Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Disappointing"

I bought this game after loving Fable II but quickly found that in reality there was not much similarity between the games. Nearly everything about the game mechanics have changed and not for the better. The five biggest issues I have with the mechanics are:

1. The pause menu - it is now not a menu but a 'sanctuary' with different rooms with different purposes. While this sounds interesting, in actuality it ends up being more of a faff than just having a normal menu. It is also hard to find things sometimes.

2. The shop system has been completely overhauled. Now items are stored upon cushions or mannequins and you can't try on clothing. This is a problem because it means that stores hold many less items and mean that making money by buying and selling is nearly impossible. This is not helped by the fact that you can now only sell to the pawnbroker, not to individual shops.

3. Interactions have also been completely overhauled. On Fable II there was a whole range of ways to interact with people, now there are only two - good and bad. These are random and you can't pick what you would like to do. You also have to do mini-quests to become friends with people and then take them on a date if you want them to fall in love with you - major waste of time. There is also no interacting with a crowd unlike in Fable II.

4. The Road to Rule - this is a long road with chests on which as the game progresses you are able to unlock them and gain rewards. This is how you level up everything - weapons and jobs - as well as how you learn how to have a family, become an entrepreneur etc. It kinda takes the fun out of leveling up blacksmithing etc.

5. Guild seals - this is what you need to unlock the chests in #4. You get these from killing creatures as well as doing quests and talking to people. This means that there is no advantage to using one style of combat over the other unlike fable 3.

I did however like the initial storyline in this game and thought that it was something a bit different. But part 2 of this game completely ruins part 1. Trying to avoid spoilers, but you need to earn large amounts of gold - many millions, which is in all honesty quite boring.

So if you've never played any of the Fable games before then I'd suggest playing Fable II over this game.

~Charli