Geekscape Games Reviews Fable Heroes

Since its debut on the original Xbox, the Fable series has been a staple in Microsoft’s first party lineup. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s taken gamers through a second life where they could be a badass warrior, hold down a part time job, have seven wives and buy house after house without ever having to get off of the sofa. But since Fable III, the the tales of Albion have taken somewhat of a back seat, but as you and I know, when there’s a gap in sequels, make a spinoff!

This is where Fable Heroes comes in. Switching gears from the typical Action/RPG style, Heroes is a lighthearted hack n slash that takes players across many familiar locations from the franchise’s history, except presented through a puppet stage play that looks like it could have been ripped straight from an episode of Mr. Rogers. Choosing between puppet versions of the four heroes of Fable II at the start, (brutish Hammer, magic user Garth, expert marksman and all around douche Reaver, and the Hero respectively,) each character provides different playstyles that only become more varied as you unlock more puppets to use.

Once you’re actually in the game, you won’t find anything mindblowing with the game play, but it accomplishes its purpose well enough. Choosing between weaker quick attacks, more powerful flourish moves and an area clearing attack at the cost of some health, beating mini versions of iconic series foes like Hobbes, Hollow Men and Balverines without taking damage builds up a multiplier to increase the amount of gold your earn with each kill. You’ll want to make the most of these cash increases, because not only can you spend gold on upgrades and earn dice rolls for the upgrade board, (more on that in a bit.) There are always four players on the screen at once, so if you’re not cool enough to have any friends, the AI will be your new wingman. And just like a brain dead friend, they tend to stand next to hazards, refuse to move forward at points, and are just all around bad most of the time. My recommendation? Force them to be a ranged character, because the game clearly favors the melee fighters who rack up multiple kills at a time while poor little shooters fire one shot at a time at a horribly slow pace. Even when they do kill something, they’re so far away from the dropped cash that the close ranged characters will snatch it up anyway. This is serious business because the game is always comparing your results with the rest of your team, and trust me, you probably won’t want to be the one laughed at in last place.

Fable has been about choices from the start, and while you won’t be making any life altering decisions in Heroes, being able to take control of your destiny does come into play. Near the end of each stage, the team gets to choose between branching paths that will take them to drastically different areas, usually coming across seperate sets of enemies and end stage challenges. At the end, you’ll either come across a towering boss where the team will work together to slay, or competitive mini games where outlasting your friends is the key to victory. Aside from the paths, while treasure chests full of power ups are scattered throughout the game, special good and evil chests eventually appear. Good chests usually benefit the team in some way, by giving a random member a boost in strength or making it rain money. Evil chests do the opposite and have a chance of sabotaging one of your team mates… assuming it doesn’t backfire and target you instead.

So after you’ve beaten your friends down through skill or through treachery, what do you do with all of your winnings? After each stage, the heroes are transported to a board game, where a roll of the die determines what you can upgrade. The amount of gold or powerups collected determines how many rolls you get, but since it’s all determined by chance, it’s not uncommon to land on squares that you can’t access yet. Imagine being the only one in the group who didn’t upgrade because of crappy rolls? Yeah, it’s a crappy feeling? I appreciate trying something new, rather than the typical “press start to upgrade” routine, but when powering up, unlocking new skills and playable characters relies on chance? Yeah, I’m not having that. On the plus side, all characters keep their upgrades, even if you’re not controlling them, so computer characters keep their gold and can be upgraded for when you decide Reaver is boring and you’d rather be Garth. Wait, what am I saying? Reaver never gets boring.

But even with branching paths, it doesn’t help the biggest problem with Fable Heroes, which is the severe lack of content. The main game is over in about two to three hour, which isn’t helped by the game’s way too forgiving take on dying. KO’ed players can still fight as an invulnerable ghosts and the stage keeps going as long as there’s one player still alive, AI or otherwise. The only drawback, (if you can really call it one,) is that ghosts can’t collect money. But when you’ve already collected thousands in gold that you don’t lose when you die, why do you really care? Reviving is as easy as picking up a health item on the map, but you’re better off dead if you ask me.

Playing through the game again in the harder dark world or unlocking the remaining paths only adds a small amount of incentive to go through it again, but thanks to the shallow, repetitive game play, it might seem more like a chore after awhile. While it might be strange to say, the mini games were the most entertaining sections, giving a much more entertaining break from the action. Especially comparing to what… the boss fights? The ones that are almost indistinguishable from each other? Yeah, I’d rather kick exploding chickens any day. The real bulk of the replay value comes from trying to max out each hero, which is artificially lengthened by the board game I mentioned earlier. But after your first few heroes are completed, will you really care anymore? The only reason I want to keep playing is for the ability to transfer gold to Fable: The Journey when it’s eventually released.

When it’s all said and done, Fable Heroes is a fun little distraction while we wait for the next major entry, especially with a party of four either locally or through Xbox Live. The charming presentation will crack a smile from even the toughest of tough guys and competing against friends is a blast. With that said, the tedious upgrade system, the repetitive action and the huge gap in the amount of content vs. the amount of unlikable almost promises that most gamers won’t play the same small stages over and over just to see the next new character or power. It’s not like I was expecting a full on Fable experience, but with the quality and depth of the Xbox Live titles of today, Fable Heroes doesn’t even compete with older titles like Castle Crashers. Fans of the series will appreciate this new take on their favorite franchise moments, and will even give them a head start with the Kinect version scheduled for this year. But if you were looking for the next great hero of Albion, you won’t find him here.