This game showed some real potential a third of the way through the game, but it fell flat on its face before I reached the midpoint of the story. Despite its rushed story and poor maneuverability, the game shows some potential as you begin to level up and fill the role of the Hero. Experience gained is split up between Strength, Speed, Will, and General experience orbs, which you can use to power up corresponding skills, allowing for customization of the main character throughout the game. The vast world that is available for you to explore is rife with chests, traders, townspeople, monsters, and small clans of wanderers for you to befriend or antagonize, assist or terrorize. Aside from your direct actions towards the world, direct interaction with the mindless masses also affects how others see you.
The downside to all this fun development is that the higher tier skills seem rather useless, if not detrimental, to purchase due to a clunky combat system. The side quests and the winning over of individuals are fun enough in the beginning, but quickly grow stale as the story goes on. A number of strange glitches and a slow, unresponsive system add to the programming mess that comprises Fable II. Instead of organizing the control layout to conveniently allow players to fight smoothly, the block button is the same as the attack button and doesn't kick in until a second after the attack button is held (if at all), you stop entirely in order to use magic with no way of quickly cancelling your decision, range weapons become ineffectual as the story progresses, some button inputs don't get recognized on the spot and give no sign of such, the lock-on command doesn't work unless you're close to an enemy (even if they are, the lock-on can still shake around the main character uncontrollably), and it feels like an idiot programmed the lock on system's method of switching targeted enemies when there are more than a few around.
I Would Have Been Your Daddy...
Having heard good things of Fable and witnessing a decent combat system, I believed that this sequel would be something worth playing, but I've thrice now rage-quit in the middle of a fight: once because I couldn't switch targets at ALL when there were enemies all around me repeatedly shoot-stunning me, once because I was unable to hit/damage the last two enemies of a group and staying stuck in one room until I ran through several revival potions, and once because I started attacking an enemy next to a wall and became stuck in a vulnerable charge-up position until I lost over half of my thrice upgraded health. In addition to the crappy fighting system, glitches, lackluster upgrade system, and meager side-quests, the job system that was thrown in seemingly last minute is a mindless minigame, and the lack of consistent responses from the console made the timing in some games requiring chains of accurate button presses very frustrating. Out of all the games I've played, the only three reasons I've stopped playing a game are because the game either loses its appeal, I feel I've already accomplished harder tasks than the final boss and doing so would reveal no interesting plot I could generally forsee, or because the game is so fundamentally flawed at a conceptual or programming level that I can not bear playing it any longer. Far Cry 2 used to be the only game that fell into the last category, but now Fable II joins it. I'm not sure how this game plays for others (my console and controller are not at fault as Vanquish, Castle Crashers, and Ultimate Spiderman responded fluidly and immediately), but I honestly believe that this game is a disaster that isn't worth a buy. If anything, Fable II feels like a $5 to $15 value game that had little testing or quality assurance attached.
Quality Animation!
Overall, Fable II feels like it could be a fun adventure game, but the many small hiccups and flaws that appear mid-game make playing through to its completion somewhat unappealing. The cartoony graphics and facial expressions were actually pretty good for the style. Expressions seemed to blend seemlessly together to form animated civilians, and dungeons had the right air of creepiness and lightheartedness one might expect in a game like this, so I'd say it receives a 4. Music was alright: it added to the mood appropriately and I could tell what the atmosphere was supposed to be like when I entered a different area. It gets a 3.5. Narration (can't say for certain how good it'd be since I only got 1/3 of the way through) seems like it'd receive a 3 due to its flat story and shortage of interesting characters. Gameplay was...bad. I thought Ultimate Spiderman's combat was underdeveloped (which it was), but at least you felt like the game was fun enough until the end of the campaign. In Fable II the gameplay actively took away from experience in many critical moments and rapidly brought down what could have been an interesting narrative point or a strategically challenging fight. During fighting-heavy sequences, the gameplay fell apart; during town exploration sequences, the gameplay was alright if somewhat underwhelming. Only because of the side quests and interaction system with villagers does gameplay get a 2. Lastly, the atmosphere was well done. Though not the quirkiest or most unique areas, the changing weather system and the cartoon graphics blended together with varying enemies to differentiate each explorable area from the last. Therefore, atmosphere gets a 4. Overall, I say that Fable II gets a 3.3.
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