Fable | A Complete History and Retrospective

[Music] [Music] do your choices matter is it a man's words that make him or his actions today we're going to tell a tale many tales actually as we take a look at the fable series fable is a series of action rpg games made in the 2000s that put choice at the forefront the goal of the game was to give players customization freedom and the ability to influence environments people and the game itself the game came at a time when branching storylines multiple endings and morality weren't as prevalent as they are today it was one of the pioneers of this style of rpg not discounting things like the elder scrolls or deus ex but what fable did do first was bring this type of choice to the masses it made people realize that this was an option and something like this could be made it surrounded the entire game in this premise of morality and choice it wasn't just a feature it was the whole thing this idea has been around for quite some time probably originating in japanese visual novels in the 80s and 90s now we have entire games based around this concept of narrative choice but fable was one of the progenitors of putting this at the forefront it also told its own original story created a unique atmosphere and presented interesting combat in this series i'm going to be delving into all of the fable games figuring out how they work and what makes them so special in this video though we're gonna focus on the first game in the series i know you're probably wondering why i'm talking about one game in this video not the entire series but i wanted to experiment with the format in the end you're going to get the same result a very long retrospective with all of the individual chapters in it the final video will also have a ton of extra content that weren't in the individual chapters the first video and the part that you're watching now will cover fable the second part will cover fable ii the third will cover fable iii and the final retrospective will have an extra section which will cover fabled the journey fable fortune the canceled fable legends the upcoming fable 4 and many many novels i also want to note here really quickly that these games are heavily based on morality so the choices that you make determine what type of experience you're going to have because these experiences can be so drastically different i decided to do two main playthroughs a good and an evil one and cover both of them in each video generally i went with covering my good playthrough first and covering my evil playthrough second i tried to do this in a way that would be comprehensive but not retread old ground obligatory spoiler warning for fable fable the lost chapters and fable anniversary hi dad it's me your favorite son and today i want to talk about fable fable began development in the year 2000 by big blue box which was a satellite studio of lionhead lionhead was founded by peter molyneux who had a big hand in fable this was big blue box's first project as a studio and they weren't interested in producing a generic title they wanted to make something unique and wanted to give players diversified experiences they specifically wanted to create a role-playing game that no one had seen before in a role-playing game you play the role of some character but in fable you play yourself within the world this was the thesis of fable to allow players to do what they wanted and this was to be reflected in the character itself the world was also supposed to react to the way the player acted creating a realistic environment for the player to inhabit the game's setting was based on medieval europe and the team went out and looked at natural scenes and environments for inspiration they wanted the game to feel like a classic fantasy with tinges of dark the team described the world as being a labor of love putting a large amount of detail into the environments and wanting the surroundings to be as much a part of the experience as the combat was the team crafted over 5 000 animations for the game wanting each to have its purpose and place this was just another way of delivering a world that reacted to the character and a character that interacted with the world danny elfman was involved in the soundtrack for the game being interested in the project and wrote the theme for fable the composers wanted the soundtrack to have multiple styles both fantasy and dark but also trying to have a motif that connected the tracks if there's one thing that i can say looking back on the team's statements and their ideas for the game they were all in sync it's clear that the entire team was on the same page as to what the point of fable was and i think that this is crucial in making a game work most of fable's success can be attributed to this the vision was clear and everyone working on it knew what goal they were trying to further fable was released on xbox september 14 2004 fable would also get a re-release and expansion called fable the lost chapters which added some quests and dlc and would be released on pc the next year fable the lost chapters would also get a re-release as the anniversary edition which graphically overhauled the game and changed the combat releasing in february of 2014. for this review i'll mostly be playing fable anniversary as it's the most accessible easy to use and up-to-date version i'll show some comparisons here and there and illustrate the differences between the first two versions when necessary the largest thing that this version of the game does is overhaul the graphics it makes fable look more up to date than even the third game in the series it looks fantastic and makes it a little more pleasing to experience than the original the anniversary edition also boasted an easy to use new interface which i have some gripes with but we'll get there they included a new save system that allowed the player to save any time and making the ui operate like a book they also included achievements for the first time with even some help from the fans which i thought was a nice touch the game begins with a narrator showing us a mural this acts as the framing device for the entire game the narrator describing the events of the game through these stained glass murals were introduced to the setting albion albion is mostly a green land rich with agriculture farms and small towns dot the continent to the south is the dark wood where dangerous balverines prowl and to the north is the place where cities like bowerstone and the heroes guild call home a few islands dot the coast of albion witchwood being one of them a dark place that's mostly uninhabited outside of a small city called knothole glade another island hook coast is covered in mountains and snow but our story begins in oakville a small city at the southern end of albion this prologue introduces us to our main character unnamed for now as the boy it doesn't just introduce us to the character and the setting but also the premise of the game the boy dreams of greatness sometimes as a noble knight and other times as an evil warrior this duality shows us that we choose our destiny in this game and we'll be making some big choices here soon we wake up our father chastising us for daydreaming it's our sister's birthday and we have to get her a present our father will give us a couple gold coins if we do some good deeds around town there are multiple things we can do around town i chose to snitch on a cheating man return a little girl's doll defend a boy from a bully and protect a man's crates a good day of helping oakville in the process though i accidentally hit a child younger than me this caused me to be chastised by one of the guards his words rang through my head if you were older you'd be apprehended and fined by the town guards you need to decide if behaving like that is worth it my young friend you need to decide if behaving like that is worth it it wasn't it only got in the way doing good or bad deeds in fable earns you alignment points this either takes your alignment more toward good or evil the alignment system in the first game is pretty elementary and would be expanded upon greatly in the later two games the anniversary edition has three scales that represent your character alignment which is not only affected by your deeds but also your appearance and the spells that you use renown which is increased by interacting with people showing off trophies and doing heroic deeds and attractiveness which is affected solely by your appearance the higher your renown the more known you are across albion as a hero more people will recognize you and you'll also have access to more expressions actions that can be used to interact with others your alignment will control your physical experience and what spells you're able to master having fully good alignment will see you with a halo hovering over your head and having fully evil alignment while seeing you have red eyes and glowing veins with gray skin the more attractive you are the more people will be willing to talk to you or even marry you the more scary you look the more people will scream and run away when they see you my character wanted to be a hero though he dreamed of it and this cemented that in his mind he scrounged together enough money to buy some chocolates for his sister exactly enough money three gold i bought the chocolates and took them to teresa but as we left tragedy struck bandits arrived in the town stealing teresa and the boy's mother the father fought to protect his kin but he was no warrior and fell mortally wounded the bandits ripped the house apart but could not find the boy through torture and threats his mother and sister remain silent and their furious attackers took them both killing his father in the process at this moment maize arrives a powerful mage with glowing blue veins pulling