Fable 2 – Afterthoughts

I finished the game two days ago and by today, I’m asking myself “Is this it?”

To be honest, I felt a little let down when I completed the main quest but maybe I could have set my expectations a little too high after my initial review, which to be honest, the game failed to fully deliver what I thought it would.

I still think it’s a well-crafted RPG, with some unforgettable moments.  To avoid spoilers for the benefit of some, there were moments where I got slightly emotionally involved when *beep* killed *beep* right before your eyes.  The world of Albion has great depth, from the backstories to how the world still functions after you complete the main quest – just like a “real” game world should.  There are still quests to be completed, jobs to do and property to buy.  And I believe the game will keep generating new minor quests as long as you’re playing it.  So in that sense, the game never really ends.

However, I have noted three key areas that could really be improved.

Main Quest – It’s terribly short.  The more I think about it, the more I feel like there’s so much opportunity to lengthen it but didn’t.  In fact, it’s short to the point that the ending felt painfully anti-climatic.  Breaking the conventional of a traditional RPG, Fable 2 has no major boss battles.  Good or bad?  You decide.

Morals – Though it promises that you can craft your character to slant any way you want – good vs evil or pure vs corrupt, the game seems to impose a judgement on you if you choose to stand in moral middle ground.  Just one example, shopkeepers will give you a bigger discount if they like you, and less if they’re afraid.  Of course you can just kill them and take what they have for free, but if I don’t want to be that bad, then should the game penalize you for living in a shade of gray?  Given the perceived freedom of choice, should the game appear to reward you more if you’re good and pure?  You decide.

Character Builds – Though there are three branches of skill to develop, I feel there isn’t much liberty to create diverse characters.  This could be because of how the balance between the three skill types complement each other so well in all your battles.  The flip side is the game doesn’t really allow you to create specialized characters like other RPGs do.  So if I want to create a ranged fighter, I won’t be able to because I’ll need to invest significant amount of experience points to increase my health.  Likewise if I want to create a spellcaster.  Is this the best mechanic to implement or should health increase be given everytime you spend X amount of experience points regardless of which skill tree?  You decide.

At the end of the day, it’s a give and take.  The game is well crafted in many areas that broke the convention of a traditional RPG and I still maintain that the dog is a very well designed and implemented aspect of the game.  And perhaps if they had followed how a traditional RPG delivers a game experience, it wouldn’t have turned out to be such an enjoyable and unique experience.  But if the game is built around the ideology of choice (vs predestination?), then I feel it failed to fully deliver on that because underneath the illusion of choice, the reality is that most of how you experience the game is decided for you.  

My ratings still stand for all the categories except replay value, so here’s my humble grading of Fable 2.

Art/Graphics: 9/10
Music/Sound: 9/10
Controls/Playability: 8.5/10
Production Value/Design: 8.5/10
Replay Value: 3/10
Overall: 38/50 or 76%

p.s. after so many years, the best RPG in my books is still Diablo II.  I can’t wait for the sequel.