming if you are evil. This thing destroys the illusion of a virtual world and is very annoying. The music on the other hand, without being something special is good, with each theme giving the right atmosphere to each area and with some of the tunes being quite epic. None of the music in the game will stuck in your head but it gets the job done.

[+]:
-Great graphics

[-]:
-Very bad plot and presentation
-Most of the games features are useless and not fun at all
-Being good or evil isn't what is supposed to be
-Easy to Level up and max up skills. Unbalanced economy
-Equipment is boring, unhelpful and not class related
-Too short and repetitive
-Confined in paths. Can't explore the world
-You age too fast
-Lack of imagination\variety in graphics
-The comments people make get annoying too soon

Also Play:
Fable 2 (Xbox 360)
Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (N64)
Sudeki (PC, Xbox)

Overall: 5.4/10

This game is a victim of very, very, very bad design. It uses some great ideas but badly executed. After one hour of relatively good gameplay it becomes boring and repetitive. It could be the new Legend Of Zelda adult version if the developers had planned the game more carefully but it ended up being a mediocre game that sold because of the hype.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/11/07, Updated 12/02/09

Game Release: Fable: The Lost Chapters (US, 09/20/05)