The Case

The game that started it all, well for Fable on PC anyway, and to be honest it’s not bad! With huge amounts of customisation, rewarding story and strong RPG gameplay who could complain? And now that’s it’s several years after release everyone has forgot about all the stuff Peter Molyneux said prior to release, like most of his games.

The Trial

Fable: The Lost Chapters, or Fable: TLC for short, is a stereotypical RPG. It’s harder to say more than that, well, ok that’s a bit of a lie, but fundamentally that’s all Fable: TLC is. The gameplay, story and design are exactly what you’d expect, like a fable. The cartoony and bright visuals, which contrast well with the game’s darker areas, fun voice acting and simplistic story, create a game that works on different levels to please different people.

Gameplay is unimaginative, simple controls; click to attack, middle mouse to block, left shift to cast magic etc. Though, surprisingly it works, rather than trying to invent a new innovative system, they made a stapler that works. Your character upgrades by collecting experience orbs in battle, the amount of experience earned increases with your combat multiplier. “Try and get your combat multiplier even higher” - this message will be drilled into you. You then spend your experience at the Guild of Hero’s to upgrade your Hero’s Strength, Skill or Will.

Surprisingly, they all have an effect to both combat and how your character looks; Strength will turn your character into a gargantuan mass of muscle, skill makes you taller and Will covers you in badass glowing magical tattoos (if you’re into that sort of thing). Another strange effect of levelling is that it ages your character, starting as a youth right up to the age of 65, where you are grey haired, weathered and wrinkly. It’s the strange customisation options like that, which make Fable: TLC a fantastic game.

The story of the game is actually rather long and will take you all over Albion, from ‘Knothole Glad’ to ‘The Northern Wastes’. As with all good fables, you start the game as a skinny, slight poor, child who has to collect money for his sister’s birthday present. Anything after that introduction spoils it, as things rapidly go wrong, but let me tell you, you really do earn becoming a hero in this game. You endure years of training, gather countless battle scars, kill countless people, save countless people, survive imprisonment and torture, plus if you do it as an evil character you don’t even get any respect.

That’s right Fable has a morality system, please don’t stop reading, and hear me out, it’s not bad. It’s definitely not perfect, but it’s ok, your choices actually have some effect on the game. They’re not just for kicks, plus if you’re really evil you get horns and evil, glowing, red eyes, or equally a halo and a white aura if you’re good. Some of the choices include saving or robbing a farm, killing or saving a bandit king, sacrificing a child to nymph, donating money to the church of Avo or bringing human sacrifices to the Dread Lord Skorm! Among many others, it’s not the game’s best feature, but it spices things up, oh yeah and there is a bordello, guess what morality that gets you.

Visually Fable: TLC is rather impressive, while it’s clear it’s an Xbox port, which maybe I should have mentioned sooner, it still looks impressive. Its cartoony style helps it maintain a pleasing look, also using good ambient lighting, with multiple environments and weather effects helping even more. Plus ramping up all the graphics options help considerably, though, I’m pretty sure a cardboard box would run it on its lower settings.

Fable’s cutscenes are also impressive, using the in-game engine, which I’ve mentioned looks OK, and a mix of detailed picture cards detailing your hero, much like one would illustrate a novel. Add in pretty solid character animations and models, it all ends up blending together to make an aesthetically pleasing game.

Atop of the visual fidelity of the game, stuck tight to the fairy tale theme, the music also does this too. The fully orchestrated sound track is superb, to this day I still recognise tracks from this game, and you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t like the main theme. Now onto a more displeasing part of the game - voice acting. First, I want to say yes the voice acting is fantastic, characters such as Jack of Blades and Maze are brilliantly acted, NPCs less so. Using the broadest collection of stock British accents, ranging from Birmingham, Liverpool to Somerset, it can get very grating after a while. Though a fun game to play, try seeing an Americans reaction to the accents in this game.

The Verdict

I’m going to be honest; I’ve left a lot out here, Fable: TLC is an immense game, with side quests, collectables, demon doors, legendary weapons, multiple spells, amour and even marriage and property management, but it all wouldn’t fit into one review. It has its drawbacks, the gameplay can be seen as too simple, the voice acting a bit lacklustre in places, but trust me, it’s well worth playing. Oh, and before I forget to mention it, yes you can change your name; you don’t have to be called ‘Chicken Chaser’ the entire game.

Case Review