Having played Fable II and Fable III many years ago and loving them, I had never gotten around to playing the original game as I didn't own the original Xbox. However after finding this game on sale, I decided to check it out finally... and I find myself really underwhelmed.
At a glance, Fable Anniversary's combat seems more sophisticated and in depth than the other two in the franchise. You attack with melee weapons, ranged weapons, and willpower (magic). If we look at the will system in Fable Anniversary, we'd see there are 18 different types of spells, which when compared to Fable II's 8 spells, and Fable III's 6 spells, you'd assume would lead to more creativity in combat. However, less is definitely more in this situation. The majority of these spells are relatively useless, and I barely found myself willpower in the slightest. I played the game on the hardest difficulty, and I found that the game became a slog more than a challenge, with no real consistent way to make income until late game.
Comparative to it's successors, Fable also lacks any true meaningful choices, and it's admittedly decent narrative is subverted in it's seriousness by the absolute monstrous character models that look like someone left the heating on in Madame Tussauds.
Although I do tend to lean towards being a "good"-centric moral character when given the choice in video games, a well-designed game will ask the player to make difficult choices by offering them something else that will counter the moral option. Even latter games in this series manage to offer the player wealth and other alluring features in an attempt to sway the player to make a selfish choice. However, in Fable Anniversary the choices seem to be "pick the logical good choice or be evil for the sake of it" and there is no real motivation to pick morally grey options at any point throughout the story. Although I think this is something they improved on for the sequels.
I'm very empathetic to the fact this is a simple remaster of a 2005 Xbox game, but there were plenty of incredible games that had come out around that time, that had more interesting narratives, impactful choices, and a prettier artstyle. They could have rectified these limitations in this version of the game as it had been 4 years since the release of the far superior Fable III when this Anniversary edition was released. Instead, the port is uninspiring and left a lot to be desired from me personally.
Despite my criticisms, I do not think this is a bad game at all. It definitely does have it's charm. For instance, I think the humour in Fable has always been relatively funny and that was consistent throughout this title. The game had some goofy side activities that fits the theme of Fable well. And despite my qualms with the story in regards to it's length and lack of choices, there were still a lot of scenes I enjoyed, such as the prison sequence, arena fights, and undead area. But there were equally as many terrible sequences, and I found myself hating all combat and all scenes where I had to fight Minions. God that enemy is unbearable, and it quickly becomes the common enemy type throughout the main story towards the latter third and I found myself hating that experience.
What I found interesting was the way that the achievements and 100% completion work in this game. Almost every achievement is unlocked in one of two completely different ways which I found really unique and interesting. For example, there is an achievement called 'Get Rich or Die Tryin'' which can be earned by either earning 10,000 gold from property rental in the game, or... dying. Which is a cute way of providing player choice to something as niche as an achievement list. I just wish they added as much care to the choices in how you want to earn the achievements into how these choices may affect your journey.
This game clearly had the right direction of what it wanted to be, but is extremely unpolished, over ambitious, and falls short in a lot of places where you'd expect it to shine. I desperately want a new entry into this franchise, as what was built upon these promising foundations were two genuinely great sequels, and I would love to see the kinds of freedom and fun a new game in the Fable world would bring.
At a glance, Fable Anniversary's combat seems more sophisticated and in depth than the other two in the franchise. You attack with melee weapons, ranged weapons, and willpower (magic). If we look at the will system in Fable Anniversary, we'd see there are 18 different types of spells, which when compared to Fable II's 8 spells, and Fable III's 6 spells, you'd assume would lead to more creativity in combat. However, less is definitely more in this situation. The majority of these spells are relatively useless, and I barely found myself willpower in the slightest. I played the game on the hardest difficulty, and I found that the game became a slog more than a challenge, with no real consistent way to make income until late game.
Comparative to it's successors, Fable also lacks any true meaningful choices, and it's admittedly decent narrative is subverted in it's seriousness by the absolute monstrous character models that look like someone left the heating on in Madame Tussauds.
Although I do tend to lean towards being a "good"-centric moral character when given the choice in video games, a well-designed game will ask the player to make difficult choices by offering them something else that will counter the moral option. Even latter games in this series manage to offer the player wealth and other alluring features in an attempt to sway the player to make a selfish choice. However, in Fable Anniversary the choices seem to be "pick the logical good choice or be evil for the sake of it" and there is no real motivation to pick morally grey options at any point throughout the story. Although I think this is something they improved on for the sequels.
I'm very empathetic to the fact this is a simple remaster of a 2005 Xbox game, but there were plenty of incredible games that had come out around that time, that had more interesting narratives, impactful choices, and a prettier artstyle. They could have rectified these limitations in this version of the game as it had been 4 years since the release of the far superior Fable III when this Anniversary edition was released. Instead, the port is uninspiring and left a lot to be desired from me personally.
Despite my criticisms, I do not think this is a bad game at all. It definitely does have it's charm. For instance, I think the humour in Fable has always been relatively funny and that was consistent throughout this title. The game had some goofy side activities that fits the theme of Fable well. And despite my qualms with the story in regards to it's length and lack of choices, there were still a lot of scenes I enjoyed, such as the prison sequence, arena fights, and undead area. But there were equally as many terrible sequences, and I found myself hating all combat and all scenes where I had to fight Minions. God that enemy is unbearable, and it quickly becomes the common enemy type throughout the main story towards the latter third and I found myself hating that experience.
What I found interesting was the way that the achievements and 100% completion work in this game. Almost every achievement is unlocked in one of two completely different ways which I found really unique and interesting. For example, there is an achievement called 'Get Rich or Die Tryin'' which can be earned by either earning 10,000 gold from property rental in the game, or... dying. Which is a cute way of providing player choice to something as niche as an achievement list. I just wish they added as much care to the choices in how you want to earn the achievements into how these choices may affect your journey.
This game clearly had the right direction of what it wanted to be, but is extremely unpolished, over ambitious, and falls short in a lot of places where you'd expect it to shine. I desperately want a new entry into this franchise, as what was built upon these promising foundations were two genuinely great sequels, and I would love to see the kinds of freedom and fun a new game in the Fable world would bring.