I finally finished playing Fable II this weekend. I enjoyed the game for the most part, but it does have its flaws. Fable II is an Action RPG that is pretty light on the RPG elements. You do level up your character but there is not a tech/skill tree. Plus the loot grinding from a real RPGs is minimal. Still, there are a lot of great things in Fable II that make it worth playing even for the most hardcore RPG fan. Just be aware that it is more of an action game than an RPG. There are tons of reviews of Fable II already out so I’m just going to run down the things I like and did not like real quick for those of you who have not had a chance to play it yet.

The Good

• The Story – I really enjoyed the overall story line of the game. It was fun with some interesting and unexpected twists. Plus, the final payoff gives you three choices on how you want to finish the game which really made me think about how I wanted the Fable world to remember me.
• Simple RPG Elements – Since the game has only about 10 to 12 hours of story line gamed game play (so not counting achievement hunting collection quests) it is nice that you are not grinding through hours of fights to level up and get better weapons. The game really focus in on the work well which are focused on continuing the story and become the greatest Hero in the land.
• Breadcrumb Trail & Your Dog- I don’t have anything against a mini-map, but the option to have a trail leading you to your next quest is great. You don’t have to continually be looking at a little map in the corner and you can explore the world looking for hidden treasure with your trusty dog pointing them all out for you.
• Funny Character Interactions – The little things like people falling in love with you and offering discounts at their stores works really well. Towards the end of the game when half the world is fallowing you around because of how famous you are it is a little over the top but even then it is really funny. Unlike many games I’ve played where you hear the same NPC lines over and over I don’t recall hearing any so many times that they became memorable.

The Bad

• Load Times – While I like having the option to teleport to any area I’ve already been instead of having to run all the way there the load times seemed really long. And I even installed it to my hard disk to help speed that up. What makes it worse is that you’ll get a quest in one town and then have to go to another area of the world to complete the 2 minute quest of killing some bandits and then go back to the person who gave you the quest. The two loads times going there and back are longer than the time it takes actually complete the fighting portion of the quest.
• The Economics – The methods of making gold in the game are very lopsided towards buying a lot of building and then raking in money slowly over time. I would this frustrating because it promotes playing the game for a short time, and then coming back later so you’ll have more gold stored up again. I like to play RPGs for large blocks of time and I found myself regularly not having enough gold. Sure, I could have taken a job in the game to make some, but those mini-games are ridiculously boring.

Even with these annoyances I really enjoyed Fable II. Not enough to grind out the collection quests after the game completes, but enough that I’d play Fable III if there ever is one. For fans of RPGs and those people who like a good action-adventure title I’d recommend playing Fable II.