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Fable Anniversary
PC (Steam)
Banal Fable
3/5 stars
I remember back when there were many exclusives between consoles (there are still a few here and there, but they are becoming easier to to play on PC as long as you can wait) that I was upset the Xbox crowd was getting the Fable exclusives as it looked like a solid and fun open-world RPG. Big choices - be good, be evil, kill chickens, change your appearance, romance! And when Steam finally got the games, I put it on my list to get to... someday. But that someday came much too late as after experiencing much bigger and better games, Fable has not aged at all well. In fact, it was so generic and bland, I couldn't even make it through much and I don't usually review games I haven't finished, but here we are and here I go.
Looks and Stuff: For a 2014 game it looks fine. It has a slightly cartoonish vibe that reminded me a bit of Torchlight but nothing that stands out. That goes for the limited voices and soundtrack as well. It just all feels so very average and generic that even now, several months after I last played, I'm struggling to think of a single thing that caught my eye. Not the enemies, maybe a few of the characters? It's all a fuzzy blur now and very forgettable.
Story: Because you can't become a hero (or villain) without some trauma, of course the early game has your entire village razed, many people (including your family) killed and a random wizard whisking you away to a guild where you're trained to be a helpful (or not) dude for hire. I didn't get much farther - though I know eventually you find out your supposedly dead sister is alive and working for the bandits - blind but with some power. You also have a rival from your class to deal with, as well as an uptight "hero" who is the biggest thing around. I went on a few quests (accompany this guy here, slay this monster there) and played around with the class system, but not much more.
Gameplay: Speaking of the class system, I found the controls to be a mess, despite playing on an Xbox controller. I hated switching between melee, ranged and magic and found the secondary controls (using items, emotes and the like) to be a big hassle as I found myself using Items I didn't want to or using an emote instead of what I actually wanted to do. And there are some stealth parts of the game that just felt shoe-horned in and annoying. There are also challenge dungeons that test your patience - if not skill. I actually managed to do one early on and got a pretty wicked weapon upgrade (I think it was a lightning charged sword), but most I came across seemed extremely time-consuming rather than actually challenging.
Replay Value: Obviously you can play the hero/villain - so there are at least two choices, plus plenty of optional challenges should one be so inclined (I am not).
Final Verdict: Generic Hero/Villain the Game Is Here!
Presentation: 3/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Replay: 4/5
Overall (not an average): 3/5
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