Fable: The Lost Chapters is an expansion pack of sorts for the original
Fable. It adds around 3-5 hours of new missions to the already 8-15
hours available from Fable, along with a few glitch fixes. It's a bit
of an action RPG, but unfortunately it doesn't deliver much on action.
F:TLC
is a fun game, let's get that out first. It's got your normal British
humor here and there, and it's entertaining for as long as it lasts,
which isn't very long. More hardcore RPG fans won't find this to their
liking, but for a new entrant into the role-playing universe, Fable
couldn't be better.
The story and quests is the main point in
the game. Fable takes place in Albion, pretty much medieval Britain.
The plot is standard, no big surprises or anything. There are a few
characters you'll love and a few characters you'll hate, but most of
all there's not a lot of characters - less than 20 unique people in the
game that matter, really. You control one guy, and you get to customize
him afterwards to your heart's content, but there's no choice as to who
you have to really be - no female choices, etc. You start off as a
child, then end up training in the Heroes' Guild, where you handle
tasks such as leveling up and gathering new quests, and go on to
graduate and save the world and all that. There's around 50-60 quests
in total, and you can keep track of these through your menu, options,
and journals (pressing the Back button). There's three types of quests:
Gold quests, main quests that are either given by the Guild or are
added automatically; Silver quests, which are side quests given by the
Guild; and Bronze quests, which are quests that you find on your
travels in cities and towns, given to you by pretty much anyone. Fable:
TLC has a lot more quests than its predecessor had.
There's a
good variety of landscapes to enjoy, from the snowy Northern Wastes to
the bustling Bowerstone, and the quaint, peaceful Oakvale. They're all
very nicely detailed, but the frustration of not being able to go
everywhere you see is always a negative. Why can't I jump off a cliff
if I want to? Albion is not a large place, and the small travel times
are made easier by Cullis Gates, which can transport you to any other
place with a Cullis Gate you've been. The loading times in between
places are a little bit puzzling, for the areas being small (with the
exception of Snowspire).
The good and bad system is a bit
lacking. You do good things, and people like you. You do bad things,
people hate you. That's nice, but it doesn't have much more effect on
it than that. There are no exclusively good or exclusively bad quests
or spells, only quests and spells that affect your good/bad rating.
Also in stats, there's Attractiveness and Scariness, two things that
can be leveled up or down by clothing, hairstyles, tattoos, and many
other things.
But, this leads up to the best feature in the
game: appearance customization of your character. You can really do
anything you want with him. There's a small but very nice selection of
clothing and armor to wear, and a few hidden, unique helmets as well
(though it would've been nice if there were other unique items of
clothing around too). When you are good, you get a slightly visible
halo, butterflies fly around you, people will shout and cheer ("Hey!
Woo!", for example), your hair grows blonde, and a few other benefits
are around too. But when you're a bad character, you get black hair,
demonic eyes, and horns, and people will crap their pants at the mere
sight of you. One very nice aspect of customization is that you can buy
Hairstyle cards, and get your hair, beard, moustache, or all three cut
at a barber. You can buy or find Tattoo cards, and get one at a
Tattooist. There's lots of possibilities and combinations to explore.
Expressions
are a cool part of the game. Using the D-pad, you can choose an
expression you want to use, like laugh, flirt with a potential love
interest, tell someone to follow or wait, or belch and other random
things such as that. Expressions also range to some sillier things like
"Air Guitar", "Cossack Dance", "Tap Dance", and several others. There's
also two other groups of expressions, Stealth (you can sneak, lockpick,
and steal things from people) and Alignment. Alignment refers to your
good/bad rating, and there are expressions you can get when you're good
(Apologise, Thanks) and bad (Middle Finger and Pelvic Thrust come to
mind).
A couple things referred to in last paragraph deserve
some more expounding on. Romance is a key (optional) part of the game.
There's one set of quests surrounding marrying the mayor of Bowerstone,
but aside from that, it's completely up to you. You can have one wife
or husband per city, up to 5 in total. You can also divorce, and have
"relations". You can give gifts to raise their disposition (and variety
matters), or hit them and lower their disposition towards you. Wooing
your future spouse consists of flirting and giving gifts, then
eventually buying a wedding ring and a marital home (You can buy any
building in the game and either use it for a marital home or rent it
out and collect payment). You can marry just about anyone - male or
female.
Then there's the stats. You can return to the Heroes'
Guild at any time (except during an out-of-Guild quest) to use
experience gathered through combat or quests to level up in three
categories: Strength, Skill, and Will. Strength handles your muscle
bulk, and how much damage you can do with melee weapons, Skill handles
your sneakier things - Guile lets you get more money in your trading
transactions, Accuracy determines how much damage you do in ranged
combat, and Stealth lets you steal things and be more discreet about it
at higher levels. Will is the magical side of you, with around 20-25
spells that you can level up and use in combat. (On a side note with
character customization, the more Strength you have, the bulkier you
are, the more Skill you have, the taller you are, and if you max out
all your Will stats, you get glowing blue Arcane Tattoos, not available
anywhere else.) The stats all work nicely enough, for a challenge, you
can get through the game without leveling up ever, and if you're
playing through normally, you will get about half of the skills. It's
possible to max them all out, however, it just takes longer.
But
wait, how about actually playing the game? Combat is okay, but it
mostly consists of mashing the X button. Y blocks. B is a powerful
attack that's not very useful. But it's not that bad, using Will
energies and spells gives more variety and fun, and being an assassin
and picking people off from long range is always a good time. When you
defeat an enemy, you can get glowing green experience orbs that, of
course, let you level up at the Guild.
It goes deeper than
this, though. Albion has plenty to offer. You can get drunk. You can
talk to people. You can get titles that people will call you by ("Oy,
Chicken Chaser!" "Oy, Arseface!" "Looks like the Piemaster's been
eatin' all the pies!"). Shops have lots of items in stock, and a lot of
these items are usable. You can buy gifts to give to people, produce or
potions to restore health or will, buy Resurrection Phials (up to 9),
so that if you die, you can come back. You can also buy trading goods
from stores with higher stock for a lower price, and sell them to
stores with lower stock for a high price. This works well for making
money. Also to buy, weapons and armor. Armor, slightly mentioned
before, is pretty easy to understand. There's better armor and worse
armor, and in most varieties, you can find good/light or bad/dark
versions of it to raise your Alignment, Attractiveness, or Scariness.
Weapons are standard as well, but there are a lot of "Legendary"
weapons, that can be found in only one place around Albion, that give
some better or worse stats and affects. Weapons are also made deeper by
being able to use Augmentations, like Silver, Flame, Lightning, or
Health, and these have many different effects. Each weapon has a set
amount of Augmentations that it can hold.
Of course, I didn't
cover every aspect, but this is a good look at what you get. Overall,
The Lost Chapters is a great game for how long it lasts. With about 20
hours maximum play time, even if you do everything in the game and set
some new records, it's not going to be a lifelong addiction. But it's
very fun, despite some lost potential.
