Fable: The Lost Chapters Review

By James Johnson

Fable: The Lost Chapters has been largely successful in the console realm winning over many game fans by providing an original world to explore and a degree of complexity not normally available in console RPGs. Fortunately, this trend continues with the PC version and the game continues to do an excellent job of connecting the player with the character and the RPG world. By far, the most entertaining part of Fable: The Lost Chapters is making choices during the game, and then watching the character, and the world around them, change to reflect your decisions.

The story behind Fable: The Lost Chapters is pretty simple: you are a young boy who becomes orphaned from his family when bandits raid your hometown. Luckily you are taken from the town and brought to a Guild where you are trained to become a Hero. The game starts you as the young boy in your hometown, and although you do get to do some exploring and interact with the townspeople, the game doesn’t really get rolling until the raid is over and you arrive at the Guild. It is here at the Guild where you as a player will learn about the 3 main Hero attributes available to develop in the game: Strength, Skill, and Will. Strength is primarily a physical ability and can be developed during the game by leveling up the characters physique, toughness, and health. Skill is dependent entirely on your character's use of ranged combat weapons. In Fable: The Lost Chapters there are two main ranged weapons: the bow and the crossbow. Finally, Will is the ability to use magical powers. A multitude of spells are available to use and each spell can be leveled up as you gain more experience. The Guild will become your base of operations and the quests you will receive originate there.

Earning experience points in Fable: The Lost Chapters can change based on how you play. In this way, earning experience points follows the theme of the game: everything you do can affect the world and change the possible outcomes. While most of the experience points you will earn are put in a common pool that can be used on any of the 3 attributes, you will earn a substantial amount of bonus experience points based on which abilities you are using. Fight using the sword and your player will gain strength points. Using the bow during combat will provide skill points and employing magic and casting spells will yield will points. Taking this theme even further, your character’s appearance will change based on the strength of one ability over another. For example, melee combat will develop your character’s muscles while use of magic will cause your character to age more quickly. It’s worthwhile to note that spending too much time in prison during the game will also make your player age noticeably.

Overall the singular character in Fable: The Lost Chapters is more than interesting enough for most gamers, even the experienced RPGers. There are lots of ways to exercise alignment choices and affect the development of your character. At the very beginning of the game you will learn this lesson quite well when you must deal with the consequences of catching a local man cheating on his wife. As a young boy the game confronts you with a decision: will you keep the man’s secret or reveal his adulterous ways to his wife? Adding complexity to the question you can choose one way while in front of the man, and then choose the opposite when you run into his wife later on. Hint: If you choose to keep his secret, then tell his wife later on, make sure you run after the wife; she definitely makes a “scene”.

Although some may complain that the game is “too short” (there are many reports of players completing the game in under 12 hours, sometimes under 10) the developers did go to noticeable lengths to try and add “meat”. Fable: The Lost Chapters is billed as 1/3rd larger than the original game. The majority of the additions are extra optional quests. The keyword here is optional. For example, frequenting the Darkwood Bordello and enjoying the company of the women there, or competing in each of the town fight clubs, will add time to the game, but it won’t really change that much in the world. By far, the most change comes about by completing the core quests you receive from the Guild. In my case, I finished up the core quests in less than 16 hours with only casual play. Of course everyone will play differently, but I found that the real fun aspect of this game is about exploring every little nook and corner of the world. The enjoyment doesn’t come about by thinking of the story as an epic or judging the game solely on how many hours it takes to complete.

Some of the game’s subtleties are actually really interesting and fun to manipulate. For example you will find that your character has a large number of expressions to use during the game. You can strike a pose as a Hero, invite someone to kiss your ass, fart, and even hit on the barmaid. It can be pretty fun to play around with the expressions. However, the only expression that has real consequences is flirting. If you continue to cycle through all the flirt expressions your target will fall in love with you. Although there isn’t a lot of interaction here, that will quickly change if you choose to flirt openly while you’re married. Note: during one of the side quests you will have the option of choosing to marry the hottie town Mayor. I recommend you go for it, there’s a bunch of gold in it for you (hooray for gold digging, men can do it too!). It’s also interesting to note the game records how many times you’ve, um, “gotten busy”. That, in and of itself, can spawn endless competition among you and your friends.

The combat controls for Fable: The Lost Chapters aren’t great, but they get the job done. There are some basic problems because some functions are bound to the same key. Although this can cause problems, they aren’t that serious and didn’t really seem to detract from the gameplay that much. It can be frustrating to use your flourish when you wanted to run, or cast a spell when you wanted to attract an experience orb, but that’s why you can customize the keys anyway. I give the developers credit; at least they setup two presets: WASD and Arrow. Also, having the option of a lock-on mode that automatically selects your enemies, and free mode that allows you free range of motion to attack what you choose is really a great feature. As a bonus, the attacking moves of your character are pretty large and you can be fairly certain that you’ll hit your opponent in free mode, therefore there is little reason to limit yourself with the lock-on mode.

Your enemies in Fable: The Lost Chapters come in a fairly good variety and offer some fun challenges. The world offers vicious hobbes, zombie-like undead, rogue bandits, gigantic earth trolls, and wolverine-like balverines just to name a few. When your character finally reaches the arena you will have the opportunity to take on each class of enemy and truly test your combat skills. Again, the game does a good job of letting you affect the outcome when it allows you to spare or finish off some of your opponents. In fact, that type of decision arises multiple times during the course of the game.

Fable: The Lost Chapters does an excellent job of pulling the player into the RPG world. It provides the player with the ability to change certain aspects of not only the character, but also the world itself. Although the story may be lacking “epic qualities” and a little short, the game still delivers on many of the promises that it makes. You can exercise decision making abilities over the player, and those decisions will affect your character and his interaction with the world around him.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 85%.  Fable: The Lost Chapters is an exciting and action packed RPG that actually delivers on most of the promises it makes.