Fable Heroes Review

Posted on 29th May 201229th May 2012 by

Publisher: Microsoft Games

Developer: Digital Reality, Grasshopper Manufacture

Format: XBLA

Release Date: Out Now

This is an interesting one. Obviously the namesake has considerable weight behind it which is a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand you have instant appeal to an already established audience but this comes coupled with the expectation of, if not a specific type of game, at least a certain level of quality. Fable Heroes has received a lot of bad press as a result of this catch 22 but when taking it as a separate entity, it tells another story.

The biggest difference between the other iterations of the Fable series and this entry is that the originals were big, long, dedicated single player adventures, something which the series did quite well and built up a reputation. This is completely turned on its head with Fable Heroes where the best gaming experience comes from multiplayer and single player feels decisively hollow. Fable Heroes gives the impression that it was planned for a bunch of friends with a couple of beers who didn’t want the intensity of a FPS, action packed game and yet couldn’t bring themselves to break out Monopoly from under the stairs. The game contains short levels, most of which can be completed in about 10 minutes and as you progress through the game you can upgrade various abilities depending on the amount of the gold you collect which goes towards a fund to exchange for dice rolls. That’s right, dice rolls. Rather than using XP to upgrade your character as you see fit, instead you earn a certain amount of dice rolls either as special items throughout the game or by hitting certain amounts of gold throughout the level. These dice rolls then decide what type upgrade you can receive as you land on “attack” squares, “defence” squares etc.

The game itself is centred on you and your puppet allies which are all toy versions of different characters from the 4 previous Fable games as you hack and slash your way through different environments and take on different enemies and bosses. The enemies drop gold and health and as you progress through the levels you will also find chests which will contain the same as well as some occasional power ups such as Giant Doll, Super Speed, Slow Time and such others. Far more interesting, especially in multiplayer is the occasional set of good/evil chests which perform a roulette style lottery in which, if you picked good, one of your puppets will be showered in gold at random, but if you picked evil, one of your puppets can suffer from one of the status effects that places you at a disadvantage such as shrinking your character. This is exactly the kind of game mechanic that me and my friends (and my kids, which says a lot about my friends) love as the randomly picks someone to inflict its blessings/wrath. As an aside, I noticed my son was far more likely to run and open the good chest to see who’d get the goodies while my friends wanted someone to suffer and would always pick the evil chest.

Fable Heroes is designed to look like a cute and welcoming game, plenty of bright colours and locations that look as if they have been transplanted from previous iterations of the Fable series. It’s nicely polished while managing to have a simplistic charm to it, tweaked just enough to give that party atmosphere which serves the multiplayer so well.

I like Fable Heroes, it’s not for everyone, that’s for sure. The people who love Fable for being Fable will be sorely disappointed in this addition if they are expecting a vast world with twisting plot lines. But as a stand alone game, Fable Heroes is fun, particularly when playing multiplayer. If you’re looking for a game to chill out with, I don’t think you’ll do much better than Fable Heroes.