A weak story, and some minor flaws don't hold back this great action RPG.
Sandbox world, with lots of room to explore
Excellent setting
Great artistic graphics
Epic soundtrack
Wide variety of quests
Fun combat
Dog is a wonderful sidekick
THE BAD:
Good/Evil choices unbalanced
Story is weak
Awkward camera
Controls are a bit stiff
Frame-rate and lock-up problems
Menu system sucks
The first Fable is perhaps the most over-hyped game of all time, and Fable 2 is no exception. Peter Molyneux has a lot of great ideas, and he is very proud of his games. But he really needs to learn to shut-up. The problem is that he gets so excited about his games that he can go on for hours about theoretical stuff that never makes it into the final product. Thus, people tend to expect some kind of world-changing game that has such wide mainstream appeal that even their Mom will get into it. Then they are disappointed when it turns out to be a fairly standard action-RPG.
Not that there's anything wrong with Fable 2. For the most part it's actually an excellent game, and worthy of any RPG fan's time and money. But that wide appeal Molyneux promises just is not here. If you don't like RPG's then you won't like Fable 2. However, if you do like RPG's you'll find that Fable 2 brings a lot of elements to the table that aren't normally seen in RPG's. Including online multiplayer.
Let's get the worst out of the way. Fable 2's story is weak. The main problem is that the characters aren't given enough time to develop, and they end up falling into a lot of the tired old RPG clichés. Then there's the inherent problem with an RPG that has so much focus on player choice: everything is dependent upon you. You can choose to ignore the main quest, and do your own thing. But that means the story ends up taking a back seat to your character. The villain doesn't seem so dark and evil when he's willing to wait for you, and doesn't make is presence known unless you seek him out.
The other problem with the story is that the first 2 hours or so plays out almost identical to the first Fable. Within 10 minutes of the game something bad happens to you. You're then taken in by a mysterious mentor figure, and trained how to fight in a tutorial dungeon before being set loose to seek your vengeance. Or stand around in the town square making farting expressions.
The gameplay is pretty much the same as it was in the first game, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The controls are designed to be simple, yet unlike Fable 1, they expand out later in the game which keeps combat fresh and exciting.
The X button allows you to do melee attacks, Y ranged attacks, and B magic attacks. Seems pretty simple at first, but as you use these attacks you'll gain exp orbs that can be used to upgrade your skills. As you put more points into various skills, new ways to use them will open up. For example, if you put more points into ranged attacks you'll gain the ability to target specific body parts. Magic attacks will have more varied uses, and melee attacks become more powerful with combos.
How you fight also has an impact on how your character looks, and is looked upon. Fight a lot with melee weapons, and your character will buff up. Use magic attacks, and you'll develop blue lines on your skin. NPC's will then comment on your looks.
But playing an even bigger role in how you look is the choices you make in the game. If you kill people, and act like a jerk you'll grow horns and look much more evil. People will cower before you. If you do good things, you'll have a halo and bright aura about you. NPC's will cheer your name, and crowd around you. Your choice of clothing and armor also affects how people look upon you. These choices also have an impact on how your dog looks, but I'll get into that later. Your deeds will also affect the world around you. Be a good trades-man, and the town will become more profitable and look nicer. Charge too much for your goods, and the town will become a slum.
The problem is that these choices are unbalanced. For example, it's much harder to become a good character than an evil one. To become a good character you're just limited to doing good choices in quests. Where as to become evil, you can do evil choices in quests, run around and kill people, steal, sell goods for huge sums of money, etc.
The developers also decided to enforce their own political ideals upon the character. One of the ways you can heal yourself is to eat food, just like in the first game. Eating too much fatty foods will make your character gain weight. That makes sense. But what doesn't make sense is that eating things like meat reduces your purity level, and makes you evil. Where as eating vegetables increases your purity, and makes you good. So they're rewarding you for being a vegan. You can save an entire town from bandits, but when you sit down for a steak afterwards you're somehow evil. But in general the good/evil system does work well, and has a rewarding effect on the character and the world.
