Fable: The Lost Chapters

The Good
The music is beautiful and lovely to listen to. A soundtrack might be a good seller. Graphics, for the most part, are good.

The Bad
There's nothing really "bad", per se, about Lost Chapters, but I just couldn't get "into" it. I'm an adventure and RPG fan, and this game doesn't fit neatly into either of those genres.

I installed it and played for about 8 hours. Then left it there waiting, telling myself that there must be something to like there. There are so many "rave" professional reviews after all. But, the "big-head" kid who doesn't talk to anyone (really he has absolutely no dialog!) turned me off. The story (the little I saw of it) didn't keep me going either. The icon remained on my desktop for about a month but I always found something else to do. In the long run, I realized that I had no interest in continuing and uninstalled it.

I didn't "hate" it, though, so I guess that's saying something.

The Bottom Line
It's really difficult to write a lengthy review about a game you don't like. Sometimes it's just a feeling one gets or an irritating interface that stops the "fun" factor in its tracks. A buggy game, naturally, can be the culprit. For others, it's the lack of story or interesting characters that the player can relate to. Fable: The Lost Chapters fits into the latter category.

This is definitely NOT an adventure game .. and NOT a role-playing game either. At least in the traditional sense of those words. What IS it then? It is an action/adventure with the emphasis on action.

I should have known better. I didn't even look at the screenshots of the original Xbox Fable before buying Lost Chapters. I just took for granted that if other adventure gamers liked it, that I would too. I think I've learned a valuable lesson - don't buy anything that originally started out as a console game. And, of course, do a little more research before plunking down my hard-earned dollar.

The Good
The first thing a person should know about Fable: The Lost Chapters (referred to from here on as Fable) is that, as far as action-RPG hybrids go, it's much more 'action' than 'RPG'. This characterisation plays out in all aspects of the game, from its lovely presentation and score by Danny Elfman to its unsophisticated role-playing elements.

The AI is respectable throughout the game. Some of the fights get pretty difficult, although most enemies only have one or two different attacks. This is probably the single exception to the rule of simplicity detailed below.

The presentation value of this excellent. The graphics are good if not splendid, and have a lovely 'cartoony' feel that is fantasy-like without being childish. The added soft bloom effect also adds a dream-like quality of the visuals that works well (unlike in say, Deus Ex 2). More importantly, you could easily run this game at 1280x1024 on a mid-range computer (I have a 6600 GT and an athlon 64 2800) with every option cranked up (except shadow detail, which is a framerate killer as always). The colours of the visuals are rich and varied, the special effects are spectacular and fast-paced. The character models as well as monster models and NPC's are unique and suit the 'Fable' title very well. Indeed, the models used for the entire world function to make the game seem like a fantasy story, which is a real coup because it would have been so easy to go wrong in this attempt.

The sound effects and score are impeccable. Danny Elfman has written a beautiful, fantasy-laden score. Again, this score serves to make the game more 'fable-like' and could have so easily gone wrong that it is a testament to Elfman's and the developer's abilities that it all works so well. The monsters make noises that suit them, the 'action' music differs enough from the string-heavy 'ambient' music to make it clear, the 'magic' sound effects are fabulous across the board.

The controls are tight, true, and fantastically done. Again, the production value of this game shines through. Obviously a great deal of attention was lavished on making the controls seamless. The hack-n-slash or magic combat is intuitive but also difficult to master. The camera is never awkward and there are sufficient opportunities for camera angle customisation as well. There are tutorials in the beginning and as you encounter new facets of the game, so you never feel unsure as to what to do.

The voice acting is excellent as well. The designers clearly went to the effort of hiring ACTUAL British actors rather than just getting Americans, Kiwis, or Australians to do cheesy accents. There are enough different accents and voices that you don't feel that you're just cycling through the same five voice actors. None of the dialogue feels called-in (compare to Star Trek games with Patrick Stewart's voice), rather, it all seems imminent and believable.

The plot is decent if entirely predictable. Yes, there is a magic sword. The entire point of an epic Fable IS to be predictable, so this is excusable. Unfortunately, the plot is very short. If you wanted to, you could probably work through the main quest in less than 10 hours.

There are all kinds of different things to do in this game as well. From marrying to finding lost treasure to looking for silver keys to open the locked chests throughout to opening the ten or so 'demon doors' to get secret items, there are definitely too many things to do in one go through the game. Unfortunately, this doesn't translate into 'replay value' for this game, as I'll explain below.

The Bad
These strengths noted, there are numerous flaws that keep this game out of the 'great' category. They generally fall into the broad statement: this game is aimed at unsophisticated gamers.