the boy away from his father's body mays saved him and offered him a place at the hero's guild his life had been ripped away from him but maize represented power the power to be able to protect the ones he loved the power to save everyone hmm i thought you'd have a stronger stomach than that come on save your energy boy it's not me you want to fight you might not realize it but i just saved your life there's nothing left for you in oakville and if you'd stayed you'd be as dead as the rest of them come with me the boy accepted and met the guildmaster the one who would be responsible for his training he gets a dorm of his own that he shares with another student after the guildmaster leaves he cries waking up the next morning we're introduced to whisper our dorm partner we race to meet the guildmaster and begin our training there's a large training arc here introducing the mechanics and aging the character forward a few years the guildmaster trains us in the way of sword archery and will which is the magic of the fable world this whole chapter of the game is pretty long which at first i found annoying but i realized that it's quite central to the narrative over the course of a couple hours we naturally learn how to find side quests and complete quests on our own we're also getting comfortable with the controls and systems it's a good way to slowly deliver multiple systems to the player without throwing them in our lap all at once it also serves to gently familiarize you with the world and the characters making you grow closer to them it's the best way to let the player identify with a character who's being trained in a hero school without just skipping over the whole thing we train with the guildmaster and fight whisper as our final test we win of course and thunder a legendary hero watches over our practice revealing himself to be whisper's brother the combat systems in fable are pretty simple and we'll get in depth into them later but for now i just want to give you a brief synopsis in fable you have three types of fighting melee ranged and will melee is simple swing your sword and hit the enemy you can lock on or freely attack like most everything else after you get a small combo going you can use the right mouse button to activate a flourish move this does more damage and normally knocks the enemy down or breaks through their block you can also block with your weapon by holding the middle mouse button or roll out of the way by clicking the middle mouse button archery is pretty simplistic using the same lock-on system and letting you control the power of your shot by holding the left mouse button longer you can also right-click to go into a manual aim mode will is by far the most expansive of the combat systems because it also can affect the other systems you hold shift to bring up a secondary menu of spells and can cycle through them there are a ton of spells in this game which we'll get into but you start off with only lightning which will do light damage to enemies repeatedly all three of these combat systems are pretty basic but that doesn't mean that fable doesn't have interesting combat there are a ton of options for you to build your character around and a lot of different ways to go with it it's really up to you to decide which of the three you want to specialize in and this decision is made really by just using that system more the only problem with this is that all of the systems don't feel equal we'll see in a bit that melee and ranged can definitely be used on their own they're self-sufficient level them up enough and you'll be slashing through enemies and bosses like it's nothing but will doesn't really have the same luxury it definitely feels weaker than the others and i mostly used it to complement them rather than act as its own source of damage before we get to our tests the guildmaster asks us if we'd like to continue with training and the story advances a bit aging us up what looks like a few years after training with the guildmaster in these three disciplines we take graded tests for each of them and being exceptional grants us some great early game weapons before we graduate we go with whisper to spend some time in the woods there she spots some bandits and the two of us take them out fledgling heroes ready to deliver justice upon the world before we can graduate maize gives us our final test having us attack him with each of our combat abilities yes quite impressive for a novice maze tells us that our abilities were impressive for a novice the powerful mage that saved us from the bandits giving me his seal of approval was all the motivation that i needed i would be like him one day whisper and i graduate together receiving our guild seals and the ability to take on quests for ourselves the guildmaster tells us that our choices good or evil will change the fate of albion forever or strike fear into their hearts these are dark shadows of albion are stirring and strange winds are blowing your choices whether they lead you down the path of good or evil will change the face of the world he echoes the words of the guard from oakville at this point we're introduced to the quest system which is surprisingly robust you can take on new quests from the map table in the heroes guild these can be main quests which are gold side quests which are silver or bronze quests which are the same as silver except they are obtained from people and not the heroes guild whenever a quest is received you may take boasts with it boasts are an incredibly interesting system that i've never really seen in another game at least not like this these allow you to stand outside the hero's guild and brag about your future heroism this will see you accepting additional challenges by wagering gold and if the challenges are completed you receive additional renown and gold if the challenges are not completed the gold is lost these boasts can be anything from doing the quest with no armor to not taking any damage this really incentivizes the player to focus more on combat and be more engaged in the quest itself it also encourages replayability in the game itself knowing that there are more challenges to be undertaken it's inherently a risk-reward system where your reputation and albion is on the line i take my first quest and head out wasps are attacking the picnic area outside of the heroes guild i slay them and defeat my first boss the wasp queen with the gold from this quest it's finally time to choose a title this is how the npcs in the game will refer to us throughout our playthrough normally you can change your title whenever you feel like you can gain new titles throughout the game from completing certain quests huge feats or just buying them i decided to pick one title for each of my characters and use that to refer to them throughout the video i chose sabre because i felt like this most represented the journey that i wanted this character to go on a sword in the darkness a protector a peacekeeper we also gained some experience and it was time to level up the experience system for fable is an incredible high point for me and i feel like it does what it's trying to do very well it's pretty simple we have three specialized types of xp strength skill and will the fourth type of experience is general you gain general xp from doing most things completing quests killing enemies all that you gain specialized xp from attacking with those specialties for example if you attack an enemy with your bow you'll gain skill xp if you attack an enemy with your sword you'll gain strength xp i always love seeing these types of systems in games because you're leveling up your skill by using them this means that for the most part you can't become a badass mage just by using swords you can't funnel all your experience that you gain from combat and never use a spell now there's a caveat to this when you level up you spend this experience to buy or upgrade abilities and stats if you're upgrading a strength skill you'll use your strength experience to buy this upgrade until your strength experience runs out then the overflow will be charged to the general experience if you have no strength experience you can just use general experience to buy an ability so this is kind of the best of both worlds system you're rewarded for using the type of combat you want to upgrade but you can also use your general experience for other systems if you please i really like this system and i think it finds a balance between the mechanics of things like the elder scrolls where your attributes are only leveled by using them and things like mass effect where you can just get skill upgrades and spend them whatever way you please okay maybe that wasn't as simple as i thought but still a well-rounded and thought-out system it also ties into the thesis of the game which is your character reflecting your actions the only thing i don't like about the xp system is the way you gather general xp specialized xp like strength for example is automatically given to you general xp appears as green orbs on the ground after you kill an enemy which you have to pick up this can be done easily by holding down shift which will pull all of the orbs towards you but this seemed unnecessary and kind of an annoyance after every battle if we're already being given the specialized xp automatically why not extend that to general xp when you get back to the guild you meet briar rose another famous hero she's a little cocky but tells us she's going to knothole glade oh hello you must be the kid maze is always talking about can't imagine what he sees in you still i suppose mays knows best the guild master informs me that maze is looking for me so i head to bowerstone albion's capital each city has a few different shops blacksmiths tailors general stores and barbers these work mostly the same