Hello, hello, my dear lovers of antiquity.

Yes, I know, you’re probably waiting for the analysis of the third part of The Witcher and I even started to write it, but so far this case is a bit slow, so I decided to recall another, no less legendary series of role-playing games. And this series is Fable.

And, in keeping with tradition, a little history. Once upon a time (and still is doing quite well) was an English developer Peter Douglas Molyneux. And he founded the studio Bullfrog was releasing games. But the games are not simple, but the gold is not quite ordinary. You see, Uncle Peter didn’t want to join the mainstream, just releasing what’s trending. He always wanted to go beyond the genre. And he succeeded. In fact, this fellow has invented the genre of god simulator or strategy indirect control. That is, the player can not directly tell his subordinates what to do, to push to action – please, but so influence, oh no.

Each of his games is essentially something original and unusual.

Syndicate allowed to be an agent of a soulless corporation in a dystopian world of cyberpunk.

Theme Park allowed you to feel like an amusement park manager and cater to the needs of the people who came to have fun.

In Magic Carpet, you acted as a mage on a magic carpet and shot magic at other mages

Fable Retro Games, 2000s, Nostalgia, Fable, Mat, Longpost1654642379137295924.jpg
In Dungeon Keeper you were to become a real dungeonmaster, take over a kingdom and make the heroes of the world your fucking slaves

All his projects had a great humor, that’s why each of his projects was almost a box-office success and each was treated as a future super hit. And uncle Petya himself also did not miss the opportunity to promise something like that, for example, in the next project Black & White we were promised to even create spells by himself!

The game came out and… And then it began – the syndrome of excessive expectations. The press massively started to pick on Molyneux for broken promises, and the majority of people who want to seem smarter than they are picked up the banner. Although I personally quite enjoyed the game – as a god you take your own tribe and your own personal mega-animal under your wing, your task is to go to the other tribes and arrange with their mega-animals gachi-grabbing. You are constantly advised by a good angel and a wily devil. In general, the game collected its own, and Sir Peter himself went to make it, the hero of our review – an RPG Fable for the new Microsoft X-box console.

And once again the man’s tongue failed him. Apparently obeyed his wily devil and said that the new game will grow trees in real time. Fucking trees in real time. Every time a talented developer who’s made over a dozen great games is reminded of some trees. Here, you won’t believe it, everyone was so fucking obsessed with these trees, they just couldn’t live without them. I remember back in 2004, riding in the bus, and a little girl of 4 asked my mom: -And if everyone asks God, he’ll do so that in Fable trees started to grow in real time? Half of the minibus was crying with my mom… God, make the trees in Fable grow in real time!!! Because the game isn’t a humorous fantasy game in the original setting, oh no, Fable is a game about trees growing in real time! And they didn’t! Fucking hell!

People have been tearing the hair off their asses and gritting their teeth to explore the vastness of Albion, open demonic doors, pull out Excalibur, fish, buy houses, have wives, and not watch trees grow in real time! Yeah, kamon, Peter would have been happy to make you those fucking trees, but he was in the position of Stark Sr.

Um… I’m sorry, but those fucking trees, mentioned every fucking time someone mentions Molineux and Fable, still triggers. Well, because for me personally, the developer forever was the one who made great games, even if not all of the stuff made it to release. And in the release besides that came a lot – for example, if you get hurt and bring your helmet, get scars on your face, which will be to the end of the game.

You do evil things and your head goes bald, your skin turns blue, and your eyes burn with hellfire. You also get horns.

And no one pushes you either way. This is your story – play and pass it as you want. In general, the level of development of the world reminded me of the second Gothic – here, just as actively all simulate life, talk about things, seeing the hero called him by a nickname at first we have offensive chasing chickens. Well, depending on the reputation, we are greeted with either applause, or tend to run away wherever you can see.

Fable has a very pleasant combat system, you don’t get bored fighting your opponents. Albion is a very original fantasy, without the tired orcs and elves. There is a kind of analogue of goblins, called hobbes. Although their behavior is more like that of the gremlins from the movie of the same name.

The story is about a nameless boy from the small village of Oakville. The boy lived with his loving parents and sister, but one bad day robbers attacked the village and killed everyone. The hero was saved by the passing hero Maze, head of the Heroes Guild. Yes, in Fable, long before those VanPunchmen and Boku no Pico Academies of yours, heroism became an official profession. The business is taught, anyone with the means can submit an order to the guild for a heroic deed, and there are gradations among heroes from nerds to legendary heroes. Maze, of course, is one of those.

He brought us to the academy and sent us to school, saying, “Boy, it’s a shame about what happened to your family, but what can you do? He was also apprenticed with Visper, sister of the legendary hero Thunder. She is voiced by her brother Wisper, who has also been trained by her sister, the legendary hero Thunder.

The prologue ends with our hero graduating from the academy to free sailing. Yes, we have a major mission every time, but beyond that we can do anything we want. And there really is a lot to do. You can, of course, do quests and earn shekels. With these you can buy a house, for example.

In which you can put your wife.

Yes, you can hit on almost any woman, charm her, give her a ring and hobbana, we now have a wife. A friend of mine made sure he had a wife and a house in every town. Or you can score on these no-name queens and marry the mayor of the local capital, Lady Sasha Elvira Grey.

She, as you can already understand, is an eminent lady and it is a very nontrivial task to go for her, but the result is worth it. But it is everyone’s personal business, she is rather unpretentious and bad in character.

And also we have to meet her sister again, find out that our mother was not just anyone, and the legendary heroine nicknamed Scarlet Cloak, and meet another hero, who is simply called the HERO of Heroes – Vale of Blades.

However, here, as is easy to guess, we are dealing with a villain with a good reputation. For how can anyone even for a moment doubt that this character with a creeping voice, a sinister mask under which sparkle scarlet eyes, not to stick a blade in our back?

And then you can ask me if the game has any flaws. And I’ll tell you that yes, it does. There are too many cartoonish weapons in my opinion. And in my opinion it’s not a good solution – when you level up the hero gets older. That is, by the finale we come to a kind of sturdy pensioner. And the rest doesn’t change one bit.

I do not understand these decisions. I saw something similar in Sid Meyer’s Pirates! 2004, and I also found this solution extremely questionable there. Otherwise, the game left a pleasant impression. Later on the game got the sequel The Lost Chapters and was ported to PC. There new quests were added, in particular we were able to communicate more closely with the heroine Briar Rose, whom we met several times in the guild.

Alas and ah, but for some unknown reason the second part was and still is not thrown off the shackles of an Xbox 360 console exclusive. The game came out really great and along with Halo and Gears of War contributed well to console sales.

The game unfolds several hundred years after the events of the first installment. While the level of development used to be about the high Middle Ages, now it’s give or take the 16th century. Swords and magic are still preserved, but now flintlock pistols and muskets are used instead of bows. Here, as another orphan, we embark on a journey to avenge the insidious Lord Lucian, who killed our sister. The game, here in my personal opinion, finalized what I could not live in the first part – the weapons have become more elegant, and the aging of the hero was removed. But for the sake of this I never decided to buy a console. So I have nothing more to say for this part and I suggest to go straight to the third part.

Here there is not such a great leap in time, only about 40 years. The hero of the previous part, who became a king and united all Albion with his wife lived happily ever after and then died in one day. And he had two children, the older Logan and our hero or heroine. Logan’s government can be freely called the government of the tyrant – he with an iron hand drinks everything from people to the last drop, leaving them just enough not to let them die of hunger.