Perhaps the best part of the gameplay is your NPC sidekick: the dog. You are introduced to your dog early in the game, and you can name him whatever you want. He'll help you find hidden items, buried treasure, warn you about nearby enemies, and even help you in combat. You interact with him in basic ways like petting or punishing him. You can also teach him tricks, and play fetch with him. If he's injured in combat, you'll need to heal him, or if you get tired of him, you can leave him behind. Be warned though, if you ditch him while he's injured he'll never come back.
The last comment I want to make about the gameplay is the sucky menu system. It's pretty much the same as it was in the first Fable. In other words, it's cumbersome, and unattractive. It makes switching weapons, using items, or really doing anything a pain in the ass. The map is a joke, and is zoomed out too far to be of any use. This forces you to rely on a glowing trail to make your way from place to place.
Visually, Fable 2 is one of the best games on the 360. The art style is fantastic, and gives the world and characters a unique appearance. The constant day/night cycle looks great, and there are sweet looking weather patters. However, this quality comes at a price.
I have experienced the game locking up several times on me in the first few hours of gameplay. Oddly enough, this seems to happen most when the game is paused or during dialog sessions. There are also some bizarre clipping issues and hit detection is a problem both in and out of combat.
The soundtrack in Fable 2 is virtually flawless. It's every bit as epic as you would expect for an RPG, but it fits the renaissance theme of Albion quite nicely. The sound effects are also outstanding, and the voice acting is top notch stuff. My only gripe here is the NPC voices are radius based. Which means that if you're more than a few feet from a person that's talking to you, it will be very difficult to hear them? This almost requires that you have subtitles on. The dialog scenes are awkward as well. You basically just need to walk up to someone to talk to them. No cutscene. No dialog options. You pretty much just standing there while the NPC talks. Then you hold the A button to accept their quest, or just walk away.
As I mentioned before, the story is pretty weak for an RPG. It uses a lot of RPG clichés, and doesn't give characters much time to develop. Which is a same considering that in most RPG's the story is one of the main draws. But Fable 2 isn't like most RPG's. A big part of the game is the sandbox world. Something that isn't very common in the genre.
The sandbox is not only larger in Fable 2 than the first game, but it's also much deeper. Your good/evil choices have a big impact on the world of Albion. Nearly every property is for sale, and you don't need to kill the owner before you buy it. There are also trades that you can pick up to earn money. But as a minor side affect, the number of ways you can make money makes it that much easier to rack up the gold. You don't need to stop by your properties to get money. Instead it's just added to your gold count as you play.
Online play is a huge addition to the game, and is very rare in RPG's. I haven't played around too much with it, but it seems to work pretty well. You'll see orbs floating around that show your friend's locations in their version of Albion. Just press A when near an orb to in invite them to your world. They then act as a sort of henchman in your world, and you can do quests together. While playing in your world, they can earn gold to take back to their game. So they aren't waiting their time while teaming up with you.
Although kind of simple, the online play is a welcome feature, and greatly extends the life of the game. Just like the first game, after you complete the main story you can go back and do quests or just mess around with the sandbox until your heart is content.
The achievements are very balanced, and most involve interacting with the world in various ways. You'll have to play through the game at least 3 times to get them all as three of the achievements are for making different choices at the end. The best part about the achievements is that most of them can be done via co-op. Either do the achievement yourself, or see a friend do it.
Fable 2 is a great RPG. It doesn't do a lot of things that are new, but the combination of elements is unique to the genre. They story is the weakest part of the game, but that can easily be overlooked depending on your style of play.
Overall, I recommend this game to RPG fans. It won't win over many non-RPG gamers, and once again has been greatly over-hyped. But the sum of the parts is greater than the first game, and that's an improvement. Depending on your love of sandbox games, you can easily pour 50+ hours into this game with multiple play throughs. Not everyone is going to like it, but its worth any RPG fan's time and money to at least try it.
STORY - 6
GAMEPLAY – 8
GRAPHICS – 9
SOUND – 9
VALUE – 10
OVERALL – 9