So just finished Fable III... It's come full circle. The game was off to a dissapointing start, had a strong middle and in the end, had a bittersweet ending. While less of a cop out that was Fable II's ending (which was basically, you've made several far reaching decisions but in the end you only have three choices to make, none of them good and that's that).
The first act of Fable III is very linear, you are forced into a narrow path without much room and the pay-off feels mild, the second act is where the real meat starts, you are the King and there are several missions that you must undertake in order to secure the kingdom's wealth and if you don't want to the Royal decisions just yet, you can explore, gain wealth and do several good(or bad) deeds and missions.
The 2nd act is exactly how long you want it to be, because rushing through it, you will simply find yourself thrust almost immediately to the third and final act which is over way too quickly.
Fable III's decisions are final and carry through till the very end and much like Fable II, once is done, it's done. In all of my adventures, all of my main allies survived, but at great cost to the general population.
But sad to say, overall, while Fable III outranks it's predecessor on plot, characters and such, the game world feels so much smaller, the quests feel repetitive (fetch item X, dig up scroll Y, find item Z) and I end up feeling more like an errand boy rather than an actual King, let alone a proper Hero. And I never was in danger in Fable III, why because it's too darn easy! And that Sanctuary... let's do a away with a simple menu and instead create an overly complicated room that seems even more restricted.
It's true that the option of choice also gets mangled in Fable II, but that game had a larger world, the plot was generally passable, hence why quests and side missions where much more interesting in that version and it generally felt that I could be my own adventurer and it felt like I was making a difference in my own way.
But once again, I don't think there are any QA testers at Lionhead Studios. There are massive slowdowns in places where NOTHING is happening! The small quests are also very hit and miss, when I want to befriend a character, they ask me to do something for them (fetch this, deliver letter to that person, buy me something), that darn glowing trail simply forgets to clearly point me to whichever direction the item is located. This is frustrating to no end. Fortunately no major story quests were broken which were a somewhat regular occurence in Fable II.
All in all, Fable III was once again an attempt to correct Fable II's shortcomings, but it chose instead to dumb down the gameplay and be play it extremely safe. I guess the ultimate insult is that even in the end, your choices are inconsequential.
