Context: I decided to give the Fable series a go and I just played fable 1 and Fable 2 in the span of two weeks, for the first time. BTW, even with the jump in graphics I think Fable 1 is the better game by overall fun.
On Fable 2: I read that the creator of the game felt that the development was rushed. I was annoyed by bits and pieces of the game, but nothing too overwhelming until the end of the main story that was simply not right. I understand there are many interpretations open, but we play games for fun and a gamer has certain expectations that must be met.
Fighting
For instance, a game heavy on fighting mechanics should have decent fights. Bosses are a good way to add variety. I'm ok with no bosses if that's the way they want to go, but then you need variety in enemies, as well as the approach to take them down. My experience is that anybody who's played Fable 2 will quickly find a way to attack and stick to it throughout. I too developed my own method of attack and was able to easily beat 99% of enemies using the exact same approach every time.
Choices
These are meaningless. The only outcome of the choices is your appearance / and even that only somewhat since I made plenty of what the game considered to be evil choices, yet my appearance was still that of a hero by the end (as far as I could tell.) The only other time I could make out that a choice was at play was the whole Light vs Shadow temple, and I only figured that out once I completed the Light temple quest and was told that now the Shadow temple was doomed. (I didn't even know that the Shadow temple was supposed to be evil until everything was done. The only reason I didn't join the Shadows was that I had a hard time finding crunchy chicks by the time I took the Light quest.)
I'm highlighting these two points of critique (Fighting and Choices) since these are the ones that left SO MUCH to be desired of the ending of the game. I played Fable 2 knowing that the whole choice hype is more of less bs (from my experience with Fable 1,) so I wasn't really expecting much out of it, and even then Fable 2 managed to let down even my lowest of expectations.
Why say all of this?:
1. It might help the developers get better
2. Important: I'm upset to have wasted my time on Fable 2 and, although I intended to complete the series I'm not sure I even want to bother with Fable 3 if it is going to play out in a similar mediocre fashion
3. It might help other people seeking to vent in the same way
So, for anyone still reading, I'm going to post how I experienced the end of Fable 2. I think more than anything I'm hoping that the PEOPLE THAT ENJOYED THIS ENDING will be able to help me understand what I'm missing because from my perspective Fable 2's ending is going down in history for all the wrong reasons.
My experience of the ending of Fable 2:
I have the 3 heroes with me. Lucien (main boss) appears with something like 4 guards and is somehow in control of the situation. BTW we just killed no less than 20 guards in the previous fight scene, so I’m not quite impressed by the opposition.
I’m waiting for the animation to give me back the controller so I can show Lucien how I feel about him and his minions. But that’s not to be. Lucien keeps babbling on while I’m thinking of the many ways I’ll come at these guys. I’m suspecting Lucien has some serious magic tricks up his sleeve. I wonder if I’ll need health potions for this fight – since I haven’t needed a health recharge in a while. I’m actually excited I’m likely to get a real fight out of Fable 2. I needed a boss to put up a fight because all the enemies so far have been pretty easy to kill following the exact same attack techniques.
Lucien draws near with his puny pistol and is aiming at my head. By now I imagine I’ve killed him 20 times using the 5-star slow time power, but I’m not yet in control of the character. My dog, however, has had enough. Since I’m somehow still frozen, Coronel Soup makes a jump for it and Lucien shoots him down. You could say my dog died saving me, but that’s not true because my character is still frozen, and Lucien is still babbling while pointing at my head. He finally decides to end our miserable exchange and shoots me in the face, unopposed. Fkn A.
White screen. Switch to fantasy: I’m dreaming of being a kid hanging out with Rose (sister) at the farm, and being forced to kick chickens. What I’m really thinking is I sure hope this is not another one of those “and so the hero was locked-up for 10 years getting tortured and hoping for a better tomorrow” type of forced bs story line. This exact same thing happened in Fable 1 – surrounded by a few easy-enough enemies yet forced to surrender by the storyline. But I digress.