as other rpgs letting you buy or sell items but fable actively encourages you to use the game's economy to your advantage multiple tips in the game will tell you to buy items from one store and sell them to another for a higher price i never really did this but i thought it was cool to see the game recognizing this as a valid way of making money the system's also kind of broken so it was a little cheese for me maize tells saber that there may have been another survivor of the oakville massacre his sister teresa could be alive suddenly the quest for revenge and sabre's development has become about something else getting his old life back saber took a quest to protect orchard farm from bandits helping the good folk of the farm to protect their goods there's another quest that can be accepted here the opposite one to attack orchard farm why would someone want to attack orchard farm what kind of life is that helping bandits when saber arrives whisper is there to greet him telling him that she might accept the quest to attack the farm this worried me what could whisper bee becoming is the hero's journey already corrupting her i wasn't sure all i knew was orchard farm needed a hero even a fledgling one like myself i protected the farm against bandits and whisper arrived at the end to fight me she lost as i expected i accepted another quest to lead some traders through the dark wood this area is a shadowy place full of swamps balvarines wolverine-like creatures and a temple boasting power for one's evil enough to worship a dark god as saber makes his way through the dark wood he comes across a traitor bitten by a balvarine and asking for help we're met with a choice to leave this traitor and potentially spare ourselves having to deal with another balverine or take the chance i thought the chance was worth it the alternative was to ensure his death in these woods at least this way there was a possibility of his life being spared unfortunately shortly after this he would turn and saber would be forced to slay the man in this moment i realized that you couldn't save everyone just before exiting the dark wood the traitor village of barrow fields on the other side a gollum appeared this is one of many boss battles in fable we have to dodge around the golems showers of thrown rocks and attack him at distinct moments most of the bosses are pretty simple one or two prevalent mechanics i wish that they had a little more depth to the fights there's a few standout ones that we'll talk about later but most of them are pretty plain arriving at barrow fields the traitors safely in tow were contacted again by maze this time he's asking us to meet him in oakville sabre's hometown when sabre arrives in oakville he's confronted by a woman that he doesn't remember until the thoughts come flooding back so where have you been all this time you do remember me don't you i was looking for rosie my teddy bear just before the raid after that day my parents moved to bowstown but i never really liked it there uh are you all right i think i lost you there for a second anyway i have to go now but it was great to see you again he's pulled out and mays is waiting for him mays has a new tip on sabre's sister a blind cirrus who is the right hand to twin blade he says she might know something about the survivors of oakville twin blade used to be a hero but had no patience for the guild he brought together 12 different clans of bandits uniting them under one banner sharing his name maze also tells us that he suspects twin blade was behind the attack on oakville in oakville we find a woman lamenting her husband who's lost at sea journeying to the other side of town will come across an entrepreneur who wants to get rid of a ghost from his property the ghost happens to be the husband of the waiting woman and wants us to return his treasure to her i found it on the shores of oakvale and returned it to the woman the ghost tells us where his stash is hidden in the cemetery and moves on digging up this stash nets us a new great axe and a silver key a lot of the secrets in fable are locked behind silver keys these can mostly be found by digging them out of the ground or fishing them out of the water these silver keys unlock chests hidden around the world and usually hold great weapons armor or potions since the entrepreneur has his property back he starts up his business again a game of chicken punting this game sees you kicking chickens and trying to hit specific spots on a dock chicken kicking is a staple of the fable series and would become a recurring element in some form or another saber heads to the twin blade camp and oh boy this quest i forgot about this until i was going back through footage and man this is a little rough so fable as much as i've spoken highly about it is a little janky it's originally an xbox pc game released in the early 2000s so that's a bit expected also i want to give credit because this is a game with many different story lines and tons of different outcomes to your experience i can imagine that whenever coding a project like this things get complicated especially with so many systems involved this quest sees three bandits coming out from the camp to patrol the area we have to sneak by them and get into the bandit camp if they see us though they'll alert the guards and close the door to the camp if this happens a timer is set forcing us to wait for the next set of bandits to come out and thus giving us another try to sneak past them this quest is a little ridiculous and it's not impossible to do it without exploiting the ai a little bit but it's not easy these ai can seemingly notice you from incredibly far distances and just try to find you even when you're out of sight your sneak also doesn't move very fast so getting away from them while moving in the shadows is almost impossible all of you are probably saying son your guile skill isn't high enough guile is an ability that increases how well you sneak steal and trade but this main quest shouldn't be dependent on an ability that you have to have leveled up this early in the game i had to actually look up a video on how other people did this quest to get it to work but i have no idea how i would have done this naturally also this is the only time in the main quest that you're forced to sneak so it just seemed like a weird instance of pushing a barely used mechanic saber sneaks past the bandits and arrives at the gate to the bandit camp saber had to pretend to be a bandit to get into the camp wearing their attire this was something he was vehemently against you see for this playthrough i tried to wear exclusively armor that was attractive and brought my alignment up not down the bandit gear made me appear scary and frankly like a ruffian but a hero has to do what a hero has to do so i donned the bandit attire and entered the camp there we had to get into twinblade's tent and there was multiple ways to go about this some assassins were offering me their services for 2000 gold but i wasn't exactly sure how moral that was i always had the option of killing every bandit in the camp and entering that way but it was a bit loud for my tastes there was also the matter of the captives there's two women caged in the back of the camp and ready for the bandits if i freed them the bandits would surely open the gates to try and retrieve them it's risky as i'm wagering the lives of two women on a chance that they get away but it's well worth it this got me into twinblade's tent and he was ready for me twinblade is a tower of a man a hulking massive brute and he fights like one swinging blades wantonly and often getting them stuck in the ground this is when the time to strike is right the only annoying thing about this fight is the circle of bandits around the arena if you get too close to them they start hitting you with their swords most of the fight is just repeating the same loop avoid twin blade wait for him to stick his swords in the ground hit him a couple times repeat this boss was fine on my good play through but if you're not as powerful as i was yet this fight drags out for quite a while twinblade goes down and just as we're about to give him the mercy of death the cirrus shows herself there you are what's wrong don't you recognize your own sister she turns out to be saber's sister theresa the girl is blind her eyes sliced out by the leader of the raiders of oakville she crawled through the forest found eventually by twin blade and serving in his clan he took her by his side accepting her prophetic whispers as truth she spins one of these truths telling saber that he'll have to make a choice one day between the darkness and the light in fable there's something that's just off with the line delivery a lot of times when npcs are speaking they almost start the next line way too fast i've seen so many things so much killing so much dying i've seen you little brother in a ring of sand and blood an arena full of secrets i'm not sure if this had to do with syncing up to the already quick animations in the game but it really feels disjointed and wooden sometimes this is on full display with teresa in this scene this wasn't the case with every single character in the game and a lot of characters actually have great performances like the guild master now take your guild seals [Music] but when it did happen it served to take me out of the game and lessened the emotional impact of a scene teresa unlocks a power in sabre that runs in their bloodline and twinblade asks for death i choose to spare his life he was not the one responsible for oakvale that much is clear and he raised my sister as his own mays requested my presence to talk to me about my sister but i had a quest to attend to a woman lost her grandson saying that he journeyed into a hob cave hobbs are interesting enemies and just