FABLE
In this article, I will talk about the game fable, which I finally got to – almost 18 years after the release. Let’s talk about the plot and gameplay, about how well the game has survived, and what impressions it evokes now, and try to decide whether this is a fairy tale or nonsense fiction. I’ve played fable before. That was about fifteen years ago, and then I never got past the prologue.
The reason was prosaic – saves did not work in the game. I even tried to go through the game impudently, in one sitting – but this was not crowned with success. And just recently, during a random conversation online, I found out that the reason for this common bug is changing the name of the character’s profile. It also turned out that in addition to the pc version of the game, fable: the lost chapters, which suffered from the above bug, over the years since its release, the game has acquired a re-release called fable anniversary.
In the re-release, the game was transferred to a new engine and pumped graphically. It was he who I chose to go through, so screenshots from fable anniversary will be used as illustrations for this article.
Hero’s childhood
On the continent of Albion, there is a small town called Oakdale. A boy was born here, who will become the main character of the game and the player’s alter ego for the next 20-25 hours. This boy dreams of becoming a hero – a mighty warrior or a connoisseur of magic. It will be in the power of the player to help the guy make a choice, and this choice will have an impact on how our hero will look and how he will be treated.
Fable: a retrospective review
The situation is much more complicated with someone else’s underwear. The hero finds a resident who is sneaking around the corner with his mistress. The local asks not to talk about it and even offers a bribe. The game says that taking bribes is a bad deed, and this is as logical as possible. Then the boy meets the wife of a loving NPC, and the situation becomes much more difficult from a moral and ethical point of view. You can tell that her husband puts horns on her, or you cannot tell. According to the game, laying a man down is a good thing, but I’m confused by how destructive the consequences of good are according to the fable.
So remember this girl, we’ll talk about what place she occupies in the game. In the meantime, the hero begins to learn the wisdom of the sword and magic under the wise guidance of experienced members of the guild.
In essence, teaching character magic and martial arts comes down to teaching the player the basic controls. First, beat the mannequin with your fists, then beat the mannequin with a stick. A little later, the hero will grow up, and he will be taught to shoot arrows at targets and throw magic at targets. At some point, intermediate exams will take place, in which you will have to test your skills in battle against whisper, a roommate, and a sparring partner.
To make matters worse, brother whisper, the hero nicknamed thunder, is one of the most famous heroes in the guild and looks like he could snap a character in half. So, to be honest, I was a little scared to beat his sister.
In parallel with the implementation of the norms of the Albion
You can complete several simple quests – look for apples or run for a while to the demon door and back. I will say a few words about the demonic doors separately, but for this, I will have to jump forward a little in a fabulous way. In different parts of Albion, there are living doors. They always want the weird and won’t open until the hero finds a way to fulfill their wishes. Some doors open only to fat men, some only to married heroes. The door almost always states in plain text what needs to be done to open it. And the player must find a way to bring this wish list of the door to life.
Sometimes these doors hide behind them the transition to a new location, but usually there is only loot behind the door. This could be a potion that permanently increases one of the character’s stats or a customization item like a new hairstyle or tattoo.
Our hero has not yet matured to customization, but has already grown to non-verbal communication: he can interact with non-player characters using expressions. The hero can laugh, and the people around him will react accordingly. A character can spoil the air and people… Well, you get the idea. New expressions open gradually, and at the beginning of the game, a couple of the above actions are available.
Expressions are the only available method of interacting with NPCs. Alas, the hero does not know how to talk and does not utter a single word throughout the game. However, we can imagine that we are playing บาคาร่า a disabled mute hero, which immediately adds 10 or even 20 points of inclusiveness to the game.
