Review: Fable III

I support child labor, brothers, and polygamy. Only in video games though, so don’t go revolting to get me off my virtual throne. See, I have morals in real life. I’m a good person. I kiss babies and all that by day at work. But in video games, it’s all fantasy – and I love when I get to unleash a little dark side here and there. Fable III let me push that to some choices I’ve always wanted but was never offered in any RPG. So consider my platform, I’m Stephanie Palermo and I support child labor (in Fable III). Vote for me for Queen of Albion.

As someone who spent tons and tons of hours with Fable II, I noticed some nuances that have been corrected, some that have been added, and some that still work poorly at times. But what I have to say is, underneath all the fun I got out of both games, a lot of it is the same this time around. Instead of starting out as a raggedy child making your way to Hero status, Fable III starts you off as royalty – a prince or princess whose brother is on the throne with a very unhappy bunch of townsfolk under his rule. Your main goal is to gain the loyalty of several areas of Albion in order to revolt against him. You will make promises along the way that you may or may not keep once your own behind is on the throne.

The part where you actually play as the King or Queen later on is the best part of the game. Making such heavy decisions becomes more than just “good” or “evil” because of an underlying premise they toss in that I can’t spoil. Let’s just say the good choices will leave your treasury rather lonely, whilst most of the evil, or broken promise, decisions will net you a substantial amount of gold. And you need gold. So there is a way around it by making lots of money in the real estate biz, but even though I had a ton of money I still played it out the way I thought most fun. Child labor for the win, folks. Gotta earn that education!

There were actually several decisions in the game that made me feel really guilty and unsure where I’d pause the game for maybe 15 minutes, get a snack and debate over what I should do. I know, I’m a dork, but my e-townspeople needed me! Doing what’s best for them isn’t always what’s best for them, in this case. Being a Queen can be hard (if you have a soul).

When you first start the game, you get to choose your gender but not define any other characteristics. Throughout the game you’ll be able to get several different hairstyles, clothing sets, weapons and dyes to change your hair and clothing colors to make yourself unique. Your weapons actually morph to fit your character as you use them based on how you act and what you do. The wings you may have seen in trailers though (devil/angel wings) you don’t obtain until the very end of the game though, I kind of wish you unlocked that much earlier. Would have been a nice touch to see during more battles.

The battle system has been changed a bit from Fable II, namely that horrid magic system. Melee and ranged weapons work very similarly, except that you can charge up and attack with melee now, and also sometimes you will complete a ‘flourish’ where you’ll see a slow motion nice finishing move with your weapon. Each weapon also has individual upgrades. When you complete the specific weapons requirements (i.e. kick 100 chickens, kill 500 soldiers) you’ll unlock an upgrade for your weapon which might be gaining extra experience during each battle or something similar. For the magic, instead of setting each of the five tiers to a different spell, now you just get gauntlets. You can use two gauntlets at a time (once you unlock it) and combine two different spells at once – which is amazing. Combining raining blades and shock (lightning) will raining put any enemy balverines you may comes across to rest. During battle your health will repair naturally when you’re not being hit, but you can also buy potions which are mapped to the D-pad and show up when your health is low as a little “suggestion.”

Since the game has really gone after the idea of eradicating menus as best they could, when spending your experience points you now spend them in an area called Road to Rule. Road to Rule is a very long pathway of 48 treasure chests that you can spend your experience on. There are some things such as upgrading your skill at jobs like Lute Hero or Pie Making, upgrading your prowess in melee, or earning a new magic gauntlet.

The Sanctuary, where you meet your butler Jasper, is another non-menu menu in Fable III. At first I was really worried it would be cumbersome and tedious to have to walk into one room to change my clothes, another to change my weapon every time, etc. But there are actually hotkeys to move into each room quickly by using the D-pad which made it actually a lot more fun and visually appealing than I expected. Your Sanctuary (aka the pause screen) has one room to change your melee and ranged weapons, as well as your gauntlets. Another room has all of your clothing, makeup, hairstyles, facial hair and color dyes to alter your clothes and make them unique to you (you’ll probably be playing online, after all!).