one of the various monsters that grace albion each creature has a pretty deep and substantial lore when you take a look at them the balvarines were created out of a larger more ferocious creature called balvorns these massive beasts would feed on thousands at a time only one man survived the slaughter that they would rack upon the world and he became the first balverine i actually read an entire book about this subject written by peter david called fable the balverine order it was not very good we'll get heavier into the external materials like this in the final part of this retrospective though trolls were one of the first creatures to wander the lands of albion and were mostly hunted extinct by the old kingdom the hobs have their own tragic backstory supposedly the first hobs were created by nymphs by kidnapping wandering children and transforming them into these beasts there's a lot of lore in fable a surprising amount actually for this game but don't worry we have a history lesson coming soon that will bring you entirely up to speed i descended into the hob cave looking for the boy in my pursuit i found hundreds of hobbs constantly swarming around me i also found a man who was raiding the cave and got caught his party members killed i took pity on him and helped him allowing him to join me on my quest when i finally found the boy at the bottom of the cavern he was being kidnapped by a nymph who needed a human sacrifice for her ritual she told me i could take the boy as long as i gave her another human i wasn't sure what to do in this situation i could have surely killed the nymph and rescued the boy but i wasn't sure how strong nymphs were i hadn't fought one yet the man i had with me was a bandit he was stealing from this place here to thieve and sell everything he found an innocent child had to be worth more than that right plus i agreed i had a quest to complete i traded his life for the boys and left i couldn't look back because the decision had been made there was no use pondering it now this was a tough decision fable presented me because i wasn't really sure what the right choice was here i guess it only matters that i thought it was right but was it i returned the boy to his grandmother and he promptly left her home saying that she wasn't suitable to live with maize tells me that there's a rumor an old friend of his the archaeologist is hiding somewhere in which wood he's found something big that may be putting his life in danger i head to whichwood and solve a puzzle concerning the name of the demon door guarding the archaeologist demon doors are all over albion they are sentient beings whose origins aren't fully known some believe that they are men who were cursed with guarding great treasures or portals to other worlds regardless of how they were created they require a challenge to be completed before entering this could be something as simple as lighting a lamp in front of them and could be as difficult as having a high evil alignment this demon door required that i hit stones corresponding with different letters to spell out his name once i did this the archaeologist greeted me saying he's been studying the focus sites he also says that jack of blades is interested in the same sites these sites are structures placed around the world that we see throughout the game he leaves us his journal for some context and heads out now fable has a bit of a lore problem it's not terrible but there's a ton of backstory to the world that isn't really fully fleshed out within the game you don't absolutely need to know the lore to find out what happens in the story but it provides some much needed context for that reason we're gonna have a bit of a history lesson and go over the story of albion before fable the earliest history of albion is mostly legend the tales tell of three beings that came from the void the knight the jack and the queen all using the surname of blades they were known as the court and wanted to take over the world of men demanding rulership over them the people of albion did not go down easily and the court scorched the earth and the sky was filled with smoke the second time the people of albion refused to kneel the court raised the ocean into the sky and flooded the land the third and final time they refused the court twisted their minds until they killed each other finally the people of albion bowed and the reign of the court began during this reign a blacksmith and his wife had a boy named william he had incredible powers of the mind and could protect his village while performing wonderful feats these acts were the origin of the powers of will william was determined to overthrow the court and bring freedom back to albion he found his way into the void and stole the sword of aeons this sword spoke to william and promised to help him defeat the court but only if he bonded his soul to it with the sword in toe williams scaled the peak of ruon and challenged the court william first destroyed the knight of blades then destroying jack's body but his soul escaping into the void william battled the queen last and this went on for weeks raising mountains and carving valleys in the land with their ferocious blows william finally destroyed the queen and albion was free the people of the land raised william as archon their king after freedom had been set upon the land the archon and his children grew bored they called themselves heroes but they used their powers inherited from the archon to terrorize the people of albion the archon himself had been infected body and mind with an illness he traveled into the void to purge the darkness from his body when it left him it turned into two antagonistic forces the darkness and the corruption the disease did not fully leave the archon though and he wrapped himself in gold mail and a royal blue cloak disappearing from the land when the archon left albion descended into madness the arkhan's descendants were vying for power and each passing one brought fresh tyranny to albion no citizens were allowed out after nightfall every citizen must appear when an alarm bell sounded and any who opposed the new arkhan's rule were killed along with their families the newest archon had constructed the spire a massive building that was to be used to focus all of the willpower in the world to grant a single wish the spire's completion opened a rift between the void and albion and a beast stepped through the crawler the kingdom's greatest heroes at the time blaze stone and soul faced the creature closing the rift but only managing to capture the beast the next morning the tower was gone the old kingdom lay in ruins and all had disappeared except those who lived beyond the walls with the old kingdom destroyed the small settlements that remained formed their own self-sufficient communities the ruins of the old kingdom turned into wastelands like great wood which would and the edgelands over time the history of this place was forgotten the world became darker day after day and eventually the fallow wars had begun this was an age of anarchy and blood which almost brought alby into extinction out of the east though came a bandit and mercenary by the name of nostro his goal was to bring peace and prosperity to albion he met a wise old man by the name of scythe scythe was a wraith-like man wisened and stern he carried an ornate sword and wore a tattered blue cloak with ruined gold armor like that of the first archon he took an interest in nostro because he seemed to possess the power of the first arkhan's descendants scythe began to tutor nostro and how to be a just man who was worthy of leading men nostro first formed the heroes guild gathering men and women to be trained as true heroes at the same time he was being tutored by scythe in the ways of will nostro forced peace upon albion and created the witchwood arena a venue where people could settle disputes in public he also commissioned his blacksmith to form the tears of avvo a sword that was meant to replicate the sword of aeons wielded by the first archon himself nostro eventually fell under the sway of a courtesan named magdalena her power-hungry ways saw the world change the arena become nothing more than entertainment the guild turned into a house of mercenaries and nostro himself descending into corruption scythe left at the sight of this not being able to bear to see the fall of nostro at the end of his life nostro became aware of how corrupted he had become and even his wife and followers had abandoned him he was poisoned by an assassin and called on scythe to sit with him in his final hours he died and was buried in litchfield graveyard there were also some wars that took place between two churches the church of scorm and the church of avo these two churches were formed by a traitor after finding two opposing fonts of energy there's speculation that the deities themselves are false gods but there's evidence that goes both ways either way 200 years after these wars we are brought up to speed i know it's a bit of an info dump and we really didn't truly cover everything but we will in due time i think it's important though to understand the history of albion before we delve into the story moving forward i think fable lore is pretty cool but i know not everybody feels that way if you're browsing the web researching this lore and you don't want anybody to know then you obviously care about privacy and if you care about privacy then you are in the right place nordvpn is an easy to use service that protects your privacy when googling things like what are balverine's fable wiki you can connect with one click or enable auto click for a zero click connection which is like the least amount of clicks i can possibly think of it also has amazing speeds that have been confirmed and backed up by speed tests i actually genuinely