Vital Stats

Genre: Action RPG
Players: 1-2
Online: Cooperative Multiplayer

Developer: Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
ESRB Rating: M
Release Date: 10/21/08

Platforms

• Xbox 360

The problem with games like Fable II is not that they fail to deliver on their promises, but rather that it is impossible to do so. Despite that, there’s still a fun action RPG hiding under the marketing rhetoric. It deserves to be recognized for the gameplay it delivered alongside the gameplay it didn’t.

Gather ‘Round and I’ll Tell You a Story
The Marketing Spin around the Fable franchise professed that the games are all about choice and consequence. The rumors that twisted around and ultimately choked the first game promised implausible features like planting trees anywhere in the game and watching them grow over time. Never mind how difficult it would be to create such a code behemoth, QA would be still harder and the only thing more epic than the game’s ambitions would be the nest of bugs inside it.

Still, Fable’s marketing department told a pretty lie, and when gamers were understandably upset when they received a fairly boilerplate action RPG with a stapled-on morality system and a frankenstory sewn together from discarded fairy tale tropes. Fable II was born into this legacy of disappointment, which of course colors that game’s reception.

Come to think on it, it is odd that creator Peter Molyneux chose the medium of fairy tales for his choice-consequence system; there isn’t a less mutable storytelling medium. Sure, the details may vary between the Disney and Grimm tellings of Cinderella (especially insofar as foot-mutilation is concerned), but at the core of each story still lies the rags to riches narrative. Virtue is rewarded and wickedness is punished. In fact, fables are so rigid that entire systems of shorthand have been devised from their fundamental elements. Of course, this could all be Molyneux’s little joke at the critical community’s expense, because individual details are the only consequences that reward your choices in Fable II.

In Which the Dilemma’s Horns Are Removed
So enough about what Fable II isn’t, let’s talk about what it is. You assume the role of a child hounded by local royalty over one of those self-fulfilling prophecies where your aggressor could have avoided your blood-slick path to vengeance by not hassling you in the first place. Still, the damage is done, and you must guide your little charge to adulthood and revenge.

Along the way, you’ll take on quests that usually have two resolutions: one where you can be arbitrarily nice and one where you can be arbitrarily nasty. I say arbitrarily because Fable tries very hard not to judge you for your actions or make one path more attractive than the other, but instead strips the stakes out of every moral decision. Take as an example a quest where you kill some bandits to open up a local road. As the dust settles, you’ll see a pen of slaves who start pleading for release. Never mind that these very same slaves didn’t make a peep while you were gutting their captors, they and their problems are now yours. Once they’ve had their say, a slaver, unperturbed by his twenty fallen business associates, pops in out of nowhere and offers you money if you’ll let him walk off with the slaves. Ostensibly, morality is at work here, but, without a reason to care about either side, it’s an empty exercise.

Complaining that there are no shades of gray or personal stakes in a fairy tale is missing the point, but that doesn’t make Fable II’s morality system any less boring. The game constantly adds inconsequential morality postscripts to already completed quests. Although it’s certainly true that the little evils and mitzvahs that flesh out a personality, they’re ultimately cosmetic without a skeleton of meaningful choices on which to build them.

For every choice, a consequence.

Actually, those choices are literally cosmetic in Fable II, because being good or evil impacts your appearance. It’s like having a Sim who happens to kick ass, but most of the character customization process has been streamlined into the ass kicking process. Kick a slave’s ass and you can expect to start looking deathly pale, but kick the slaver’s ass instead and you’ll have a warm inviting appearance. Kick a pie’s ass and, well, the ass you kick in that case becomes your own. Your choices don’t really impact the story, but your reputation has an impact on vendors and other modest gameplay elements that can help you further customize your character.

Actually, if you turn the morality system on its ear and instead consider it as a way to streamline the tedious and fiddly process of character customization, it’s actually quite clever. It’s a fair assumption that players who’d want to play an emaciated goth would be running around and kicking puppies whenever possible anyway. So, in that sense, Fable II would make a good gateway game to transition some of your more action-adventure focused gamer friends into hardcore RPGs and Sims. There are a number of other barriers to entry (like the relentlessly kludgey menu system) that will likely ward off casual gamers, but a casual could definitely pick worse than Fable II for a taste of the costs and rewards of RPGs and Sims.

