PixlBit

Here's a blog I wanted to write almost two months ago but never got around to it. I completed Fable III around the end of January and I wanted to say my final impressions on the game. This isn't a review, per se, as I'm not going to explain how the game works or plays or anything. This is merely my final thoughts, complaints and praises on the game. Oh and SPOILER ALERT for anyone who hasn't played this game. This blog is full of them.

Okay, so as anyone who follows me on twitter (@Colorwind) may know, I hated this game when I first started it. I actually stopped playing it for a while until it finally kicked in. To this effect, I have to say that the beginning of this game is very uninteresting. To say it's boring is actually the wrong word because it implies that in addition to what you're doing being not interesting, the game is uneventful and not exciting. Really, the beginning of the game very uninspired and deja vu will settle in very quickly. The side quest in the beginning of the game (especially the quests in Brightwall) are just dull. Why am I dressed as a chicken? Really? Am I really doing this right now? Ugh.

As the game progresses, however, the quality of the main story as well as the side quests improves. While it never becomes a fully inspired affair, it does become interesting and it does get good. On the side quest side, stuff like the two ghost brothers quest are fun and on the main quest side, the sequence where you stumble through the Aurora desert trying to escape is easily the best part of the entire game. Sure it isn't original (pretty much nothing is in this game) but who cares. It's done well and its awesome! This sequence plus the ending are the only two parts of the game I actually felt an emotional feeling out of me.

Oh and the ending boss maybe easy as hell but it could be because I had like four summon potions and I was bombarding him with fire and electricity spells, fully leveled up. I really loved real estate in this game. I bought everything I could and got super rich because of it. To that point, yes this game is kind of short and rather easy. After becoming king, I kept all my promises but still had enough money to save everyone thanks to me owning so much real estate but this doesn't bother me too much because of the way combat is done.

Combat in this game is the reason I don't like this game that much. I want to know who decided to take out targeting in the game. When you move the analog stick in the general direction of the enemy, your shot or spell will be aimed in that direction but there's no accommodating distance depth. This means I found myself getting sliced up at enemies right in front of me while my gun shot at some dude 10 feet away from me. So I would just do a stationary magic spell to ward foes off.

That brings up another point. Spells never really feel forceful. Oddly enough, magic are easily the strongest offense in your arsenal. Guns and blunt weapons feel that way but never spells. Another thing is why is the block button for weapons just holding X? I know Fable II did this too but I didn't like it there and I don't like it here, especially when you have so many buttons to use on the 360 controller. These weird and puzzling issues with the combat and the controller never get better and it's a constant problem I have to deal with. Because of this, I didn't mind the game being too easy because if it were more difficult, this game would've been way too frustrating with these controls. Maybe not hard but infuriating.

I should mentioned that I did do all of the side quests and found almost all of the pickups by the time I had beaten the game. Even afterward, I went back and found all the keys, gnomes, flowers and books. I even bought some DLC, though the marketplace being inside the game proper bugs the hell out of me (stop telling me there's new items in the sanctuary shop). So it's not like I didn't like this game. I actually really enjoyed it once I got over the initial disappointment. This isn't a great game and sure it's a disappointment as a triple A title released at the end of the year but it is a good game and now that it's only like $10, I'd actually recommend picking it up.