use it personally and could not recommend a better vpn so if you're interested go to the link in my description or use code your favorite son to get a two-year plan with a bonus gift and a huge discount now back to fable i went to knothole glade to help them with a balverine problem they have a special balvarine terrorizing the village powerful tall and covered in white fur he can only be killed with silver the wife of the hunter who died fighting him gives me a silver augmentation to be able to take it down she reveals that her husband is the balverine turned into one when hunting balvarines in the forest augmentations in fable are pretty simple but add a little bit of complexity and customization to the combat you can apply them to weapons adding an elemental effect health regeneration or even mana to the weapon with the silver augmentation i took down the white balvarine gathered his head and returned it to the knothole glade chieftain there are a lot of systems in fable and one of my personal favorites is the real estate there are houses for sale in different cities across albion these homes can be bought for a price and then either turned into the heroes home or rented out to generate more income i love games that add little features like this they add another level of depth and knowing that i have a steady stream of income was nice it gives you a way to make money aside from questing you can also upgrade the decorations of the house to increase the amount of rent collected or mount trophies on the walls collected from quests to do the same but wait why didn't i buy a house for myself well the answer is simple saber didn't have a wife i hadn't thought of this until this point but at that moment running around not whole glade i started to notice the women i found one more pleasant than the rest and started to flirt with her using the various expressions i'd gained and since i was forcing myself to wear only the most attractive gear she was already into me but at a certain point she got bored and her attractiveness started going down this floating heart above her head shrinking in size as she walked away hurt more than it should i wasn't sure what i did wrong i was an up-and-coming hero pretty famous at this point shouldn't that be enough to attract her it wasn't though and i took this as a sign from the universe that i was meant to be doing bigger things a wife would just get in the way of heroin my next goal was to head to the arena the place was located on the same island as knothole glade remember our history lesson this was created by nostro during the creation of the guild and restoration of albion see it's nice to know these things the arena has eight rounds and the goal is to beat all eight in one go if you decide to stop after a round and return to gather more potions or better weapons you stop accumulating gold and restart it's not the hardest challenge in the world but i got too nervous with saber and stopped around round six the first five rounds or so are just waves of enemies hobs bandits and undead the final three rounds are boss battles culminating in an epic battle with a giant scorpion i actually enjoyed this boss fight the mechanics were clear worked well and it made sense the scorpion will charge repeatedly and eventually ready up a large attack you use this moment to attack the scorpion in its weak spot while trying to dodge the charged attack halfway through the arena whisper joins us in our battle she assists us through the last half of the waves when the arena is won i was told i had to battle whisper i did so and won she wasn't as powerful as me she never could be but that wasn't her fault after beating her jack of blades who we know from the lore is the head of the arena and he wants blood he wants me to kill whisper to take home the gold i've earned i say no whisper didn't deserve this she's trying her hardest and she won't die by my hand leaving the arena i'm greeted with thunder and lady gray lady gray is propositioning me to meet her in bowerstone she's the mayor of the capital city and thunder is upset because he's pining after the mayor heading out one of the guards tells me that i remind him of the old hero scarlet robe i see a statue of the woman the first female hero to become arena champion she holds an eagle scepter in her hands and jack of blades approaches he tells me that she's still alive failing to save her family it's clear that she's my mother and jack asks to bring him teresa and yet here you are i knew her son would end up here one day it's in your blood and in your sisters too you should bring her to me i so long to reunite you both with your mother just think of the happiness it would bring her this was the true face of his mother scarlett robe slayer of balvarines once one of the fiercest heroes in all of albion yet her most splendid battle was also to be her the narrator tells us that she almost died fighting balvarines and she was saved by brahm my father jack was behind the raid at oakvale and he captured my mother winning the champion seal from the arena has granted me access to bowerstone north theresa is waiting for me at the greyhouse outside the barrow fields one of the things i love about fable that i haven't talked about is its map as you complete quests and travel to new areas the map starts to change little icons appear showing the distinct nature of each area in albion after defeating golems or trolls they will appear on the map orchard farms sprouts apples after arriving and the rose cottage becomes a field of the red flowers after venturing into its area it's a wonderful little touch that not only adds character to the world but also prevents the player from having to remember names but rather recalling memories to associate with locations it also gives fable its own distinct style and a fairy tale-like quality to its world teresa already knows who jack of blades is and she tells me that our mother is in bar gate prison the archaeologist is the only one that knows how to get in you have to get mother out she's the only one who knows how to reach the sword you did read the book i sent didn't you the sword is everything and it could turn the world to nothing oh and a mother has a gift for you too more power than you can imagine she tells us of the sword of aeons that it could turn the tide of the world this is what jack is working towards i start to head for the archaeologist who is being held on the docks to the north of albion on my way i encounter an imprisoned beggar who says lady gray murdered her sister to gain power he wants me to investigate at the gray house i head back and find her spirit still wandering the grounds in the basement i find evidence of her murder at the hands of lady gray the mayor herself arrives at that moment asking me to cover up the murder and become the mayor of the city by marrying her i refuse and turn her in in return i am rewarded the mayorship of bowerstone i'm not sure what this grants me outside of a very lavish bed that i can't sleep in but it's nice to see justice done once more heading up the hill i make my way to the archaeologist this quest really started to illustrate the problem with fable's main quest system a lot of the main quests end up being the same thing start in one area either escort or fight with others to get to another area every other time or so fight a boss at the end and kill slews of enemies along the way it started to get a little tired at this point and the main quests go on for quite a while most of the time i won't say this is always the case some exceptions are the arena where you're only fighting slews of enemies or bosses in one area or the white balvarine quest which actually felt unique and interesting the side quests were the exception to this rule though most of them not all felt like little journeys and pockets of adventure i think the allure of the main quests were really the choices made along the way rather than the quests themselves after all that's what fable is about choice i rescued the archaeologist from being captured by jack's minions he tells me that the way into bar gate prison is through the litchfield graveyard i really want to talk about jack's minions as an enemy type for a moment they are separate in my mind from all the others for one reason sound design they have this specific noise that plays when they attack when they move when they rush at you they almost sound mechanical in nature and whether they are or not doesn't really matter because this bone curdling noise that makes you unsettled it tells you that these beasts are not of this world they are not natural even the balvarines of the world have some place in nature the hobs are some creation of the nymphs but they are still inevitable these things are out of place and it gives you a feeling of off it's definitely a different feeling than the one you get when fighting bandits for example at this point i made my way to litchfield graveyard there i found a grave keeper and the only way i could move forward was with the spirit of nostro himself the one who created the heroes guild in the first place his spirit requires that you collect his armor helmet shield and sword to open the demon door leading to the bar gate prison path the graveyard happens to be a great place to get experience because there's a couple things i haven't mentioned first is the combat multiplier the combat multiplier acts as basically a combo meter the more you attack and don't get hit the higher your combat multiplier this determines how much your experience is multiplied when gained there also happens to be a scarce amount of potions in the game called ages potions these will give you a thousand experience in whatever specialty they are made for for example an ages of will potion will give you a thousand will experience