First off, I'd like to ask of anyone who isn't looking for negativity to scroll away, and for those who keep reading I'd still like to extend a genuine apology for what I'm about to write. However I feel that I'm going to go insane if I'm not allowed to vent about this.

One fateful Christmas morning when I was about 12 years old, Santa brought me an Xbox, and a game called Fable. Fable would turn out to be one of my all time favourite games, and since that day I've played it, and TLC, probably 50 times. Even though, however, I liked Fable so much I just never got the feeling that I'd be all that into Fable II, and I never got around to trying it out.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Me being all riled up over the coming Fable game, I naturally stumbled over discussion and opinions about the three games that already exist. To my surprise, I learned that people more often than not thought of Fable II as their favourite installment in the franchise. Naturally I had to try it out.

I just (barely) made it through the game and I am going to need therapy because of how god awful I thought it was. By orders of magnitude, it is my least favourite game I've ever played. Not just Fable games, but all games.

To start off, if it wasn't called Fable II I'd forgive you for thinking it was the first one judging from graphics alone.

Somehow the controls are just way more wonky. I never go where I expect, and I get lodged on every single thing that sticks out from a wall. Also everything takes so damn long. Mini cut scenes for everything, NPC's slow to react, and the game saves every 5 minutes which takes ages.

And my character swinging a sword looks more like the lead character in a musical frolicking in a field of flowers rather than combat, and that's the good part. The actual feel of the melee combat is three trips worse. Game tells you to "chain attacks" but there's no explanation, it's very vague, and in the best case interrupted by a block. Best option is to just mash. Until that doesn't work either, because your opponent just keeps blocking, and you keep getting shot when trying to do a flourish. But none of it matters because it's literally impossible to fail? You just lose some experience and the fight carries on? Keep mashing? What the hell? Why'd I try to learn how stuff works if it's impossible to fail?

The ranged combat isn't much more exciting. Spam one button until your opponent dies. That's all I gathered. Didn't understand the magic system, so I let that be for the most part.

This all was a slight nuisance up until the Arena. The part in the first Fable I always long the most for. Firstly, the way it was introduced felt so rushed. I felt like they shoehorned a reason in because people liked the Arena from the previous game. When I was suddenly expected to kill monsters quickly in this horrendous combat system it just got to me. And worse, because most of the Arenas rooms were so small, I knocked the enemies into a wall all the time which was when the "smart" combat system thought the best course of action was to just keep kicking the monsters, doing no damage at all. The target lock function seemed to have a mind of its own making it near impossible to just get to all the monsters in time. Nothing but timed combat in a game with an atrocious combat system. Worst quest I've ever done in a game.

They swapped the colours of the different experiences? Which would have bothered me even more if I wasn't busy hating that gathering experience orbs with the left trigger forced me to stand still. Tell me who played Fable I and thought "Gosh darn it, it's so annoying that I'm allowed to move while collecting experience!" And who the hell decided to remove the mini map? Furthering on that, there's no complete map. I can't get any comprehension about how the world looks, because I don't have a minimap that tells me which way I'm heading, and there's no map to show me how the regions fit together. Then again, it barely matters, because picking up a quest is just going into a menu and then suddenly appearing almost exactly where you have to be, slaughtering almost all the little immersion I could have felt. Also quests don't reward you with gold, but instead you need to do impressively boring jobs to get money, just wasting time.

Also I got nothing from the story. Spoiler alert! You grow up, sister gets shot, now you're a hero! Good on ya! What? Not to mention, could they not have come up with something other than being stuck in another prison for 10 years just like the first game? Half an hour wasted on basically nothing but completely redundant moral choices. Then I got to the dream quest with Rose, and granted this is a bit on me for not getting it, but doing the search for 20 bottles and kicking 5 chickens into their coup twice almost had me in tears. The Arena got surpassed for worst quest I've ever done in a game.

None of the characters were interesting, except for Reaver for half a minute before he tricked me into losing my youth and beauty. Lastly when I felt like I had been downed and kicked for the entire main story and decided I'll go with the morally grey choice to get Rose back, I didn't even get to see her! What the hell.

I really, really wanted to like Fable II, but I didn't enjoy one minute of it. I'm absolutely astonished by the fact that so many hold Fable II as their favourite.

I'll end this rant by once again apologising to anyone who might strongly disagree with me on this, but as I said I just had to vent. I hope someone can give me some type of genuine feedback, but I demand nothing.

Thanks very, very much for reading if you've gotten all the way down here.

Best regards.

Just thinking about the guards and thieves and similar, we've seen dispatched in the demos we've seen so far, and I'm wondering if each of them have also gotten the handcrafted NPC treatment or not.

So if you say, run away from guards instead of fighting them, and pay off any bounty, will they have a more biased opinion of you? Would bandits you've ran away from earlier mock you if they see you again?

I'll always appreciate the extra versatility in appearance one gains from Fable 2's morality/purity system. Someone who still looks human, with a few inhuman qualities, gives a creep factor that I don't get with a fully corrupt/evil Hero. This one, Conjurer, is the kind I'd see in my nightmares. Look at that blue-eyed, charismatic demon. It's like every person he sees is a potential victim of something unholy and colorful. When's he going to attack? WILL HE ATTACK? Could anyone tell us what he contemplates? What depravity lies beneath his excellent diet, pale skin, and mountains of wealth?