In Which The Gameplay Loses 50 Lbs. of Bloat
The remainder of the gameplay consists of combat and character growth, both of which are less streamlined than character customization, but more accessible than you’d expect from the diversity of combat. Melee and ranged combat boil down to strategic button-mashing, though ranged combat has a sort of faux-FPS style with an unfortunate lock-on targeting system that strips out the shooter mechanics without really simplifying the controls. The magic system is more interesting, rejecting traditional MP limitations for a risky charge up time where you’re vulnerable to attack. The payoff is unblockable electric death. Individually, these mechanics aren’t terribly interesting, but the tactics of picking the right one to use in the right situation is an enjoyable tactical challenge.

You can enhance your aptitude for each of these combat types by collecting and spending experience. Depending on the way in which you dispatch your foes, you’ll produce special experience that can only be spent to enhance the skills you used. That is, melee kills grant melee experience and so on. So advancement comes quicker and easier to the combat styles you use most often, which are presumably the ones you prefer. It makes a nice little positive feedback loop where Fable II rewards you for doing the things you enjoy. It’s strange that one of the most charming traits in a game about choice is that there are no consequences for failure, but good design is its own reward.

It might seem like this loop could corner you into a dead end where you lack the skills you need to progress, but Fable II sidesteps this problem neatly by not substantially penalizing you for failure. Whenever your health runs out, you just fall to the ground for a moment and then rally with a fresh pool of hit points and a permanent scar (both on your face and on your publicly viewable statistics) to remind you that you’re not quite the hero you thought you were.

This crypt won awards for interior
decoration for years before all that pesky haunting started.

Fable II scores accessibility points in other places as well. There’s a golden trail that will lead you to your active quest, job, or targeted person. It prevents those irritating hang-ups in the exploration process, but can be toggled off for the more independent adventurer. There are also context sensitive buttons that shortcut the process of interacting with townsfolk, navigating the needlessly cumbersome menu system, and tracking new things that pop up over the passage of time. Aside from some minor bugs that make these features occasionally misbehave, Fable II really is a good faith effort to reach a broad audience.

All of the combat gameplay extends to the multiplayer, where a second player can join you as a nondescript henchman. It is notable that you can score Achievements by watching another player obtain them, which can allow a goody two-shoes to earn some of the evil achievements. Otherwise, the extra sword doesn’t substantially impact the gameplay experience, but it is a convenient excuse to share an Action RPG with a friend (which is a delicacy in short supply ever since Secret of Mana).

Once Upon A Trope
Fable’s revenge-fuelled story has just the right amount of arbitrary cruelty and polar morality so that, from the proper perspective, it looks just like a fairy tale. Unfortunately, the proper perspective in this case is retrospective. It turns out that there’s a reason most fairy tales are brief morality plays: when you try to stretch them out, they get a bit thin. “Just because,” is enough to get you through a Just So Story, but not 60 hours of gameplay. The main story will leave you feeling like a cruel game designer is jerking your puppet strings because it makes him giggle.

However, when you step out of the cut-scenes, it’s like you’ve passed into the care of an entirely different writing team. The game world is comically aware of your presence. Random disposable townsfolk will cower and flee if you’re frightening, bleat and fawn if you’re nice, and generally burst with personality where the main characters are tedious vessels for exposition. There’s no shortage of repetition in the townie dialogue, but seeing and hearing them emote is comedy gold. Item descriptions are also deftly written, and your character will keep more entertainment in his pockets than in his epic quest for revenge. It’s a pity that the lighthearted and clever world is so dissonant with the hamfisted and deadly serious narrative.

Fortunately, the game’s presentation is harmonious. Lionhead Studios has done an excellent job of capturing the fairytale hamlet and all the wild places beyond. From implausibly sun-dappled vistas to the claustrophobic cobblestone roads, the world of Fable II has a sense of place that has really gone missing from most games in recent memory. The character models are pretty much dead on, but special recognition belongs to the canine companion who tags along with you for the entire game. Although he’s technically a gameplay mechanic that reflects your morality, guides you to loot, and fights on your behalf, the real payoff from your furry friend is his animation. The animators who built his behaviors just nailed the way dogs move, and it’s a joy to watch him run, fetch, and do tricks.

The End
Fable II offers a friendly tactical RPG with engaging combat and a cleverly streamlined character customization system, even if it doesn’t deliver the promised world of meaningful choices or even a particularly compelling story. It’s a lot like a chocolate truffle. There’s a sweet genre core with a flashy, but ultimately inconsequential outer shell. However, the real trick to enjoying it is to avoid swallowing the wrapper.

What It Costs: $40

What It’s Worth:
•To The Hardcore: $50 (Buy)
•To The Genre Fan: $60 (Buy)
•To The Casual: $10 (demo)