the thing is these potions are affected by the combat multiplier if you get your multiplier high enough and then use your potion you'll get a ton of xp for that specialty killing the undead is a great way to do this they die quickly and if you kill them fast enough they don't have time to attack using an xp potion with a combat multiplier of 30 will net you a ton of xp but the reason the undead can be the most annoying enemies in the game is when you don't want to fight them when they spawn the lesser ones anyways crawl from the ground while digging their way up from the earth they swing their swords out in an ark there's very little time from when you see the undead crawling from the ground to when they swing their swords so you almost have no time to dodge this if you're farming the undead for xp it's great because they're practically infinite but if you're trying to move through the area it's insufferable finally arriving at bar gate prison i made my way through the dungeons and was face to face with my mother she was old and withering the hero in her long gone years of torture had done much to age her but i brought her with me and we made our escape this was quickly thwarted by jack himself he used his minions to lock both of us up in bar gate sitting in prison is a solitary affair but once a year the guards hold a race they let the inmates run the ramparts and whoever wins gets a personal audience with the chief himself he will read them original poetry for the night and they are forced to listen our goal for this is a little different though we're trying to sneak around the office and get the key to the books the chief has on his desk one of them holds the key to our cell we can only open one book per try though and if we pick the wrong one we have to redo the race again costing us another year off of our life and aging in fable is permanent so time passes and we actually get older once we find the key we make our escape gathering our belongings and rescuing our mother for a final time on our way out we find a giant kraken in the sewers of bar gate once we kill it we head outside and our mother unlocks our final bloodline power we got the same thing from teresa before and i really thought i was missing a mechanic here but it turns out it's just extra general experience my mother tells me that i have to find the portal to hook coast that's where the final chapter of this saga lies years have passed since i went into prison and saber has aged the guild has lived on but that also means that jack has been making moves i took a side quest to get back into the swing of things guarding a 2b executed bandit to his demise i then ventured to hook coast a desolate snowy island off the west coast of northern albion here the key to the focus sites lied but a barrier blocked the way to this key jack is obviously looking for the same one he wants the focus sites to be able to put all of his power into one source and free the sort of aeons my mother tells me to come back to the guild as she may have found the way past the barrier but something isn't right when i arrive she's being kidnapped again by jack's minions but the secrets she found are still missing a book reveals the incantation needed to remove the barrier i head back to hook coast and bring down the barrier but maize is already there and theresa he has teresa tied up and under a spell he realizes he's caught i had to tie her up jack is controlling her somehow that's why i'm here i'm trying to stop him he's lying he's the one working for jack no she's trying to confuse you she's there is really no time for this old wizard finish the ritual maze i'd like my key now the mage the very man that i looked up to that i wanted to be since i was a child the man that saved me was a traitor jack arrives and takes the key telling maze to continue we enter one final duel one will exit this battle alive maze tries to keep his range but he's old and rusty and he's no match for the hero that sabre has become maybe you are strong enough to defeat jack you haven't got much time [Music] he's using the key to activate the focus sites all over albion then the sword will be his and it will be too late be trying to stop him none of them can oh you want to know why i did it don't you i suppose i'm just an old coward boy we don't all embrace death easily for some of us the quest the only quest is to escape death whatever the cost and it looks like i failed he dies admitting his cowardice telling me that all of life exists to escape death in that moment i understand why he did what he did he was terrified of jack and became corrupted it wasn't his fault even if he was a betrayer mays dies and fades from this world as we arrive back at the heroes guild the guildmaster tells us that jack is trying to activate the focus sites across albion i hurry through the teleporter and chase jack across the land he activates one after another heroes like briar rose and thunder helping me it's no match for his speed and power we're just in time to see him finish the job each time this last quest is great heading back through the world that we've already ventured through and seeing these focus sites important monuments activated turning the world red and full of flame is a wondrous sight there's also something to be said about the fact that we've passed these constructs throughout the game i've seen them in multiple locations while making my way across albion but never knew what they were for i kept saying to myself this is probably a side quest later seeing that come to fruition is genuinely rewarding finally jack arrives at the heroes guild itself the guildmaster lies on the ground wounded unable to stop him we head into the hall of heroes where all the murals that we've seen throughout the game exist jack has teresa scarlet robe and the sword of aeons he stands above us mask shining in the light and red power emanating from him what a touching family reunion the mother the son the daughter and the sword there's only one thing he slashes my mother's throat and i stand in shock i've never had this type of hatred in my life i don't want justice in this moment i want pain we fight jack which is a pretty easy duel the first phase has us killing a multitude of his minions the second sees us fighting jack as he chases and attacks us and the third sees jack hovering above me shooting bolts of energy and using all of his will to try and destroy me teresa survives the battle and now comes the choice i spoke of so long ago strike me down now with the sword of aeons and you will become as powerful as jack dreamt of being casted into the vortex and its darkness will be gone forever she tells me that the sword of aeons is free for me to take but to use its power i have to kill her with it one of my bloodline the only other thing to do is to cast the sword into the vortex and destroy it forever it's not the choice that's hard i've never wanted power just to protect the ones i love even though my mother is gone as long as i can protect teresa my goal will be complete i destroy the sword saber was famous a name known amongst the people teresa retreated to distant lands needing time to heal i understood an extra set of quests comes included with fable the lost chapters and fable anniversary this area is called the northern wastes it introduces the character scythe officially into the game scythe contacts the guild telling them that there's a danger approaching in the northern wastes an island even farther north than hook coast scythe is a very decrepit looking figure dressed in blue robes and gold armor there's a very common theory that scythe is actually william black the first archon he's seen wearing the exact same clothes that william was described as wearing when he disappeared there's evidence to support this as well saying that the archons were immortal and he can't be killed throughout the story the oracle even says that the first archon still casts his shadow in this world taking scythe's warning that jack may be being resurrected in the wastes the hero needs the fire heart to get there the fire heart is hidden behind a demon door which we can get through because we have jack's mask it's also being protected by five sorcerers trapped in ice we have to solve this puzzle to get the flame one for each sorcerer turning the tiles to suns will free the sorcerers and turning them to moons will kill them this was an odd choice in the game because at this point you'd be killing them just to kill them it'd be completely for the sake of evil because either way you still get the fire heart after we gather the flame and save the sorcerers we head for hook coast secure the ship that will take us to the northern wastes briar rose is there and she tells me to place the flame in the top of the lighthouse some summoners arrive a new powerful enemy type and they're trying to destroy the flame we dispense with them and our ship arrives taking us to the lost bay the trip was long and saber has developed quite the beard on the journey the first thing we're confronted with is a boss a frost troll these things are incredibly annoying they have this ice column attack which shoots out crystals of ice in a line at you if you're caught in it you're going flying because the ice just keeps pushing you back until it's stopped they're not incredibly hard to beat just a hassle to actually get close enough to do damage at the center of the island we find a large construct briar rose is doing some research to figure out how to get it working this is the key to stopping jack's resurrection scythe is in snow spire village this is the small frozen town where he's been doing his research he tells us that we need to find the four glyphs to get the oracle working a large construct that was created during the reign of the third archon these