Ughhh, so this started as a simply qualm I had with the game to a whole pros and cons list sort of thing.
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.
First, I'll line up the cons.
- Relationships and "dates." This is a con because, whenever you try to take a villager on a date outside of their home city, THEY WILL BE EFFING KILLED BY ENEMIES. This is BEYOND aggravating. 4 out of 5 of the villagers I attempted to turn to lovers and in turn perhaps marry were all killed. The 5th being unkilled because they didn't have a "date" outside their hometown. So, short in the game I gave up on relating to people.
- Glitches. This generally made me give up taking advantage of any of the RPG elements of the game. One major glitch with side quests was having to go from point A to point B back to point A. I'd get halfway through and it'd actually ERASE my progress, as if I had never even started the quest. This was especially aggravating when trying to get people from Neutral to Friendship, even. As such, I very quickly became very f***ing frustrated and stopped communicating with the villagers.
- OMFG THE MOFO MISTPEAK VALLEY. I HATE THAT AREA. It's glitchy and, as mentioned above, swarmed with SO many enemies that they WILL 110% of the time kill any NPC target you have. Or at least, that was my experience.
- Slow motion "critical hit" scenes. These were nice for an added effect, but after about the tenth time it was EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. There were times where I'd have to set down my controller and WAIT for this godd*mn thing to stop because I'd keep shooting enemies which would cause MORE of these slow-mo scenes. On top of which, the enemies around you that you didn't critical hit are still moving in real time. That says enough on its own.
- BACKSTORY. Such as- what happened to all the places from Fable II? They touched only very lightly on this, however in Fable II you were shown exactly what has happened in the time between FI and FII and even a little extra (extra being, Reaver's diary pages; may not have been much, but still allowed an amazing amount of insight into such a small detail). And so there's no confusion, I am aware that Millsfield is the new Bower Lake and whatnot, but I'm talking about places like Bloodstone, Oakfield and Rookridge What happened to them? Especially Bloodstone, as from Reaver's narrative we know that Bloodstone has been around for quite a long time.
- And then this brings me to REAVER. What happens to him? He's my favorite character and was BEYOND excited to see him in this game, however he was merely the voice of greed until that very random moment when the climactic ending happens. And then he's poof, gone. (Maybe I'm missing a side quest that explains this?)
- Speaking of climactic endings, I was rather disappointed with the becoming king portion. It seemed as though Logan's tyrannic rule was a VAST misunderstanding, but that's not my main complaint. It was very... short? "Half-way through" is an extreme understatement as to what it actually was. It was more like 3/4ths the way through the entire game, if that.
- LOGAN. As said above, 3/4ths of the game are focused on destroying this horrible overlord who seems to relish in people's poverty. When, in actuality when you get to him, the game takes a rather random turn in the storyline and you learn that he was doing so for the good of his people. It seems almost as though Logan was extremely misunderstood. You're lead to believe that Logan is, more or less, suppose to be a counterpart to Lucien in terms of how "evil" he was suppose to be. I'm not saying he was a fantastic ruler and the revolution was unnecessary, but he could've been a bit more maniacal than he actually was.
- The final complaint- the beginning sequence. I sort of have mixed feelings about this. First of it being, it was insanely short. Second being, it seemed they took a step out of the Fable-tradition of starting the game with a childhood sequence. Personally, I would've preferred that over the weird "OH MY RANDOM NAMELESS ROMANTIC INTEREST HAS BEEN SLAIN! DAMN YOU, BROTHER." Or just something without that very random "romantic interest." (Pfff, personally, I did not like her at all and smashed the "A" button when the prompt came up to choose who to save and who to kill). (That, and, if Fable is suppose to be about choice, I thought it was weird to press something such as a romantic interest on your Hero xD)
- Theresa wasn't in the game enough :c Her narration at the beginning lead me to believe she'd be more of a guide like she was in the second game(maybe not at the same extent, but all the same). However she ended up being a background character and somewhat of a plot device in the long run. ("THERESA TOLD ME IT WOULD HAPPEN. LISTEN TO HER BECAUSE SHE'S OLDER THAN ME BUT YOUNGER THAN REAVER BUT ALSO -WISE- D8!!")
- Dodging the Hero's name. There's an extent at to which you can do this, and ROFL, FIII really pushed that.
