Fable: The Journey Review

[Steady Drain]

who green lights this shit?

 

[edgecult]

I have really liked the Fable Series of game ever since I was gifted Fable: The Lost Chapters. Fable 2 was great, but then they somehow began to make games that just reeked of missed opportunity.
I think that much of Fable 3 was great, but the endgame, the most important aspect for the player as it will likely be the most remembered section of the game was completely screwed up.
I think its endgame was -almost- the greatest morality exploration I had seen thus far in gaming. It was ruined by the presence of infinite rent money, in a situation they was designed with the assumption your cash was finite and tight.
This could have been fixed simply by stopping rent income during that section, and giving you actual rent gained based on the number of days that had passed between each court, when the court began.

Fable: The Journey however was not so much a disappointment but a confirmation for what I expected. The Kinect just cannot do proper 3D movement because of how uncomfortable and immersion breaking it would be. You can't actually move, and so must use some abstract command to achieve to do so. A rail shooter was all that could be expected.

Sadly I think the end game was ruined ( at least for me ) when you kill the final boss without realizing it's the final boss and get the wind kicked right out of any tension the looming threat brought. I'de of been annoyed if my Super good guy went full evil for saving everyone from.. 1 normal not scary looking at all guy. (or lost EVERYONE in existance to... 1 guy) I swear I killed that sand guy possessing your friend (lost his name by this point) and was in my head saying "Alright now lets go beat this big evil crawler thing" -que end game you win scene- wait what? isn't there some giant ancient evil trying to eat my well funded army? wait that little ghost looking guy that had my buddy was him? but he sucked.. he was just a dude in another dude. Where's my Dragon form Jack of blades big bad boss guy?! That first mini boss hollow soldier guy was harder than this guy!

It's not like they don't know how to do boss fights. Fables 1 all it's bosses were pretty friggen awesome. Whisper, Thunder, Jack, dragon jack, even the Wasp queen (and everyone else) were awesome bosses for where they fell in the game and made your character feel like he was growing more powerful every step in the game. Scratching out a win over your school rival to stomping the biggest hero's in game made you feel all those orbs were worth something.

It's while I always pick fables 1 over 2. The boss fights help sell your story as a hero. From farmboy to near god like being through your power sweat and blood with a good boss showing how far you've climbed from vomiting when you teleport and hiding when the bandits come. Cut to fable 2 and you didn't even feel important to your own story. Just the middle man running the 3 hero's of legend together so reaver can snipe your kill in the last few seconds. When you ran with those hero's they felt more awesome than you when you did stuff with them because you had nothing but them to compare and contrast and you always felt weaker. When you meet with the boss again he just went and proved you were as weak as you were when you first meet and kills all your loved ones again to prove it. His come upance feels weak and hollow after it all. You don't prove anything a magic box proves it for you.

 

[blackrave]

Ah, the infamous "horsy game"
To be honest I expected much more negative review (judging from what Susan said previously on podcat)
But yeah, I would like to be on the meeting when they discussed playtest results.

 

[Belated]

Why is it so hard to make a good Fable game? Everyone is sitting here wanting one, and they just keep pushing literal crap out. Give us what we ask for for fuck sake, not what you mistakenly think we want.

I read that in Rainbow Dash's voice.

I thought the first two Fables were pretty good, actually. Disregarding the hype, they're both pretty fun experiences. Though I hated how easy it was to get fat in Fable II.

 

[Rob Jacobs]

...I expected this to suck literal ass in every way possible, knowing that it actually has a decent story and characters that the actual game play ruins makes it actually sting.

C'mon Peter, you know we love you, but just STOP dumbing down Fable with each new iteration! II was the strongest in the franchise thus far, you should be building off of that one's mechanics, not continuously removing more and more bits of them as time goes by. The "casual" crowd that you're trying to appeal to just isn't going to be interested in a proper RPG ever, so just STOP trying to reel them in and make the ones you've already caught happy before us few you have left just opt to jump ship once and for all!

Molnyeux no longer works at Lionhead, and he left far before the release of this game.

Also, Fable The Lost Chapters is arguably the best in the series.

 

[beefpelican]

"Horse-Butt; The Game".

Who is this meant to appeal to? 0_o. Just listening to "Clop-Clop-Clop" and staring at a horses ass. Who thought this was a good idea? Who actually sat there and said "I know how to add to the Fable franchise. A horses ass!" I can see a certain segment of a certain community maybe being into that but it's very niche appeal (and i mean she's not even purple).

Fans of desert bus, who thought the bus moved a little too fast.

 

[Akisa]

It's funny. Other sites review this game saying it's fun and awesome, but everything I saw of the game was just like Susan said. It's pretty window dressing, but looks like the game play is shit. One reviewer actually said the carriage riding was fun. How?!

Are these the same sites that give all games positive reviews? Do they fire employees that give honest reviews because they would hurt advertisements?

 

[Akisa]

It's funny. Other sites review this game saying it's fun and awesome, but everything I saw of the game was just like Susan said. It's pretty window dressing, but looks like the game play is shit. One reviewer actually said the carriage riding was fun. How?!

Are these the same sites that give all games positive reviews? Do they fire employees that give honest reviews because they would hurt advertisements?

 

[Olrod]

I really liked Fable, but after purchasing what was obviously a beta release of Fable 2, I completely lost interest and didn't even register Fable 3 as a thing.

 

[mental_looney]

that sucks was looking for a good fable game i like the twee english humour and setting

 

[CK76]

Nothing else really matters if the game itself is such an unpleasant experience. Nothing about this game looks remotely enjoyable.

 

[Ohlookit'sMatty]

Pay $60 to look at a horses butt for hours on end? Who thought that this would be a great ingame feature!?

-M