runes are in the necropolis and i went to dig them up with my trusty spade after defeating another frost troll and some packs of enemies we get the runes and activate the oracle the oracle is actually an amazing addition of lore to the game you can stand on this platform and perform gestures to ask it about random parts of albion's past it will tell you things about people different creatures or the history of albion itself some interesting things about demon doors the life of a rock endowed with consciousness is never easy of course fable's weird humor comes in here and the glyphs are a reference to ymca breyer figures out that we need to collect three souls to get the construct working and open the bronze gate where jack is being resurrected the first soul we need to collect is a champion of the arena we go to thunder to ask him for his help being a previous champion himself he tells us to head to the arena and see what we can find there summoners are already attacking the place looking for the soul themselves we defeat waves and waves jack taunting us from the mask the entire time while we do these quests jack is always telling us just to take the easy way and kill thunder or one of the other heroes that meet that criteria but we don't listen after defeating this version of the arena we gain the arena soul and trap it in jack's mask we take it back to briar and she inserts it into the machine the next soul is one of a heroine breyer suggests scarlett robe's soul as she was always one for making sacrifices we head to the oakville cemetery and scarlet robe's spirit is there we have a conversation with her and defeat some screamers eventually accepting her soul into the mask the final soul we need to retrieve is the oldest soul breyer suggests nostro's soul but jack suggests the guild masters the guild master is out of the question so we head to litchfield graveyard we have to fight a resurrected form of nostro destroying undead to make him vulnerable with the final soul in tow we head back to the arkhan shrine and the bronze gate opens this is the final battle of the game jack of blades has taken on the form of a giant dragon and taunts us while fighting him he says that this place full of fire and smoke looks like oakville all these flames it's just like the day we kill him and put his soul into the mask but it taunts us telling us to put it on it would be the ultimate power the full ability to protect everyone but i don't accept it i destroy the mask and leave the place for good jack has been destroyed the world is at peace and saber is ready to go home i thought this dlc was fun the biggest thing it did was add content and lore to the game i feel like this one area did more to expand on the history of albion than the entirety of the base game it also gives the player the option to make some really interesting choices like killing thunder briar rose and the guild master if they want fighting jack one more time wasn't something i thought was properly handled i feel like they could have set up another villain for the next game but the next game takes place far in the future even in that same vein they could have set up what happens to the hero of oakvale as that question is never fully answered in game before we get into the final words of the game i'd like to briefly go over my evil play through because i think contextualizing this separation is integral to the entire point of the game and will help me illustrate one of its greatest strengths we're also trying to be comprehensive here so how could i not cover this we've heard saber's story now let's look at hood the story starts in the same place with the same boy i needed money to buy my sister a present and my father wanted me to complete some good deeds the big change in this playthrough was when i found the man cheating on his wife he said that he'd give me money if i didn't tell anyone about this i took it it wasn't just the fact that he gave me money though it was the words that he said look after yourself forget everyone else look after yourself and forget everyone else he was right it was just me in this world in the end i had to pay attention to that plus he gave me a gold coin i helped a man protect his crates but i smashed his barrels when he was gone it felt good a kid was being bullied and i helped the bully because it felt good to have someone strong on my side the guard chastised me for hitting the kid he told me to think about whether my actions were worth it because bad deeds weren't worth it but i had a gold coin that said otherwise my dad gave me three gold coins for doing work around the town and i bought my sister chocolates still one gold coin left over then the town was raided in this moment i felt powerless and seeing my father's body before me unmoving eyes wide open i knew i needed to be stronger i needed to have so much power that this would never happen again then i saw a maze he represented that power in my eyes as he took me to the heroes guild i realized i would surpass him i would become the most powerful hero ever people would fear me so much that they would never even think of hurting me or anyone around me but when the guildmaster left me alone i still cried i was still sad this is the crux of fable's choice system yes you will make choices that will have different consequences and effects the story will be changed slightly characters will die that didn't and people will survive that perish during the good play through but it's ultimately not these choices that make the biggest difference it's the lens through which you view the same story i began training with whisper and the guildmaster i was better than her much better than her her teasing and taunting were relentless and it was baffling that she could see someone like me with such potential and so much future power and treat me like a child the guild master was kind and he gave me the tutelage i needed to get stronger we graduated and got our guild seals i took my first quest and saved the villagers from the wasp queen these people were cheering for me but did they know i didn't do this for them i didn't save them because i cared i saved them because i knew it would get me further toward my goal slaughtering the men who took my sister and mother i took the job to attack orchard farm i figured i could help the bandits and get more money maybe getting stronger in the process more money meant better weapons which meant i could smite my enemies easier i needed it i didn't feel good taking from these farmers but it was necessary they realized that right i was a hero i was important they made food i fought whisper and she was no match the years had done nothing to advance her training i guided some traders through darkwood and only one of them made it a third tried to join us but he was clearly infected by a balvarine i killed him before he could turn mercy i reached oakville my home the memories came flooding back things i didn't want to think about and the rage only got louder people were scared of me now running in fear or booing me in shops they were jealous their words meant nothing to me a spirit wanted me to give his treasure to his wife but i wanted the treasure the 500 gold could buy me armor but i needed the spirit to leave so i killed his wife and took the money she wasn't going to marry again necessary mays told me he had information about teresa that she could still be alive i journeyed to twin blades camp to see if i could find the cirrus that knew more about her i hired some assassins to get me in what was money worth if it wasn't spent when i defeated twin blade teresa came out she was the blind serious she gave me more power and i used it to kill twin blade and his entire guard they were bandits killing for money i didn't kill for money i killed for power none of these lowly folk could ever rise to the status that i was meant to they were weak some bandits offered me a job to slaughter the town of barrow fields traders and guards all we'd take their money i couldn't pass it up another consequence of the path i'd chosen i went to knothole glade at maze's request i found the archaeologist and killed the white balverine i went to the arena and completed it and one go whisper fought me at the end and lost i needed to kill her for the money wait but it was a lot of money money that could buy potions swords armor bows things like that would make people fear me more power the power would make it so that oakville didn't happen again i could make sure it never happened again plus whisper had always undermined me i could tell i could see it in her eyes that she thought she was more powerful than i this surely wouldn't be the last hero i'd have to kill on my path i had to get used to it she meant nothing to me when i struck her down thunder chastised me for killing his sister but he knew what she was getting into this was the business i met jack of blades i wasn't strong enough to take him down yet i needed to save my mother first lady gray told me to visit her sometime but i didn't have time for women she would just get in the way of my duty but would she this woman seemed like a smart one vying for power and moving herself up the ladder maybe that was perfect she was cold and cruel but no sweet woman could ever be with me look at me i've become a monst i went to see lady gray i courted her brought her gifts bought a home finally she wanted me to fight thunder her other suitor to prove myself we battled at the headsman's hill he wanted more than just her love he wanted to avenge his sister he wasn't strong enough just like her just like whisper he couldn't protect her and he couldn't protect himself he was weak how was he supposed to protect lady gray we married the next day i didn't love her truly i felt nothing for her but she brought me up she gave me more