WORTH A PURCHASE? : No, just grab a copy of The Lost Chapters. Especially if you’re really into immersing yourself into another world. The classic from 10 years back still gets a 8/10 from me. I’d give it a 6/10 as a “new release” by Lionhead studios. Overall, it’s still as much of a great game as the original but with many unneeded improvements and lacking on the side of fixing 10 year old bugs and glitches. Which is a good thing, thank god for that. I can’t really comment much on the Music and sound design as it has pretty much stayed unchanged from the original. Famous for having their characters look like plastic for whatever reason.
Sadly, it was not an engine that I fancied, Unreal Engine 3. The game itself was completely redone in a new engine yet retains it’s gameplay. One thing I do like that they did though was remodeled and retextured EVERYTHING. I gotta find a fix somewhere to remove it. To someone like me however, no, I can’t take that. To someone that has probably never touched the original, it probably won’t even make them flinch. As I’ve mentioned(ranted more like it) up top, it now has this fog and bloom filter over everything. Graphics: Now, if you’ve played fable 2 and 3, then you’d come to a familiar feel of what they were trying to do with this release.
They had almost 6 months to work on the PC port and this is the result. Now, Im not bashing onto consoles or Lionhead, but seriously. Those 2 buttons are so far from each other, its like they didnt even bother to think it through. I need to use the arrow keys on my keyboard to navigate, Press the “A” button to confirm and the “B” button literally to cancel. Completely removed mouse support for a game that was ORIGINALLY FOR THE PC. The option to change the camera setting has been removed, although some have stated its functionality to “Follow” the character still does not work(From its predecessor). Who, in their right mind, programmed this.
Say if I turned my camera to the right and stop, the camera would continue heading in that direction for a few frames and return to its original position. The camera used in this game has knack to have a recoil like effect. If you’re someone that’s susceptible to motion sickness, then you’d probably want to take a few steps back away from this game. Technicality: Still a lot of problems the original had. It’s excusable since it’s Lionhead’s first go at a karma, cause and effect system. Unlike its successors, the choices you make during quest has little effect on the world except for maybe one or two quests involving demon doors. Mass Effect, Fallout, Shin Megami Tensei, to name a few. If you want a rundown of that experience, here’s what I can summarize: I’d rank it as a true “Western RPG” experience, with it’s Karma system WRPGs today are not using enough of, eg. Gameplay: There hasn’t been much difference gameplay wise if you’ve played the original Fable: The Lost Chapters.
I do say “Sort of” because all I’ve heard so far is that one is only able to mod it graphically. I had to go into the steam forums to find a way to remove it and thankfully, Lionhead Studios has now given (sort of)full control over the modding capabilities of the game. I couldn’t even play the game for more than 5 minutes without my eyes getting sore from all the squinting.
There’s a huge amount of bloom, depth of field and a fog overlay on EVERYTHING. As soon as I stepped into the game, the very first scene that comes onto screen, my eyes BLEED, or rather, contract cataracts. To the point, my first impressions of this game was, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING LIONHEAD. Well, actually a very long time ago now that I remember it and it has aged quite well. Now, I did not finish the original Fable 1 but I did put in a good 10-12 hours into it a couple of years back. I recently got hold onto a copy of Fable Anniversary from Lion Head studios.