Gameophilia

For the first time, I already have my own Xbox360, after 3 years of it’s release, and yes it is a Falcon. The first game I got to play out on my first 360? Fable 2. After playing Megaman 9 and for some reason, I can’t get myself to play Okami, I really missed playing some real hardcore games. Ah, now, I’m done with my rambling. Is Fable 2 really a better RPG than most? The original game was already aspiring to be more than any RPG has ever achieved, how will the new one fare up? They promised us that we can buy shops, a nice sweet dog, a great quest and much better gameplay. Does it live up to its name?

I’ll start off with this, the game loads a lot. So much that it gets irritating at times. I wonder if putting this on a PS3 would work much better? If there was a way to get this on my hard drive I’d do it now, why can’t the NXE (New Xbox Experience) come much sooner? Well, since that’s out of the way, lets continue.

The visual quality reminds of the original Fable, everything is like it came from a storybook. The art style is the same, but in every angle it looks quite detailed than before. The game is smooth enough, but there are some instances that animation is compromised just to keep the game to hog itself down. Like some characters are smooth in movement, but power ups slow down to a crawl, but since they are not what we look at most of the time it doesn’t bother you in gameplay. But it does bother me that I thought that the game was slowing down. Nonetheless, the game looked amazing. The locations are bigger before loading another map, the world seems more alive than the original game.

The voice acting was a good as before, I had no problems about it. It’s enough to pull you in and enjoy the game. I doubt that anyone would have any quarrels with this one. The music is good, but I do miss the Danny Elfman (Batman 1989, Tales from the Crypt, Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas) intro from the first game, and they removed an intro all together.

The game grows on you, literally. The game starts off slow, since you don’t have much action to get into, and you are a small orphan child. Here you get to understand a lot of the controls, well, the basic ones at least. At the same time you get to feel how the world is, although it doesn’t much tell you what the timeline is especially if you’ve played the previous Fable. The controls are simple to understand, all your abilities are just a click away, which is action, spell and range attacks. Each time you hit an opponent, you can get experience points, if you absorb them, which you must not forget to do.

Experience points are divided the same way your skills are. So if you use range attacks more, the more experience you get using range attacks. Although you do get a generic experience which you can add up to your total. Experience is gained like money, you can spend it on skills if you can afford it. A skill will cost at lot, but if you need like a toughness skill, you can buy it by adding your action experience and your generic experience. It makes more sense in leveling up skills than your character levels up. This is one RPG that your character never levels up, only your skills. It’s your option to level up your life or level up other stuff. Focusing on one skill can make you strong in one aspect, but it hinders you to try others, but if you spread too much, you hinder your chance to make your skills powerful.

Another thing I liked about this is getting jobs, although they are still boring than actually playing, its the end result that makes it worth while. Getting jobs can get you money, obviously, and you can get more weapons, armor and such. Other than that, you can get establishments, buildings, shops, houses and more. The more establishments you own, the more money you get each virtual day. You can even change the prices of the items on sale, rent out a house, own it for your spouse, decor it to your hearts content. There will be a point that you won’t even need to take a job anymore since you gain so much money just by owning everything.

The dog is a nice addition. At first it doesn’t really feel like he’s any important, but as soon as he gets to know how to find hidden items, he turns invaluable. You won’t want to loose your pet since you need him to find treasures. After a while, you realize that the more you take care of your pet, the more people will like you. The dog slowly grows on you and it’s nice, but once you loose your pet, you worry. Be careful with your pet, since it can get hurt during a fight.

Another wonderful thing about this game is that it helps you get to your objective. This is not like most games that you have to find your own way like Oblivion, although that does point you where to go, this one makes a line to how to get there from where you are now. The map is almost useless though, but the line helps more than any. Choose a quest, and the line will just show up it makes questing so much easier and more accessible to anyone. Maybe some hardcore gamers will want to disable it since it makes it so easy but then again, I welcome it because it just makes my gaming more fun than frustrating.

The online feature is like a SEMI-MMORPG, since you can talk through your microphone with anyone close to you. Other players are not actually close to you since they are all playing their own game, they all show up as orbs with their gamertag icon. But each and everyone can join you and you can join them. It’s an idea that I really like since, talking to everyone can get you more friends with the same goals, helping each other out to finish the game.

There are so many things about this game that are good. I just feel bad there are also negatives about this game. I wish there were more missions which involve other heroes. Most of the time they leave you alone to do your quests. As I said before, the loading time is ridiculous, the map is almost useless. The ending could have been better, since it doesn’t even have a boss fight. Focusing on the main quests can finish the game really quick and it can get disappointing. Although you can still do all the quests you have missed, and you can get a few new ones after the ending, it won’t feel the same trying to do them. It makes more sense to do the game all over again, since I felt like I wanted to try other endings for achievement points.

At the end, even though I had a few problems, the good still outweigh the bad. It’s a game I actually enjoyed, but ended way too early. It had more ideas than most RPG games even Oblivion didn’t tackle buying properties the same way this has. I Highly Recommend trying out this game. Some of you may even buy it, and for a while, it is worth it.

This game is now available at Gamehopper, you can TRY or BUY the game. Php599 for a monthly fee to receive 1 game at a time (play the game as long as you like and exchange it at any time for no additional fees), nationwide deliveries (Philippines only).