Okay, enough rant, it's time for this to get LONGER. YAY. x___x;
PROS:
- STORYLINE. BWAHAH. There actually WAS one! And it was LONG! And by long, I mean even if you rush through the game you still look at around 7 - 10 hours of gameplay, whereas in Fable II it was MAYBE 3 hours at the most. And FII's story was, I'll go ahead and say it, shallow and rather horrible. There was no depth to it. So I was VERY pleased with the story in Fable III. Even if it took a seemingly random turn towards the end, I finally got the battle I wanted from the end of a Fable game.
- CUTSCENES. Pre-rendered and gameplay-rendered sequences, they were GREAT. The cinematography of some of them was.... awesome >w< For the most part, there were a few I could hardly call cutscenes, but those pale in comparison to the ones I loved so much I can't at the moment recall the ones I have any complaints about.
- FFFFF REAVER >w< I must've had a verrrryy nerdy fangasm when I saw him introduced for the first time. He was introduced phenomenally in a way only Reaver could be introduced. His character seems to have changed and gotten a bit more extreme in the past 50 years, but I guess that's a given. (Change as in, I expected Reaver to be greedy and need a bourgeoisie lifestyle, but his greed seemed to be very consuming). I was still so ecstatic to see him back in the game, I will not complain about that. <3
- Your Hero can TALK. He doesn't communicate through rough grunts and boastful farts! It also made me more aware of how I handled my moral actions (during my first playthrough, the second one in which I'm about to start I shall go all out evil as usual) because with an actual voice, he was given more depth and character.
- Your Hero doesn't look like a frog on steroids.
- Battles. ACTUAL battles! Again, this is a comparison to Fable 2 in which the battles could hardly be called such, even in the Crucible which I plowed through in 5 minutes on my first try.
- The antagonists. Now these were bad guys, just plain straight-out baddies. With big ending battles and slight twists to the end, I'm very pleased that there was no piddly-butt music box and a rambling monologue that ends with a single shot to the chest but a BATTLE with a BADDIE.
All in all, Fable 3 fixed everything that was wrong with Fable 2, and despite it creating all new problems for itself, I'm still glad that Mr. Molyneux and the rest of Lionhead listened to the complaints its players had in the last game.
Even if these cons outweight the pros in terms of quantity, the quality of the pros is enough to make me enjoy the game.
Myyuuupp, if anyone responds to this and actually read it WOW YOU'RE AWESOME, otherwise, needed to voice my opinion of a series I've followed for quite a while~
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.
First, I'll line up the cons.
- Relationships and "dates." This is a con because, whenever you try to take a villager on a date outside of their home city, THEY WILL BE EFFING KILLED BY ENEMIES. This is BEYOND aggravating. 4 out of 5 of the villagers I attempted to turn to lovers and in turn perhaps marry were all killed. The 5th being unkilled because they didn't have a "date" outside their hometown. So, short in the game I gave up on relating to people.
- Glitches. This generally made me give up taking advantage of any of the RPG elements of the game. One major glitch with side quests was having to go from point A to point B back to point A. I'd get halfway through and it'd actually ERASE my progress, as if I had never even started the quest. This was especially aggravating when trying to get people from Neutral to Friendship, even. As such, I very quickly became very f***ing frustrated and stopped communicating with the villagers.
- OMFG THE MOFO MISTPEAK VALLEY. I HATE THAT AREA. It's glitchy and, as mentioned above, swarmed with SO many enemies that they WILL 110% of the time kill any NPC target you have. Or at least, that was my experience.
- Slow motion "critical hit" scenes. These were nice for an added effect, but after about the tenth time it was EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. There were times where I'd have to set down my controller and WAIT for this godd*mn thing to stop because I'd keep shooting enemies which would cause MORE of these slow-mo scenes. On top of which, the enemies around you that you didn't critical hit are still moving in real time. That says enough on its own.
- BACKSTORY. Such as- what happened to all the places from Fable II? They touched only very lightly on this, however in Fable II you were shown exactly what has happened in the time between FI and FII and even a little extra (extra being, Reaver's diary pages; may not have been much, but still allowed an amazing amount of insight into such a small detail). And so there's no confusion, I am aware that Millsfield is the new Bower Lake and whatnot, but I'm talking about places like Bloodstone, Oakfield and Rookridge What happened to them? Especially Bloodstone, as from Reaver's narrative we know that Bloodstone has been around for quite a long time.
- And then this brings me to REAVER. What happens to him? He's my favorite character and was BEYOND excited to see him in this game, however he was merely the voice of greed until that very random moment when the climactic ending happens. And then he's poof, gone. (Maybe I'm missing a side quest that explains this?)