money to buy better equipment and she brought me more influence i saved the archaeologist at the docks and headed to litchfield graveyard to find the path to the prison i killed the grave keeper when i got inside and took his key i didn't have time to deal with old bumbling buffoons i rescued my mother from the prison but jack caught us i was trapped again how did i let this happen how did i fail i meant to be the most powerful person in the world and this man keeps one step ahead of me always i made my escape took my mother and headed back to the guild hook coast that's where i'd stop him again he captured my mother at this point i knew i'd make it to him before he could do anything i was too strong and he was a fool who had manipulated his way to the top i'd take it by force during this playthrough i tried to focus on magic going for a kind of evil spell caster thing this is when i realized the limitations of the will system the best spells in the game are the ones that augment swords or bows spells like berserker make your sword swings incredibly powerful for a short moment and multi-hit lets you fire multiple arrows at once i wanted to use only will during my playthrough but it just seemed like fighting an uphill battle this is something that future games would work on a bit but hood ended up becoming an evil archer because the power of bows in this game can be bested by none maize betrayed me i didn't care it didn't even hurt i knew i would be stronger than him he was a coward a fool i would have respected him if he was trying to take this power for himself but he wasn't he died admitting his cowardice i chased jack through albion and made it to the guild hall the guildmaster was hurt this felt odd why did i care about this old man was it because he reminded me of my father was it because he was my father the one that truly raised me i had to get to jack before i could he sliced my mother's neck and there was no pain no fear no hurt just anger rage i had to kill him this was my last test i struck him down quickly i always knew i was more powerful and now i proved that the most powerful man in the world part of the court i was stronger than william himself the first archon no one could defy me teresa was speaking she said i would have to kill her to receive the sword i didn't i didn't want to but she was neutral she wasn't scared of death neither of us were we were meant to die as children the fact that she made it this far was a miracle and she knew that it was necessary i'd gone too far to turn back now i killed her and took the sword at this point i was alone i hadn't seen lady gray in months and scythe communicated with us i took the flame heart by force i felt nothing when i killed these old men i didn't do it for money power or even to feel i just did it because that's what i do people know the name hood they fear the name hood this is what i'm meant for i took the fire heart and headed on the ship of the drowned briar needed me to collect three souls the first was an arena soul i was powerful now i could kill thunder to save some time i also let him go last time and he needed to pay for that i should have killed him already he went down easy and i took his soul into the mask killing these two just meant there was less competition it wasn't a challenge but i didn't need them rising up against me later i took her soul as well the last was who not him i went to the heroes guild he tried to fight and even tried to convince me in the end you have been given too much power and it has corrupted you but it isn't too late to turn back stop this now and there is still hope for you for all of us please let me teleport you to the graveyard take nostro's soul instead it was too late i was beyond convincing there were no morals in this these people weren't anything anymore just bodies with voices mouths flapping and i killed the man who raised me i took the mask and fought jack one last time he was weaker than i expected when the mask sat before me in my hand i knew this is what everything was building to this moment nothing else mattered this was the final power this was my ascendancy to godhood i would do what no one else could i would rule now that you've seen both sides both stories you see the difference this is what this game is about i genuinely didn't think the evil playthrough would be that different i figured it would have a bad ending and you'd kill some people along the way which you do killing the guild master was actually particularly hard for me if i'm being honest but the point here isn't the changes made to the story it's how you view the story once you're in the shoes of a character with different motivations it's how you view the same characters now that you want different things and how just one gold one action as a child can create these two different stories this is the genius of the introductory quests as well they set the tone in the atmosphere for everything that comes after they're a micro version of the grand choices that you'll make later it's not only introducing you to characters and mechanics but how you make choices moving forward sure you can be both good and evil and make contradictory decisions each time but it's just not as fun fable as a whole did a lot for video games it introduced the idea that a game can put the player and its choices at the forefront stories can be told dynamically and i think the modern gaming landscape has a lot more of that thanks to fable i also want to reiterate here that i'm not saying fable did this first but i think its effect on the general gaming landscape and rpgs as a whole is one that hasn't really been talked about very much it also introduced its own world of interesting characters and a fun progression system with combat that kept me engaged there were some things that bugged me mostly resulting from technical issues the ui could be very cumbersome and often bugged out when just trying to swap out gear combat was interesting but felt like it hadn't been fully realized yet and a lot of characters lines had been delivered in disjointed and strange ways outside of that fable is an incredibly interesting and ambitious concept i think its lack of large characterization and basic narrative work to move its goals forward to provide you with a blank slate fable isn't supposed to tell you an interesting story it wants you to tell that story yourself it puts you in someone else's shoes and asks you to take the wheel narratively this can create some amazing situations or some terrible ones but that is up to you this level of agency is what pulled me into fable in the first place and it excels on that point above the rest i genuinely enjoyed my time with fable obviously my favorite part was making choices and playing both sides of the same story crafting my own narrative was fun and seeing my effect on the world and the character were interesting the things that bothered me with fable were mostly fixed in future entries of the series but those come with problems of their own if you get the chance i'd highly recommend playing fable at some point if you already haven't it's worth the time you put into it and fable anniversary makes it mostly more accessible than ever fable had its effect on gaming it was maybe not the cause but the start of a huge trend in the coming years but it also continued its own story its own world that it had developed this would be just the first entry in a series that would continue for over a decade and still has another entry in the works the first game was a success upon release selling over a million copies in less than a year critics praised the game for its depth and open-ended nature molyneux was criticized for promising features that never appeared in the game the studio wanted to capitalize on the success and interest from the fanbase though and greenlit a sequel a sequel which we'll be talking about in the next video bye dad thank you so much for watching dad i really appreciate it as always and lately the attention to my channel just hasn't stopped it's so wonderful to see all the supportive comments and messages like i said i'm trying out this new format with the next chapter being fable2 i think this format will help the channel moving forward and it will help you guys because you'll get more frequent uploads i still want to make the same product in the end but i want to be able to put out finished content more frequently with all that said if you want to support me you can do so on the patreon which is down in the description i put out monthly update videos and some exclusive content that being said i want to shout out my current patrons who support me at the official dad tier we have zachary howard the brunette girl from abba strup sloppy joe 11 shadow cosmos prototype snipe michael choiry isaac dandridge frank horrigan donut stalker christopher garcia calm that noise network at the 10 good dad tier we have shin jammer lyris and classy swish and at the top 20 best dad tier we have isaac hampton thank you so much for all your support i really appreciate it you can also follow me on twitch and twitter which are in the description i've been streaming a lot more lately just watching videos playing games hanging out with chad it's just been a general good time so stop in every once in a while and spend some quality time with your son thanks again for watching bye dad

Channel: YourFavoriteSon

Views: 164,961

Keywords: Fable, Fable 2, Fable 3, fable anniversary, fable the lost chapters, fable 4, Fable The Journey, Fable reboot, fable sequel, fable retrospective, fable series, fable video game, fable gameplay, fable gameplay pc, fable video essay, fable series retrospective, fable review, fable series review

Id: L_BRwwSXGsw

Length: 86min 12sec (5172 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 20 2022