Arcade Review: Fable Heroes

Can this puppet rendition of Fable be of any good?

• Name: Fable Heroes
• Genre: Beat 'em Up
• Players: 4
• Multiplayer: Yes
• Platforms: Xbox Live Arcade
• Developer: Lionhead Studios
• Publisher: Microsoft Studios
• Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
• Reviewed On: Xbox LIVE Arcade

I have this unspoken love for the Fable franchise. While the games are not that great, they still have some sort of charm and flair. It’s a nice game to play when you have some time to kill and the misplaced adult humor has always had me intrigued, since I first played the franchise. They are not great games, but they do have their own level of special, and I like that.

Enter Fable Heroes.

Let me start by saying that I’ve had high hopes for this game. I really wanted it to succeed in the arcade marketplace, where it would then introduce me to some more of that quirky Fable goodness. It did exactly that. In the opposite form. In Heroes, you play as puppets which are characters from the Fable franchise. The game has you hit shit until they die and get gold. I just described the extremely deep goal that this game presents you.

There is no storyline at all, even in the slightest. While this isn’t such a bad thing, because beat ‘em ups don’t really need storylines as they are fun to play, Fable Heroes completely messes up in the fun department. The combat is excruciatingly repetitive with nothing to separate it from the other, huge, host of beat ‘em ups.

You use the X-button to hit shit. That’s about all there is. There is a flurry attack, but it takes about 2 seconds to charge and in that time you’re being raped in the nostrils by Hollow Men. And when the flurry attack actually hits, it does little-to-nothing in terms of damage. There is an area attack available, but you lose one heart every time you use it. Please explain to me why that’s a good idea? Couldn’t there be a stamina bar somewhere, or some variation of, limiting you from just using area attacks? Nothing at all? Just make an attack that can potentially kill you? I don’t even…

Your ultimate goal in Fable Heroes is to get as much gold as you possibly can, so that you can transfer it into Fable: The Journey — which isn’t releasing at any point of time in the near future. If you play this game for weeks on end (I seriously commend you if you manage that) then you can be an instant billionaire by the time you actually get The Journey.

The only good thing about this game is the characters and locations that are taken from the Fable franchise. You play in all the memorable levels from past Fable games and use the puppets of all the memorable characters, and that’s about the extent of it. The puppets aren’t necessarily well designed, and look kind of stinted when you’re in actual combat.

One of, if not the most annoying thing about the entire game is the absolutely idiotic camera. Sometimes it does its job and puts you into a top down perspective of the field, as per the usual beat ‘em up formula, but it sometimes goes south. Literally south. It goes into the side of all the action and makes the enemies and your puppets extremely difficult to differentiate. I frequently got lost in the immense orgy of enemies and gold coins. Due to that, I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what I was hitting.

The AI is that of the Herp-a-Durr variant, and it does exactly the opposite of what it’s supposed to be doing. When there is a boss fight, the load of idiots just stand there in front of the massive boss and get insta-owned. They don’t dodge or use their attacks correctly, they just stand there bashing cluelessly and dying more frequently than they’re supposed to. If you want to torture yourself and play this game, then I highly recommend playing with some real-life players. I swear even Jimmy the Resident Retard can pull off a better job than those AI idiots.

The way you level up, is, after every “mission” you get a set number of dice-rolls dependent on the number of coins you managed to allocate throughout the level. You then roll the dice, land on a skill-specific square and choose one of three options. These options are what you will buy with your gold. It’s somewhat unique, but it’s not really all that great or revolutionary.

You do get a host of power-ups in the levels, and they come in the form of lucky-packet chests. Some are completely useless and some are maybe a bit useful. There are no exciting powers and you sometimes question whether or not you actually want a power-up. They range from making your puppet bigger or smaller, super speed, some coins and even a chest that attacks you. The most useful of the lot is super speed which has actual practicality to it.

Please, in the name of all that’s holy and Gordon Freeman, please don’t get this game. I beg of you. There is nothing great about. Nothing unique and nothing exciting. I’ve promised myself that I will say these words when I get to review a bad game. Fable Heroes is a load of steaming, stinking, rancid piss.

Name: Marko Swanepoel
Location: Vereeniging
Position: Author, Features & Columns

Marko has published 97 posts. Read all of Marko's posts.

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