Firstly, and most importantly, the role-playing elements of this game are superficial and limited. Even more so than Knights of the Old Republic 1 or 2 (see my reviews if you so desire), this game feels like D&D for kids. There are two major pseudo role-playing elements to this game: your appearance and your skills/fighting type. You can use tattoos and haircuts to adjust the way you look and you can select from abilities within three broad skill types: strength, skill, and will. This ultimately works out to you getting to select fighter, thief, or mage skills. On paper, this is fine, but it doesn't work out well and suggests that they might have aimed the game at people new to or unrelated to RPGs, but if that's the case, why bother at all?

This is because your appearance has no gameplay impact, save making people fall in love with you (which also has no gameplay impact). So there just isn't any reason to bother. They've incorporated and 'age' system whereby the longer you play, the older you get. Again, this works OK on paper but it ends up being more annoying than fun. By the end of the game, you look much, much older than your mother! And who wants to beat the ultimate bad guy as an old grandfather? I found the age function less than satisfying. Moreover, the tattoos and haircuts don't actually change the character model (again, compare to KOTOR 1 or 2 or Neverwinter Nights). This function is window-dressing...a fun presentation element that's well incorporated but ultimately puerile

The 3-skill type system turns out to be too simplistic. Note that it's not a level-based experience system. You earn experience points from killing things and from using a given type of skill (e.g., you get strength experience and 'general' experience you can use on learning any skill) which you can spend to learn more advanced skills. The trouble is that there are only 30 skills and 24 of them are magic-based. If you play a fighter or a thief, you'll run out of things to learn quickly and you'll be left exploring mage skills by default. Again, it's just too simplistic. Moreover, the game is ridiculously easy as a fighter or as a fighter/mage, which is ultimately what you'll be forced to play.

There are only four or so 'levels' of armor or weapons in the game. This gets especially annoying as you get the best armor in the game after just a couple of hours of play-time. Simplistic design again.

This is unrelated to simplicity but is another gripe: who is this game aimed at? The graphics and simplistic game play suggest that it's aimed at younger teenagers or people new to RPGs. But if that's the case, why the adult themes throughout the game? You can shag your wife (complete with dubious sound effects) and in within the first 20 minutes of the game you see a picture of your kid sister with blood streaming out of her eyes after having them stabbed out by 'bandits'.

The Bottom Line
In the end, Fable is a good but not a great game. It's a great action game that's well-presented in all aspects. Seamless gameplay, nice graphics, fantasy-like setting, and fun character models. Unfortunately, it suffers greatly for simplicity in plot, RPG elements, and some action elements. This simplicity will annoy seasoned RPG gamers and potentially confuse action-oriented gamers. It also makes one wonder who this game is designed for.

The Good
The best aspects of Fable: The Lost Chapters to me was the music and audio. The main theme song was composed by Danny Elfman, a veteran of the movie soundtrack industry and it's such a fitting and memorable tune that you shouldn't be surprised if you find yourself whistling it to yourself every so often! Sound effects and voice-acting are also top notch so Lionhead definitely didn't fail in those regards.

The game itself is one in a small niche of games (including the likes of Knights of the Old Republic) that explores the ideas of moral alignment and which have virtual denizens that respond accordingly (i.e. cower in fear if you're evil, or cheer you on if you're good).

The amount of detail put into your character's physical appearance is also worthy of merit. If you get beaten up too much during fights, it will show in the form of battle scars over your body. You can also equip your character with different clothes, hair styles and tattoos (which you can make yourself if you're the creative sort). Your character also ages with time, so as you approach 60, you'll start noticing more wrinkles and liver spots.

The Bad
Even though the game is apparently longer than the original Fable on X-Box, it is still rather short for a RPG. I finished the game in ~30 hours and that's after completing probably 90% of the quests for a particular alignment (good or evil). The ending was also slightly lackluster, hinting towards a sequel IMHO.

Even though the graphics overall are good, shading is a bit of a problem on modest video cards. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro and I couldn't put the maximum shadows setting on. The reason I was attempting to was that the shadows looked rather blocky on the models, even though everything else looks exceptional.

For a PC RPG, there may be the impression of limited freedom when compared to its counterparts. As this game was ported from an X-Box, areas tend to be small and there'll be a lot of loading screens to go from one location to the next (however this is reportedly much quicker on PCs than the X-Box, so it's not too much of an issue). Most of the times you pick to do good or evil things only have two choices rather than games like Knights of the Old Republic 2 where you have multiple choices and where the good choices don't necessarily turn out that way.

The Bottom Line
Fable: The Lost Chapters would appeal to console gamers out there who want to try an RPG with slightly more freedom than standard fare or for PC role-playing enthusiasts who want a short but fun action-oriented RPG. It is nothing revolutionary but it does manage to carve its own niche by borrowing some of the "good vs evil" elements from games like Knights of the Old Republic and some of the simulated life antics found in games like The Sims. Not exactly "the greatest RPG of all time" as Peter Molyneux would lead you to believe, but a fun game in its own right.