Short little game with amazing presentation and style. Gameplay-wise, the best moments happen when you feel unstoppable, such as when you find a very small room packed with enemies that are annihilated in the blink of an eye by the sheer force of the ape. Sadly, the focus is instead on the challenge of overcoming all the obstacles that the enemies throw at you throughout the level. To succeed, you have to play more carefully, waiting around corners until enemies get closer so you can kill them, and such. However, playing like that is just lame. The music and aesthetic urge you to keep running and killing, but the level design, which is randomized in some levels, demands cautious gameplay. In the end, it makes for an experience that was very close to realizing its true potential, but because of the level design and the limited toolset of the ape (grabbing and pushing enemies, you can also grab the limbs of dead enemies to throw them, though this slows you down too much to be worthwhile, and that's it, that's all the ape can do), and the inherent weakness of the ape itself (dying in just 3 gunshots, making charging in not viable a lot of the time), it falls short of reaching it.

The game features a hard mode, so if the first run focused on feeling unstoppable and the hard mode concentrated on the challenge of enemies, it would be a truly outstanding game. Still, it's very short, it's creative in its scenarios for every level, and just for the presentation alone, it's worth playing.

A touching story with terrible writing. I think as one gets older, the story will hit harder, and i think some years from now i will replay this. I also dread the thought of when that time comes, as the protagonists can't stop making the most Reddit chonkers fedora m'lady comments every 30 seconds. The writing has aged terribly, and maybe talking like that 10 years ago was just a bit quirky, but then again, if i can't stand the writing now, how will i feel about this game replaying it 10 years from now?

Although the mystery initially had the potential to be much bigger than it ended up being, which is a shame and may deter those who came for that aspect, it's important to remember that this is a Telltale game, and the emphasis they seek is not on the mystery, but on how these fabled characters coexist with the real world in the best way they can, showing how in the power struggle of Fabletown, you're either guilty or a victim of abuse of power.

For The Walking Dead (2012), it feels appropriate to see the cities abandoned except for some zombies roaming the streets, but in this game, Fabletown is purportedly the home to many folklore tales from around the world. However, you barely meet enough people to fill a single floor of the apartment complex, and you can see inside the elevator that the building has like 20 floors of space. This is a limitation that lies either in the engine or the format Telltale uses to tell their stories, which, as I said, can work perfectly depending on the game, but not on this one.

Additionally, the writing is not perfect. Some characters come off as very stupid, and I don't think they are supposed to evoke this sentiment, but they just can't help acting very dumb sometimes. There's another character who is trying so hard to be cool, intimidating and edgy that it feels like it was written by a 12-year-old.

Overall, although it has some flaws, it is still enjoyable from beginning to end, and doesn't overstay its welcome.