Many many years ago, in 2005 to be precise, I’ve played Fable: The Lost Chapters on PC and enjoyed it quite a bit. It didn’t exactly wow me, because of how intentionally primitive the storytelling was, but it was full of curious ideas. And from what I’ve seen and heard, all those ideas were developed and expanded upon in the highly praised sequel that still remains exclusive to Xbox 360 and thus, I’ve never given it a proper playthrough. I’ve not checked Fable III either, since the PC port of that game wasn’t particularly great and was tied into the terrible GFWL service, which was apparently the main reason the game was pulled from sales pretty soon after and remains not available for PC since then.
In 2014 an Unreal Engine 3 driven remake/remaster was released, called Fable Anniversary, which was basically exactly the same game as The Lost Chapters, but with many little tweaks and changes and with better support for modern hardware. And for the longest time I’ve not planned to ever play it. I thought that I will find Fable too simplistic and boring and not worth revisiting. Yet a discussion with friends prompted me to reconsider and give this game a go. I’m glad I did that.
Now, in many ways, this can be seen almost as a retrospective on the original Fable: The Lost Chapters from 2005 (which was an extended version of Fable from 2004), because the changes between the original game and this recreation on a new engine are surprisingly few. Well, at least as far as both my memory of the original and reviews of those who directly compare the games go. The UI has been changed, and not for the better. Now it’s a terribly confusing mess that is hard to navigate and even when you know what you want, finding it in these menus is not fun. There were few updates and old bug fixes, but otherwise, this is just a prettier version of the original game, except now with native xinput support for Xbox 360 and later controllers and comfortable experience on higher resolutions.
So what is Fable? It’s an action RPG (a story-driven one, even though calling it that is a bit of a stretch) with lots and lots of simulation aspects. All of those aspects are extremely simple, yet they are exactly what defines Fable. You get a range of “expressions” that you can use at any point, getting a reaction from other NPCs. You can perform “good” and “bad” deeds, which has immediate and long-lasting consequences. You can buy and rent out property. You can engage with situations that aren’t happening to you, like saving people from bandits. Or kill any friendly NPCs instead. Main character’s appearance changes depending on how you play, gaining scars, tattoos, adapting to your alignment. You grow older. You can have sex and marry (and there are no gender preferences apart from those the player can decide upon either). And on top of these countless systems, there are numerous minigames like fishing. Or different secrets to find and puzzle doors to unlock.
Because, this game is all about you (the player) being The Hero. Quite literally, as the main character is part of the Guild of Heroes and everything you do makes you closer to becoming the best Hero ever. The story is extremely simple because of that and is, in a way, the basic recreation of a hero’s journey (a fact that the game acknowledges as well). You start as a little boy (sadly, no choice here, no way to change the looks either) who is asked to perform good deeds to get enough coins for a present for his sister. After doing so, or otherwise being naughty and getting money in other ways, the idyllic life of the hero comes to an abrupt end as a gang of bandits rolls into town, slaughtering everyone, killing his father, torturing his mother and sister and taking them away, as he’s left hiding among the burning ruins. Which basically sets the tone for the game to come – it’s very stylized and somewhat cartoony, a lot of its dialogue is full of dry witty lines and sarcasm, it’s all very British, and the story is all about going on an Adventure. Yet, it doesn’t shy away from violence and darkness either, sometimes completely dropping the humorous tone and becoming very blunt with what it’s showing. It’s a very curious mix that somehow works throughout the whole storyline.
But yes, the storyline is so extremely primitive. You Hero, go Quest, gain Fame, buy Cool Equipment, fight Big Evil. Every important character in the story exists there for the bare minimum amount of time needed to get the story beat across and afterwards they might disappear forever or until a few hours later. Every choice is extremely binary, providing you with options of Be Evil or Be Good. And everything that happens, happens just so The Hero can be Cool and so you, the player, can feel awesome. Yet… it’s actually kinda nice. In my memory, the game was so primitive it wasn’t particularly engaging. But in reality, and especially when contrasted with the new “normal” of modern RPGs, which try to spread themselves thin across 50+ hours and be incredibly complex and “epic” in their stories, often to their detriment, the simplicity of Fable is refreshing. It’s 12-15 hours of gameplay that has some really poorly aged parts, but mostly consists of simple, but fun and engaging gameplay. That you get through with a smile on your face, have fun and move on. Instead of the game becoming an achievement to get through.
Playing Fable Anniversary got me nostalgic for when games tried to be more nuanced, rather than more packed with content to pad out time. It’s not amazing and you might not be in the mood for something as simplistic as this game is (or as complex as this game is, compared to simple “click enemies to death”-type action RPGs). And as far as I know, the sequel was an improvement in everything. But I really liked playing the game in this Anniversary version as it was a pleasantly relaxing experience.