So I’m dreaming, kicking the birds, looking for some stupid bottles, squashing bugs. Whatever dumb task will get me forward so we can get back to my adult character running my super augmented hammer through Lucien’s skull. Where are all these damn bottles? The whole day is going by and it’s getting dark while I look for some stupid bottles. I guess this is supposed to be torture.
Rose: “Let’s go to bed.” Great – at least we are moving forward. Going to bed. Waking up to the music box. Run to the music box to see death and fire and collect the object. Cut to nonsensical scene about the journey here and the music box – the highlights seem hardly relevant.
White screen… and… here we are at Lucien’s spire. Unbound, unexplained. Did they bring me here? Did I escape or whatever? “Kill Lucien” says the message – alright then. Let’s dismiss the nonsense about everything that just happened in the last 10 minutes, since we are back on track for the final boss fight. This is going to be sweet… I wonder if I will finally need those resurrection potions.
So Lucien and the heroes are locked in some light beam thing. I swing at him but that has no effect. But wait! I have the music box! Where exactly did the music box come from? Did it materialize straight from my dream? How is it better than my hammer? Never you mind. Let’s kill the final boss: an on-screen message says “Press A.”
But wait! There’s a trick. The final boss couldn’t be killed by simply pressing one button. No sir, it’s actually more complicated. See, you have to press A… and hold it! Then, at any pace, shoot the boss once. Write it down for future reference: Its’ A… then Y.
Boss is dead now. Thank you for playing. Now, for the grand finale choose one of these 3 lame options:
1. Restore to life all the goons that died fulfilling their contracts with Lucien
2. Restore your dog (the wording offers the family back. Since I never married in game, I presumed Rose and parents, but that’s just bs – all you get is the dog)
3. Add one more million gold to your already pretty large purse
Uhmm: don’t care about the goons. Don’t need more money. The dog was alright. If these are the only options, I guess the dog then. Perfect. Here’s your dog. We are done, thank you for playing. Not satisfied with the ending? How about you go run around some more… try the shooting range.
On Fable 2: I read that the creator of the game felt that the development was rushed. I was annoyed by bits and pieces of the game, but nothing too overwhelming until the end of the main story that was simply not right. I understand there are many interpretations open, but we play games for fun and a gamer has certain expectations that must be met.
Fighting
For instance, a game heavy on fighting mechanics should have decent fights. Bosses are a good way to add variety. I'm ok with no bosses if that's the way they want to go, but then you need variety in enemies, as well as the approach to take them down. My experience is that anybody who's played Fable 2 will quickly find a way to attack and stick to it throughout. I too developed my own method of attack and was able to easily beat 99% of enemies using the exact same approach every time.
Choices
These are meaningless. The only outcome of the choices is your appearance / and even that only somewhat since I made plenty of what the game considered to be evil choices, yet my appearance was still that of a hero by the end (as far as I could tell.) The only other time I could make out that a choice was at play was the whole Light vs Shadow temple, and I only figured that out once I completed the Light temple quest and was told that now the Shadow temple was doomed. (I didn't even know that the Shadow temple was supposed to be evil until everything was done. The only reason I didn't join the Shadows was that I had a hard time finding crunchy chicks by the time I took the Light quest.)
I'm highlighting these two points of critique (Fighting and Choices) since these are the ones that left SO MUCH to be desired of the ending of the game. I played Fable 2 knowing that the whole choice hype is more of less bs (from my experience with Fable 1,) so I wasn't really expecting much out of it, and even then Fable 2 managed to let down even my lowest of expectations.
Why say all of this?:
1. It might help the developers get better
2. Important: I'm upset to have wasted my time on Fable 2 and, although I intended to complete the series I'm not sure I even want to bother with Fable 3 if it is going to play out in a similar mediocre fashion
3. It might help other people seeking to vent in the same way
So, for anyone still reading, I'm going to post how I experienced the end of Fable 2. I think more than anything I'm hoping that the PEOPLE THAT ENJOYED THIS ENDING will be able to help me understand what I'm missing because from my perspective Fable 2's ending is going down in history for all the wrong reasons.
