Fable II (2008)

This game was probably the single most influential childhood game for me, and the amount of nostalgia I have surrounding it (and the series in general) is incredible. I played this countless times as a kid, as a teenager, and now as an adult - I go back to it every few years and love it just the same as I did back then. It's one of those worlds that transports you right back to the mindset you were in when you first experienced it, and it's one of the few games that genuinely has never gotten old for me.

The atmosphere, the setting, the characters, the music, the combat, the morality system, the gameplay... it's all perfect for me. Could have been catered to me specifically. I love the secrets, the dumb little golden breadcrumb trail, my dog companion, the town crier lines. Just recently I played through this again with my fiancee and it made me realise just how much of this game has wound itself into my inside jokes, my consciousness, my memory. Play the first five seconds of any soundtrack and I'll still know what it is; quote any character's lines and I'll still know who said it; name any location and I'll still be able to tell you how to get there. When someone asks me what my favourite game of all-time is, or for a game that encapsulates me as a person, Fable II is always my answer (occasionally listed alongside The Wolf Among Us).

I'd give this game 2.5 stars if I could...

I played Fable II on an Xbox Series X which uses the Xbox Enhanced features, this made the game look absolutely gorgeous. The gameplay however did feel a bit dated in 2022. It lacked features that were already present in RPGs in 2008 so it possibly felt dated at the time of release too. If the game would have had a mini map that would have helped navigation when trying to find shops etc. I found it so frustrating trying to find shops coming in and out of the pause menu every few seconds or so. Traversing the world did not feel like I was freely exploring as you’re kind of stuck to a path barely able to stray from it.

I did not feel engaged with the storyline as the cutscenes were a static camera angle of characters talking far away from the camera, no close ups or dynamic camera movements to narrate a scene.

It was fun enough to play though to the end, it’s roughly a 15 hour game with a very anti-climatic ending. None of the side-missions such as the jobs were appealing to me as they were just repetitive mini-games.

I really don’t have much to say about fable because there didn’t seem much to it at all.