Developer: Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Platform: 360
Fable Anniversary – Review
Fable, the cult classic that was released for the original Xbox 10 years ago receives a second life, under the format of an anniversary edition. The game received a fairly big graphical update as well as some tweaks when it comes to the overall gameplay. The game may become a fabled game among the Fable series after all.
Story
The original Fable game brings us to the world of Albion, where heroes are a common occurrence. This is because ‘Hero’ is a widely used term, seeing a hero can be good or evil, and thus it just points out there potential, instead of their alignment.
You, the hero-to-be, will start the game of as a child in the peaceful village of Oakvale, where you are supposed to find a present for your sister, who just happens to be celebrating her birthday. Whilst you don’t own any money to buy a present for her, you’ll start off by doing chores for the villagers and thus earn yourself some extra pocket change to buy your lovely sister a present.
Whilst all sounds great so far, the fun is spoiled soon after by a pack of bandits, who just happen to celebrate their own kind of party, namely by murdering the entire village. During your panic, a wizard by the name ‘Maze’ appears to save you from the clutches of the bandits and thus bringing you to safety.
Maze appears to be a member of the ‘guild’, which is an organization that trains future heroes and sends them on their way, to determine their own path in life. The same counts for you, the future hero of Albion, be it a dark hero or one who brings the light. You will have to decide your own way of life, when trying to find more information about what happened with your family. Maybe you can even have your revenge…
Graphics
Compared to the original version that was released on the xbox 10 years ago, the Anniversary edition received a decent graphical update. This update happened mostly in terms of environments as well as the overall textures throughout the world.
The characters themselves still move a bit as if it was a game that was made at the beginning of the 360 generation. Also the faces of the inhabitants of Albion have not aged well, even with the new graphical update.
Of course, certain invisible walls that were in the original version, are in the Anniversary edition as well. Even though the new version received a lot of improvements, it’s a sad fact that some bugs should have been cleaned out as well. These being mostly facial upgrades and invisible walls.
Sound
As it was in the past, it still is in the present – the sound is amazing. Not only the voice acting gives us the feeling of typical British humor, the music adds that extra pinch of adventure.
The music throws you right in the adventure and motivates you to keep exploring that dungeon in which you are cutting down foe after foe, whilst the voice acting gives you that extra bit of comical relief, making the adventure, which actually has quite the serious storyline a tad lighter.
Gameplay
Fable Anniversary edition brings us back to when the adventure genre was finally becoming what it should be. The game tries to combine a few RPG aspects, with a typical hack ‘n slash/fighting environment. This is brought to you by the combination of magic, ranged and close combat.
Whilst Fable is a fairly short game, the Anniversary edition adds the original expansion, the Lost Chapters, making it a lengthier experience. If the storyline itself still flies by too fast, there are a decent amount of side-quests to keep yourself occupied for a few hours as well. And if you’re sick of the quests, why not buy some houses, start a family and hunt for collectibles?
Most quests in the game are basically a typical formula of find a location, slay your enemies and save the day. Well, save the day can mean a lot of things in the world of Albion to be honest. Your character will often be presented with choices on what to do, be it when choosing quests or choices he has to make during the quest itself. Often these choices can be toned down to choosing either the good or bad choice. The fun part is that in Fable, these choices will actually affect how the world revolves around you. People will either come to love you or fear you.
Leveling up in Fable Anniversary is pretty much done by completing quests and earning your stripes in combat. By doing so, you will gain experience points which you can invest in either magic, combat or physical improvements. It is easy to say that magic is pretty much the way to roll in the world of Albion. Spells seem to have a greater advantage compared to the physical ways of combat.
Sadly, even though this Anniversary edition gives the old version a new lick of paint, a lot of the old bugs or annoyances still remain. Buggy enemies that just sit there until you slay them, invisible walls or controls that don’t always respond like you want them to, can easily turn into an annoyance. Especially the D-Pad controls are one of the most annoying control schemes a game has to offer, most of the time you will open menu’s you don’t want to open or just miss out on healing because it doesn’t respond in time, which will result in many deaths.
The world of Albion itself is medium sized but will offer an fair amount of different roads, locations and small towns for you to explore and find collectibles. Of course, you won’t have to do everything on foot, you can also unlock teleport pads if you’re in to completing quests on a quicker pace. Combine this with the Smartglass app, and you’ll have yourself a companion to find more treasures, even though it’s not always easy to keep your cell phone in a decent position to enjoy gaming this way.
Conclusion
Fable Anniversary is a fun trip down memory lane but it still has a decent set of minor flaws, which could have easily been prevented. Nonetheless, even after all this time, Fable Anniversary is still a solid game that will surely be liked by those who only played the second and the third installment of the franchise.
Fable Anniversary - Review,
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