My experience of the ending of Fable 2:
I have the 3 heroes with me. Lucien (main boss) appears with something like 4 guards and is somehow in control of the situation. BTW we just killed no less than 20 guards in the previous fight scene, so I’m not quite impressed by the opposition.
I’m waiting for the animation to give me back the controller so I can show Lucien how I feel about him and his minions. But that’s not to be. Lucien keeps babbling on while I’m thinking of the many ways I’ll come at these guys. I’m suspecting Lucien has some serious magic tricks up his sleeve. I wonder if I’ll need health potions for this fight – since I haven’t needed a health recharge in a while. I’m actually excited I’m likely to get a real fight out of Fable 2. I needed a boss to put up a fight because all the enemies so far have been pretty easy to kill following the exact same attack techniques.
Lucien draws near with his puny pistol and is aiming at my head. By now I imagine I’ve killed him 20 times using the 5-star slow time power, but I’m not yet in control of the character. My dog, however, has had enough. Since I’m somehow still frozen, Coronel Soup makes a jump for it and Lucien shoots him down. You could say my dog died saving me, but that’s not true because my character is still frozen, and Lucien is still babbling while pointing at my head. He finally decides to end our miserable exchange and shoots me in the face, unopposed. Fkn A.
White screen. Switch to fantasy: I’m dreaming of being a kid hanging out with Rose (sister) at the farm, and being forced to kick chickens. What I’m really thinking is I sure hope this is not another one of those “and so the hero was locked-up for 10 years getting tortured and hoping for a better tomorrow” type of forced bs story line. This exact same thing happened in Fable 1 – surrounded by a few easy-enough enemies yet forced to surrender by the storyline. But I digress.
So I’m dreaming, kicking the birds, looking for some stupid bottles, squashing bugs. Whatever dumb task will get me forward so we can get back to my adult character running my super augmented hammer through Lucien’s skull. Where are all these damn bottles? The whole day is going by and it’s getting dark while I look for some stupid bottles. I guess this is supposed to be torture.
Rose: “Let’s go to bed.” Great – at least we are moving forward. Going to bed. Waking up to the music box. Run to the music box to see death and fire and collect the object. Cut to nonsensical scene about the journey here and the music box – the highlights seem hardly relevant.
White screen… and… here we are at Lucien’s spire. Unbound, unexplained. Did they bring me here? Did I escape or whatever? “Kill Lucien” says the message – alright then. Let’s dismiss the nonsense about everything that just happened in the last 10 minutes, since we are back on track for the final boss fight. This is going to be sweet… I wonder if I will finally need those resurrection potions.
So Lucien and the heroes are locked in some light beam thing. I swing at him but that has no effect. But wait! I have the music box! Where exactly did the music box come from? Did it materialize straight from my dream? How is it better than my hammer? Never you mind. Let’s kill the final boss: an on-screen message says “Press A.”
But wait! There’s a trick. The final boss couldn’t be killed by simply pressing one button. No sir, it’s actually more complicated. See, you have to press A… and hold it! Then, at any pace, shoot the boss once. Write it down for future reference: Its’ A… then Y.
Boss is dead now. Thank you for playing. Now, for the grand finale choose one of these 3 lame options:
1. Restore to life all the goons that died fulfilling their contracts with Lucien
2. Restore your dog (the wording offers the family back. Since I never married in game, I presumed Rose and parents, but that’s just bs – all you get is the dog)
3. Add one more million gold to your already pretty large purse
Uhmm: don’t care about the goons. Don’t need more money. The dog was alright. If these are the only options, I guess the dog then. Perfect. Here’s your dog. We are done, thank you for playing. Not satisfied with the ending? How about you go run around some more… try the shooting range.