First and foremost, if you did not at least enjoy Fable I, you will not like this game.

All right, there are so many things mister Peter and his staff over-hyped, and that's just life for video games made by companies capable of putting the machine into motion. Really, we can only blame ourselves. So that is why I both have no idea what was said and no idea what was lacking by such comparison. Which, ultimately, is the only fair way to review a game.


Graphics: 7/10

Good, nice, not awesome. Very reminiscent of the first game, and not a huge improvement (if you can find a way to zoom in on your hero's face you'll notice it really is much prettier, but other than that) but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Personally I'm very happy with that, and the cut-scenes are just gorgeous. There are still places in the game where even by today's standards you'll stop and say "Well that's just beautiful."

There are, of course, some goofy clips and such, but I don't really see them. A lot of people seem to so I'll mention it even though I've (almost) never noticed.

All-in-all I think they did a good bit with these, and perhaps sticking with the old graphics wasn't the best move, but I think it shaped up nicely for the over-all feel of a great game we all knew and loved. On that note I will mention it does seem they tried very hard to stick with the original feel of the game. I won't say if that is good or bad, but I liked it.

Sound: 9/10

I've always been a fan of Fable's music, and the second held true to the first (a lot of the same songs actually). The atmosphere is usually pretty well settled, and it's generally just a nice little ambiance, which is really what game developers should be going for anyway no?

You may find the music goes a little stale by the time you finish the game, but that's to be expected of any game. Usually by the time it goes stale you can't even hear it anymore, not an ideal situation, but acceptable.

As for the dialogue though, well, just like its predecessor, the voice casting was well chosen (with the exception of your mentor in my opinion) and easy on the ears. The quick-witted colloquialisms and smooth application of the British accents are quite keeping with a game set in this "time period" (roughly the Renaissance, maybe even as late as the Romantic age). Point is, yes, the dialogue is awesome, and if it weren't for the slight shortcomings in the music I would have given this a perfect score.

Gameplay: 9/10

Note this is not inclusive of combat.... that has its own section.

Anyway the gameplay is, yes I'll say it, perfect (In my opinion). There are just so many choices, all excellently executed. You can have various jobs (woodcutter, blacksmith, assassin, bartender, community service, etc.), be male or female, marry, own everything, and make people hate you, fear you, love you, or think you're a clown. Just so many things! Let me try to explain at least a bit on everything I can.

When you first start out, you're a poor, homeless child. Depressing isn’t it? Well as a young adult, you won't be much better off. You have a dog and whatever bonuses you earned in various ways before the game even came out (there were two flash games and the pub games).

Much like the first game, your childhood is a bit disappointing, only a few things to be done, and then it's over (actually the childhood in the first might have been a little longer), but they are still enjoyable.

The young adult stage is much longer than Fable 1 (not just three training tests now XD) and can be longer than the entire first game if you play it right. Here is where the fun stuff starts. You can buy houses, and choose whether to be a beneficiary to the town with having low rent and shop prices, boosting the economy, making yourself Pure and, ultimately, being loved by all or conversely be a Corrupt tyrant of a landlord charging 100% the usual rent, driving the economy, and your tenants, into crippling depression. Naturally they hate you for this and as an added bonus, much of your 'demon' appearance comes from this. An added note, you also get more money for decoration, a better economy, and lowered prices to the sweet spot of getting enough extra customers to cover your price cut, and the love of your tenants. You collect rent from every property every five minutes after it gets a tenant and depending on your percent charge, economy, area populous, nearest shop, etc., getting a tenant could be from 6 hours to 7 days or so.

You may also work for money (but what fun is that?) doing simple mini-games, in which you build up experience levels and multipliers as you go making more money per log/sword/glass as you progress. These are not as profitable as real-estate, but the cash is guaranteed. Actually fair amusing. I really use them to pass the time to collect a few bouts of rent.

Morality (good and evil) is also a nice little thing. Much like corruption, most actions affect it. Although unlike purity/corruption, only two or three types of food affect it compared to almost all. This decides what you will look like, be it a beautiful and pure holy man, or a twisted and corrupt demon (it looks soooo cool!!!) and everything in between. This game really does allow for anything you can desire to be.

Renown and Attractiveness, while absent of physical representations, also play a large role in human relations. Basically, higher is better. Ermm... usually, this game does have the occasional weirdo just like real life.

Quests can be a bit simplistic, but really now, I think after 20 years we've learned that that's just the way games are. There are only about a dozen types of quests, and yeah you can change them up a bit with dialogue, story, special items, diaries, whatever, but at the core it's "fetch this, kill that, go here and come back" and the like. This game did very well holding its own against that I believe.

Er... let's move on, because I could go on about gameplay forever. I think you've got the idea.

Combat: 5/10

It's crap, pure crap. Not unplayable, but I hate it. Melee is single-button combat, enemies have a bit too much health, but hey that's fine because you can't die, and....let's just break it down.

I'm going to compare this to the first a lot, because that's the fairest comparison.

First, melee is now one button. That means hold it to block, add a direction to charge a flourish, tap in right sequence to get chains, and otherwise kind of just mash it.

Second, Will is gone (the bar is anyway). You can just hit the button (B) and charge up an attack, longer you hold, stronger it gets. Now, that leaves us with no spells that are just instant cast for damage, no chain lightning, and no multi-strike/arrow spells! Now, the Physical Shield I was happy to see go (despite the fact I always used it in Fable 1) but the health system ruined seeing the shield go. We'll get there in a moment. The one good thing I will say about the new will system is the spells do look cooler and the new spells are quite amusing.

Third, ranged atacks! UGH! No charging your bow and regular bows are gone. If they could have swords in the age or guns, what harm would a regular bow do? The guns/crossbows recharge way too slow (about 1.25x slower than necessary in my opinion), and that bugs me to no end. With the awfully boring melee and the charge time of the Will powers, this leaves no truly viable solution to large armies of enemies. Well, not true, Will works just fine. You just have to take the hits.

Fourth, it's definitely not the worst, but a tad annoying. Health! You have too much, you take too little damage, and even if you do die, you just get a scar and stand back up... Sure, scars lower your attractiveness, and I hate looking at them myself, but damn! I die, and I get a scar? And that’s if you don't have a resurrection vial to save you from even falling over.

Compared to Fable I, the health isn't that big of a deal though. Why? Because I don't even know what happens when you die without a resurrection vial (XD it never happened). This game was never supposed to be hard, nor was the first, so it's acceptable.

Now I went into combat hard, but I don't mind playing it. I'm just saying that compared to the first game, it has no chance. They really ruined it in my opinion, but stand-alone (not comparing to the first game), I would have given it a 7 or 8/10, because while pathetically easy, it's supposed to be... and it is amusing.


Storyline: 8/10

I can't say much about this, but it is involving, nice, and amusing. Perfectly good and acceptable, a bit above what the first was (although you'll notice right off the bat there will be a lot of stuff stolen from the first).

I promise you won't regret the storyline. But I won't spoil it.

Bugs: 9/10

I haven't seen any (that really affect anything), which means there are relatively few and not game breaking. So not perfect, but fine.

Overall: 8/10

Yeah I hit the games combat hard, but it’s not the best. The rest of the game was done pretty well, but there is always stuff that could have been improved. But as I said, if you liked the first, you'll love this too.
Your friendly Vortex editor, Mageta.