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Fable 3 - Retrospective @ Continue Play

by Couchpotato, 2014-09-18 01:51:29

Continue Play posted a new retrospective for Fable III, and in the end is disappointed.

Perhaps I’m being too hard on Fable 3. It’s nevertheless a fun romp and it looks very nice. The design is a great blend of Lionhead’s general cartoonishness, there’s a lot of small, funny stories that are still there, and it’s evolved in its aesthetics from Fable 2. The world is still well designed, moving you from place to place at a good, comfortable piece. It moves the player from a variety of environments that range from generic to breathtaking.

A few of its story beats are still excellent: I’ve never had as much fun in a videogame as I have playing the quest The Game in Fable 3. A testament to Lionhead’s creative skill, the quest is a vivid juxtaposition between fictional Albion and the fourth wall it snidely challenges.

The Demon Doors remain excellent: they’re windows to other, strange dimensions. It suggests an Albion more complex than the one our characters manipulate.

The voice acting is stellar as ever. The music is soft, never-imposing, never in-your-face. Lushness defines its aesthetics, and it works.

But this is all window-dressing. These are all nice things built upon a simplistic, broken foundation. At the heart of it, this Albion is too easy, too gullible, too simple. It throws out this terrible calamity, but there’s no child’s moment in what it otherwise, quite starkly, an emperor’s new clothes. This Albion plays it straight; the procession continues.

And unfortunately, it’s an Albion I leave behind with disappointment.

Information about

Fable 3

SP/MP: Single + MP
Setting: Fantasy
Genre: RPG
Platform: PC
Release: Released


Details