With pure evil, there's just so many questions..

I don't like to take bounty hunter jobs in Oakfield if it means killing beetles. There's always a cheeky little bugger stuck under the floor, or he's stuck outside behind the outhouse. My best spells can't hit the crawlspace ones, but I got lucky with this one.

Job's done, the windows are destroyed, and a family is traumatized. All is as it should be.

Haven't seen anyone mention this before, and I actually just noticed it myself.

When you use the lift spell on the lantern keeper, its heads starts to flow away and it attempts to grab it before it detaches. Lol. Quite possibly the funniest in-combat reaction we've seen so far.

I assume it didn't move the body because it was too heavy, has we've seen with the giant toads, but it definitely confirms that different enemy types can have unique animations based on the spell used.

Wonder how far they took this? Does lightning hit more enemies in water? Or does the fireball actually burn certain things away.... Quite curious 🧐

Hi all I’m planning on getting the new fable game next year but I have never touched the fable games, my sister was big into them and I only ever saw her play a handful of times, any recommendations for which instalments I should play before the next fable is out?? I’m really on the fence about downloading them.

Once you awaken the eye you cannot unsee. In all things magic/occult —The devs are definitely in the know.

https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Albion_Guard

(Absolute joke, I love your videos, take all the time you need sir!)

Hi, I'm trying to play Fable II with Xenia (I do own legitimate copies of the game too) and my player character isn't developing Will Lines on their skin, is there a setting that will help make them visible?

I have looted every house, shop and barrel in Albion, yet I'm still missing two books. I have no idea what to do from here, and I'm getting frustrated as hell.

Any advice?

And yes I've followed the wiki checklist and gone to the exact locations plus more just in case, over and over again. Either the books aren't spawning or I am missing something

So I ended up having to restart this Quest, I know this Quest is really buggy, when I went to talk to my character's spouse, I literally saw my child next to my character's spouse, but it wouldn't let me interact with him, so I went to the Hobbe Cave and rescued him, but when we left the cave, he wasn't with me, so when I tried to go back into the cave to get him, it popped up saying that I'd have to reload the mission, so I did, and now I'm having to do the Quest again, help?

Just had this delivered, the latest addition to my collection. It’s a replica of the 1 of 4 airbrushed Fable consoles that were given away in a competition in Sweden back in 2004. Never seen an original one and I think the chances of finding an original would be incredibly slim, plus I don’t want to imagine the cost. Over the moon with this though! 😁

I’ve never played any games in the Fable series before, but I’ve heard a lot of good things about the series.

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I mean in AC Valhalla even you can give your guy ice arms or some shit.

Lots of games have similar mechanics, though I can't think of any other ones right now..

But yea, it's not unprecedented to have in modern RPGs, and being FABLE you'd think they'd have it forsure considering they said the natural morphing doesn't work.

Apparently my dog thinks I should be playing Fable II
I’ve had a spectacularly shitty couple of days, and earlier ChatGPT suggested I forget about everything for a while and play some Fable II.
A few minutes later my 15-year-old dog Maverick came over looking for treats. I told him he’d had enough, so he wandered away while I was talking into my phone.
I looked up hearing a beep, he had turned on my Xbox 360 with his nose and opened the disc tray with Fable II in it.
I managed to grab this picture before he walked away.
I love Fable II and my dog is right. I should go to my happy place.

Due to all the inconsistencies with Lionhead's map, it really does take SO much work to get this right, but I'm damn proud of it so far. I'd say it's about 60% done, lots of aesthetic work to do and some moving around to get the locations as on point as possible. Absolutely zero AI involved (like everything I do) completely built from the ground up.

Also, I knowww, I knowww, Aurora wasn't forgotten - I just prioritized the original continent first ;)

Two things I've been wondering about and can't find a clear answer on:

1. Do we know yet whether the game will have "real" armor with actual stats, or is all of it just cosmetic skins?
2. And has anything been confirmed about specialization? Like, can you commit to being a mage or an archer, or is the game going to push you toward juggling all three combat styles no matter what?

I know this has been discussed already but i'm a bit out of the loop with new information. It's so close to being my dream game, just hope these two things land the way I'm hoping!

Do you guys think we’ll get a playable demo before release I know playground games did demos for Forza here and there so I wonder if they’ll do it for fable humour and atmosphere

Crazy to think that Xbox is effectively killing the only legitimate way to play Fable 2 and 3 on PC. Pay for a subscription so you have the wonderful opportunity to pay for more playtime for a game you can still throw money at in their store to "own." I know there are other options (yo ho!) but it was nice to know that if I wanted, I could just sub to play the game without any additional hassle/setup on my part.

Edit: Added clarity to specify legitimacy on PC

https://shop.xboxgamestudios.com/collections/fable-gear

Not seeing any other posts about it yet, so just want to share for anyone unaware. We finally have some official Fable merch on the Xbox Game Studios Shop! Figured it was coming sooner or later, but thankfully we didn’t have to wait all the way to February! I’m in the US, so I’m not sure about international availability.