After playing the original fable and TLC for 6 years before picking up the PM's "evolved" fable 2, I feel like I have to point out some of the basics.
Fable/FTLC were developed originally by B3 and later became LH. It took them 5-6 years to get the plot fully resolved. That alone atones for the quality of the original game.
so therefore let's look at the features that Fable 1 had:
- Boasting Platform
- Interactive announcing via Guildmaster (Fable was the first game to do this in single player)
- Hotkeys/shotcuts for expressions that you EARNED based on what you did/alignment.
- Combat was more difficult generally especially in the beginning when you tried to gain exp by killing guards in the beginning of the game (guard/assassin upgrades were nasty)
- Quests with time limits
- Weapon tiers and augmentations
- Silent hero portraying a sense of self-activation.
and the list goes on...
Fable 2 DID improve on many of these features but the story was so disconnected and bland that it took away from these perks though the expression wheel was awesome. The weapons, the world, free roaming, people's opinions, real estate, demon doors were good for the most part. What ruined it for me was the multiplayer. It was an utter failure.
Fable 3 comes along with an even lazier story development team based of the "See the future" DLC with the multiplayer being the only incentive for its replayability value.
In short, I think the sequels, more Fable 3 than 2, needed more development to tie loose ends, a childhood arc, weapon tiers, more abilities and specializations (the chest leveling system in the RtR is a joke, no flexibility). I honestly exhausted all possibilities playing Fable 3 amassing more than 500,000 kills and over 30 days of play time.
I would hope that with Fable 4 we would see older features returned to the game from the first fable (I know bows are out of the question since it's post-industrial revolution). Unfortunately, since Micro$oft still runs the place there is little chance for that.