There is also a room that contains your achievements hung up on a wall (the game also has achievements progress much like Gears of War every time you get closer to unlocking an achievement) – and your Xbox Live settings. You can warp into a random person’s world (to whoever has their settings open to anyone joining) or join a friend. But don’t worry, no one can just jump in and wreak havoc on your town (Animal Crossing…) unless you turn the safety off. They can do quests with you, search for collectibles with you, battle with you and everything. The online is far improved from Fable II’s garble of a “co-op” offering. You can bring your full hero, money, dog, with you and back out with you when you leave. No more being tied to a single camera – you can roam around wherever you like as long as you’re in the same town. It worked really well, you can marry, reproduce, go into a business partnership, or trade STDs! (Results may vary. I got an African American baby when my character mated with another white male hero, somehow.) It was laggy at times, and I’m not sure if it was just one of our connections or not, but otherwise we had a ton of fun doing quests together and making babies with Legendary Condoms of the Gods.

The music in the game really stood out to me and was very fitting for all of the story scenes. I really enjoy the musical score of the Fable series. Not to mention the all-star voice acting cast that went into this game, a lot of great work was put into all of the audio in Fable III.

Fable is the perfect game for those who love collectibles, because they’re actually fun to explore and find. There are now evil gnomes (much like the gargoyles of Fable II), silver keys are back with some gold keys, demon doors return, flowers, ancient books, and achievements for collecting every article of clothing and every weapon as well.

The side quests in the game are a ton of fun – and one of my favorite things about the game that I wish more games would follow suit with is that after you beat the game you can keep playing, post-game and there are still things to do other than just collecting. The only quests that need to absolutely die in a fire and whoever decided to throw this in should be shot is the way to gain friendship with citizens individually. For every person you do the same exact fetch quests over and over to gain their friendship/love. It’s incredibly tedious and boring to do, so to get it over with for certain towns my suggestion is to have 5+ open at a time and do them all at once to get the requirements done quicker.

One thing that is notably wonky is the breadcrumb trail that points you to where you need to go for your quest. For major quests it seemed to always be on point but for side quests it would take me all around the mulberry bush sometimes for absolutely no reason at all or just disappear completely so you have to stand still and wait for it to reappear. That was a major frustration of mine during the game. Luckily, you can fast travel now, do take advantage of that for quests like that, they warp you really close to the necessary destination. It’s fantastic.

Another minor gripe was that bringing up the map should have been hotkeyed. There is a hotkey for it, but only if you do not have a quest selected, so normally you will have to press start to go to the Sanctuary, walk up to the map in the center of the room, and bring it up, press Y to view open quests, or click the town you’re looking for. And for some bizarre, pre-1990’s video game faux pas, there is no marker on the map showing your current location. It’s not a major problem most of the time, but it’s certainly a required feature of this day and age, I kinda think.

The good really outweighs the bad in Fable III, and to be honest with you, those who never played a Fable game before will probably get even more enjoyment out of it than those of us who played the previous Fable games. Being a Queen was something I really enjoyed in this game, as I was presented choices that “my other half” had a blast with unleashing the evil in me. Don’t worry mothers of America, I have morals in real life. That’s why I play video games. Down with orphanages, up with brothels!

Fable III
Xbox 360
	Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios Developer: Lionhead Studios Genre: RPG Release Date: October 26, 2025 MSRP: $59.99 ESRB Rating: M for Mature

Doin’ It RIGHT: - Tons of side quests. - Being a King/Queen is lots of fun, the moral decisions are unique and interesting, and often difficult (if you have a soul). - Finally an option to institute child labor. - Avatar awards!	Doin’ It RONG: - Breadcrumb trail falters a lot during side quests. - No marker on the map to pinpoint your current location. - Friendship fetch quests are super tedious and repetitive.
FINAL SCORE: 9 / 10