- Speaking of climactic endings, I was rather disappointed with the becoming king portion. It seemed as though Logan's tyrannic rule was a VAST misunderstanding, but that's not my main complaint. It was very... short? "Half-way through" is an extreme understatement as to what it actually was. It was more like 3/4ths the way through the entire game, if that.
- LOGAN. As said above, 3/4ths of the game are focused on destroying this horrible overlord who seems to relish in people's poverty. When, in actuality when you get to him, the game takes a rather random turn in the storyline and you learn that he was doing so for the good of his people. It seems almost as though Logan was extremely misunderstood. You're lead to believe that Logan is, more or less, suppose to be a counterpart to Lucien in terms of how "evil" he was suppose to be. I'm not saying he was a fantastic ruler and the revolution was unnecessary, but he could've been a bit more maniacal than he actually was.
- The final complaint- the beginning sequence. I sort of have mixed feelings about this. First of it being, it was insanely short. Second being, it seemed they took a step out of the Fable-tradition of starting the game with a childhood sequence. Personally, I would've preferred that over the weird "OH MY RANDOM NAMELESS ROMANTIC INTEREST HAS BEEN SLAIN! DAMN YOU, BROTHER." Or just something without that very random "romantic interest." (Pfff, personally, I did not like her at all and smashed the "A" button when the prompt came up to choose who to save and who to kill). (That, and, if Fable is suppose to be about choice, I thought it was weird to press something such as a romantic interest on your Hero xD)
- Theresa wasn't in the game enough :c Her narration at the beginning lead me to believe she'd be more of a guide like she was in the second game(maybe not at the same extent, but all the same). However she ended up being a background character and somewhat of a plot device in the long run. ("THERESA TOLD ME IT WOULD HAPPEN. LISTEN TO HER BECAUSE SHE'S OLDER THAN ME BUT YOUNGER THAN REAVER BUT ALSO -WISE- D8!!")
- Dodging the Hero's name. There's an extent at to which you can do this, and ROFL, FIII really pushed that.
Okay, enough rant, it's time for this to get LONGER. YAY. x___x;
PROS:
- STORYLINE. BWAHAH. There actually WAS one! And it was LONG! And by long, I mean even if you rush through the game you still look at around 7 - 10 hours of gameplay, whereas in Fable II it was MAYBE 3 hours at the most. And FII's story was, I'll go ahead and say it, shallow and rather horrible. There was no depth to it. So I was VERY pleased with the story in Fable III. Even if it took a seemingly random turn towards the end, I finally got the battle I wanted from the end of a Fable game.
- CUTSCENES. Pre-rendered and gameplay-rendered sequences, they were GREAT. The cinematography of some of them was.... awesome >w< For the most part, there were a few I could hardly call cutscenes, but those pale in comparison to the ones I loved so much I can't at the moment recall the ones I have any complaints about.
- FFFFF REAVER >w< I must've had a verrrryy nerdy fangasm when I saw him introduced for the first time. He was introduced phenomenally in a way only Reaver could be introduced. His character seems to have changed and gotten a bit more extreme in the past 50 years, but I guess that's a given. (Change as in, I expected Reaver to be greedy and need a bourgeoisie lifestyle, but his greed seemed to be very consuming). I was still so ecstatic to see him back in the game, I will not complain about that. <3
- Your Hero can TALK. He doesn't communicate through rough grunts and boastful farts! It also made me more aware of how I handled my moral actions (during my first playthrough, the second one in which I'm about to start I shall go all out evil as usual) because with an actual voice, he was given more depth and character.
- Your Hero doesn't look like a frog on steroids.
- Battles. ACTUAL battles! Again, this is a comparison to Fable 2 in which the battles could hardly be called such, even in the Crucible which I plowed through in 5 minutes on my first try.
- The antagonists. Now these were bad guys, just plain straight-out baddies. With big ending battles and slight twists to the end, I'm very pleased that there was no piddly-butt music box and a rambling monologue that ends with a single shot to the chest but a BATTLE with a BADDIE.
All in all, Fable 3 fixed everything that was wrong with Fable 2, and despite it creating all new problems for itself, I'm still glad that Mr. Molyneux and the rest of Lionhead listened to the complaints its players had in the last game.
Even if these cons outweight the pros in terms of quantity, the quality of the pros is enough to make me enjoy the game.
Myyuuupp, if anyone responds to this and actually read it WOW YOU'RE AWESOME, otherwise, needed to voice my opinion of a series I've followed for quite a while~