Another long layoff. My family was in Maui (post coming later), and I had other priorities.
This Christmas, while staying with my parents, I found some old Xbox games that were still there from high school and brought them home.
Xbox 360s are backward compatible, meaning they are able to play original Xbox games. Mine had other ideas after disuse for a few years and really did not want to load Fable. I had to update the software, which was tricky partially because my ancient 360 doesn't have built-in wifi (preferred it wired anyway). After setting it up on the main level, across the house from our router, I dug out a wifi extender with an ethernet jack. Once connected, I updated it. Except the game still didn't work. There was one last thing to try. I swapped in a backup Xbox HDD, updated the software again and voila! Fable booted up. After all that I definitely had to play. It was the week before we left for Maui and I only got so far.
Fable is an adventure RPG game, something like 'build your own hero.' While the graphics are sub-par (especially now) the idea was super interesting. You start as a kid in a fictional medieval society where the rest of your village is killed. A wizard appears and takes you to the Guild of Heroes to be trained. It so happens you have magic abilities too. You learn some basic skills, graduate and go out into the world. From then you get to forge your own destiny.
It's called Fable because you really are creating your own. As you play and complete quests you get more famous, resulting in more people noticing and interacting with you. You can purchase titles that everyone throughout the world will know. You choose which skills to learn and upgrade. You also develop a reputation. Nearly every action affects your good/evil alignment. Quests involve big choices, but smaller things have an impact too. Killing bandits or monsters is 'good.' Stealing from or attacking townspeople is 'evil.' If you do want to be fully good or evil you need to commit because it takes time get there. A fully good hero literally has a halo and is beloved. A fully evil hero grows large horns and people run away terrified. However just because you are, say, a good hero doesn't mean you need to do everything right. You learn this as a kid at the beginning of the game. Take a bribe and then still rat out a cheating husband. Guard some barrels then smash and loot them yourself later. As an adult, you can be a very 'good' hero but still steal from the townspeople every once in a while. Play it how you want, there are tons of options.
Your choices for fighting are melee weapons (swords, axes etc.), ranged weapons (bows, crossbows), and various magic spells. The magic includes straightforward offense, like fireballs and lightning, but also other abilities like slowing time. Mixing and matching magic spells can be especially fun.
Style is a big part of the game. You can purchase or find then wear a variety of clothing. There are 'outfits' but you can wear any combination of your stuff and there is quite a bit, including levels of armor plus casual and fancy dress items. I like the big wizard hats. You can get haircuts and tattoos. All these things not only alter your appearance in game, but also impact how other characters interact with you. There is an attractiveness scale in addition to alignment, and your clothes impact both. Fighting ability also affects your appearance, since it shows when you don't block attacks. Since I really suck at blocking and rarely wear helmets, my character always has a very scarred face.
What really makes the game interesting is different actions unlock different things and you can't do everything with any individual character. You would need to do a 'good' run and an 'evil' run to see the paths through the main quests. There are also things called Demon Doors which ask for a specific thing, usually with some seemingly bizarre clue. Some want you to fight, some want you to show them a specific item, one wants you to be fat, it's totally random. You then have to choose if you want to do the thing once you figure it out.
On this play-through I'm annoyed with how long it takes to change weapons, consume food, or do anything in the menus. These limitations are glaringly obvious, but it's still enjoyable. I especially enjoy the interactions you can have with people in the world. You can use a wide assortment of emotes and give gifts and even get married (once per town!). You can help out a school by restocking their library with quality books, and some that aren't so nice. A wild trick (I have to imagine it's a bug) is part of the dynamic system for trading. If a merchant has a lot of an item, they will sell it at a low price and you can then buy them out at that low price. That same merchant then very much wants that same item, because they don't have it, and will buy it for a high price. So by buying and re-selling over and over you can make essentially unlimited money. You just need enough seed money and to find the right traders.
In the end, it's fun to get to chart your own course in a world with plenty to explore, even in an old game with a fairly linear story. There wasn't a game like this when it came out, at least not one I knew. There have certainly been some since. Fable is great but limited in scope and function. Then from what I remember, Fable 2 was excellent and solved most of these issues. I'd play it again in a heartbeat. I don't remember exactly what it was (maybe the fighting mechanics?) but Fable 3 just wasn't as good. Now apparently there's potentially going to be a Fable 4, something I didn't know when I started this post. Sweet. https://www.gamesradar.com/fable-4-release-date-news-rumours/
Anyway, back to it.
UPDATE:
After ~15 hours of gameplay, a rather small amount of time in a game like this, I've beaten the main quest (not the Lost Chapters stuff) and most of the side missions and I'm bored. Many of the side quests aren't very interesting. The limitations of movement and fighting are bugging me more. The plan all along was to become evil but I just couldn't do it. It was fun for a bit but I think I'm going to move on already.
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