Lionhead Studios had the right idea for their 2008 game, Fable II. It successfully transitioned through a generation shift with significantly improved combat, a more robust campaign, and a great attention to detail. But unfortunately the same thing can’t be said about Lionhead’s third attempt at the series. It still possesses the same absurd, dry British humor, primarily the same gameplay design, and generally the same look. But it’s the little things that Fable III does poorly, and when these annoyances are mixed with a terribly executed late game session, the game loses pretty well all of the series’ famous addictive qualities the franchises once had.
One of these main problems is that Lionhead felt as if they needed to streamline some of the item management that Fable II did poorly. Because of this, Fable III features barely any in-game menus or lists of any kind. Rather, your character is transported to a small HUB world called, “The Sanctuary.” There you can literally walk your character over to different rooms that each hold different equipment or other game features. One room, for example, is the dressing room where you can change your character’s attire, while the adjacent room holds your weaponry.
It’s definitely a ballsy move, one that really exaggerates some of the poorly developed aspects of the game. For example, to get to your quest list you have to pause, walk over to your map table, then press Y to bring up the checklist. This is especially irritating when you consider that the Back button (which is usually used for this specific option) is never used for the entire game. It also makes some of the more easy management a little more difficult to access. Changing your weapon takes a lot more time than changing a weapon should.
Fable III also has some more less-significant but just as irritating problems, too. This time the game features no heads-up display. There’s no health bar, magic meter, or compass to speak of. Instead, the screen will flash red when you get into low health, sort of like a first person shooter. This is pretty bothersome, too, when a d-pad shortcut appears at the bottom of the screen for using potions. I never understood why it appears when your low on health only, especially if they wanted to get rid of the HUD entirely.
Luckily the things that Fable III does right are superbly well done. The new world of Albion had gone from the almost steam punk-like look to a new industrial era setting. Bowerstone is filled with poor, homeless citizens, the streets are covered in smog, plus the people that run the city are corrupt and mildly insane. The new “rise up and take back Albion” angle is a great starting point for the story, and is generally pretty good throughout the adventure. The locals you visit along the way, including some of the awesome side quests, are designed well.
Albion as a whole feels a lot different as it has aged since Fable’s last outing. Rather than a complete overhaul like the transition from Fable to Fable II, Fable III keeps most of the recognizable areas intact while giving them a new industrial-inspired look. Remember Bower Lake? It’s back again but is now a thriving community with wealthy houses scattered along its shores. You can even visit the ol’ Gypsy Camp where the previous hero grew up.
The game looks great, too, which helps some of world look as they were intended. Bowerstone Industrial has a great darkened appearance with a desaturated filter mixed with smog and other effects. The game still has its awesome bloom effects as well where some of the lighter potions of the game have a very storybook feel to them. Most of the animation look good and the character models generally seem fine. I found some glitches, though, like clipping through the environment, or the breadcrumb trail disappearing randomly. The AI of some of the enemies can get a bit crazy, too, and isn’t helped by the extremely easy difficulty, either.
The majority of Fable III always seemed to be accompanied by some odd design decision, lack of polish, or an unfortunate bug or glitch. I could make a large laundry list of aspects that were poorly executed (morality not being much of a factor, the RPG mechanics being dumbed done, annoying weapon quests), but I ultimately enjoyed the majority of the campaign, even when some of the quirks reared their ugly little heads. I easily spent 40 hours trekking through the adventure finishing every side quest, shooting every gnome, and exploring very nook & cranny of Albion. It’s quite unfortunate, though, that this is the third game of a franchise that was aging so well. For now it’s just a bump in the road that will hopefully lead to bigger and better things in the future. For now though, Fable III is just okay.