Fable 3 - Horrendous

[BigBoss]

Before I start this thread I wanted to make one thing clear, I've never looked at the Fable series as an "rpg" series. It was clear from the moment they first previewed it wasn't going to be very rpg oriented. I've always looked at it like an acion-adventure series.

With that in mind, I liked the first game. I liked the second game also, though the DLC about Knothole Island and that other merchant guy was overly short with a stupid story. So then I play the third Fable. What the hell happened in between Fable II and Fable III. It's like they decided to throw away anything good about the game, and keep everything bad. Everything is a simplified piece of shit, with an elements from Fable II that were already simple being watered down even more to the point where I felt like I was playing a game meant for, well I don't know who the hell this game could have possibly been meant for... The Crawler was an extremely stupid villain with no proper story writing whatsoever. Why does he want to destroy Albion? They give you no real clue besides that usual "he's a demonic entity, what reason does he need!" style that's been far too overplayed in games. It's like they think of ideas that could have a lot of potential, and then just completely flush them. It's like the writers sat down with Peter, and wrote down a story in a day's time with almost no effort. Logan could have made a good villain, but they decide to cut it short halfway through and bring his character to a short and unsatisfying end. Then the "second half of the game" was a downright joke. Twenty minutes making decisions that have no real effect on anything but the way the world looks. Not to mention the NPC's aren't anything but SIMs now anyways. In the first two games I at least felt like I wanted the people's support. In this game they present no real argument of why you would want to save any of them except "you're the King, it's your duty!"

Thoughts?

 

[SnapSlav]

I don't think "not considering it RPG" was totally necessary. I think it was perfectly fine as a "casual RPG" goes. More about linearity and spectacle, more about all the same things, less about TRULY integrating players with their characters and choices limited solely by the creativity of the creators and the number of items they could implement into the game. Fable was always a full-blown RPG, just a simple one for an audience that didn't have the time or patience to play deeper, more involving RPGs. It was more RPGish than Baldur's Gate, I'll say that much...

But Fable II was where the series lost me. It was tiny gripes, at first, with the removal of what I felt was a great weapon system and a good archery system, instead implementing a simplified "one button fits all" approach to combat, and using flintlocks instead of bows. I liked the menagerie of spells from the first game, where some were specialized for range and single target damage while others were specialized for area damage, so it was disappointing that F2 made EVERY spell "the same" in that they all had single target ranged variations, and holding the button would charge them for area damage. The tactical variety had been reduced to the point of being indistinguishable. By the time I beat the game for the first time, no amount of hilarious polygamy or owning every building in the game could do away with the lack of hook or intrigue from the actual game, proper. Hunting down the gargoyles was a chore, not an enjoyable romp as far as collectibles go. Being forced to play the game over again in 3 different ways just to unlock significant endgames with descriptions too ambiguous to know what they offered was simply tedious, not fun nor enjoyable. I wasn't feeling encouraged to play the game again but with a different kind of character, and just choose a different ending when it came time for that. I didn't feel like playing the game at all.

The games were alright, they were just nothing particularly special, I think. Fun times, but tragically forgettable. =[

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I agree, Fable III was excrement. It's like a children's game, but with prostitutes and venereal disease thrown in.

 

[lazlolazlo]

When Fable was released it was marketed by Molyneux himself as an easy, streamlined RPG-adventure, without complex elements that traditional RPGs used. With Fable 2, Fable 3, Fable:the journey and now Fable:Legends they havn't just dumbed down each sequel tremendously, but the new directions the teams have taken seem to have set off the huge majority of fans, with exception of a small minority of fanboys accepting everything the devs have done to ruin a pretty good gameseries. I definitely belive streamlining, and accessibility sells, but there is even a point when you can dumbing down a game too much. When releasing sequels, gamestudios generally tend to keep the good things from the original game, but enhance it, however with Fable they stripped the good elements and just added shit! Fable 2 was a huge disappointment, Fable 3 was just plain shit, i got bored after 5 minutes. Fable:Journey was simply retarded, why would you buy a kinect to play a shitty game in the first place. Fable:Legends is a tragedy, it looks more like a indie MOBA than a Fable game. I really hope Microsoft learn that you dont make money if you dumb down a game to appease an audience to dumb to enjoy it.