Fable... too?

Now, it's been a good long time since I played a game I liked as much as Fable. I want to make that clear. The last one before that was Dead Space, which, as you all are aware, I loved in ways that are unhealthy between a man and his game system. However, Fable II, though more than a worthy successor, has some MAJOR problems that just can't be ignored.

First, though, the good. It's mostly a sort of hack'n'slash RPG hybrid, where you collect experience orbs in the areas you use more often in order to level them up. The game play has been simplified from the first game. It is very simply a color coded button system. Blue experience orbs and the blue button are strength, i.e. melee, yellow experience orbs and yellow button are dexterity, i.e. guns, and the red experience orbs and button are your will, i.e. magic. Your character and world are exceptionally customizable, with tons of clothes, weapons, hairstyles, tattoos, houses, shops, and pretty much anything else you can think of to buy. This is nothing new, though I feel like all of the mechanics of it have been vastly improved since the first game. Really, that's the name of the game here; improved since the first game. Nothing drastically different or new has been added, but nearly every gameplay issue has been improved, and in ome cases very nearly perfected.

The only really new piece of it all is the addition of the dog, who isn't terrible useful. He finds things for you to dig up, but more often than not, they are useless trinkets. You can train him to find better stuff, but in all honesty, he comes across mostly as a gimmick.

The real meat of the game is found in the CONSTANT stream of moral and ethical choices. Do you sacrifice people to one church or daonate your hard-earned gold to another? Do you kill people and take their homes or do you defend them? Do you gouge prices as a shop owner or lower them, to the joy of all your customers? Do you sell slaves, or free them? I, of course, went through the game being as evil and nasty as possible, enjoying every minute, until I found the two HUGE problems.

Firstly, and this is sort of a psoiler, there was no boss fight. That was a elt down, but honestly not that big of a deal to me. There were only two others in the game anyways. It's simply not much of a boss fight game. I got over that one quickly enough.

The second one is the one that really bothers me. After completing the game being bad, I decided to try the other side of the coin. I made up my mind to be the best, most pure, wonderful person I could possibly be... only to discover that the game sports only one save file. Now, I'm not the kind of person who deletes his save games. My red version of Pokemon still has my original Charizard from all those years ago. I simply don't like deleting all the hours of my life I spent playing a completed game. The idea of doing so, especially so soon after beating the game, was upsetting. What this basically means is that if I want to play the game that is literally built completely around choices, and make different ones, I have to give up all the effort I made the first time.

Now, I know I can make another profile on the XBox 360, and have a different save that way, but not only is it a pain in the ass, but I don't actually OWN the 360. It belongs to my brother. I had to fight with him to even be allowed to have ONE profile and the use of it. What I'm basically saying is that, for me at least, the game's setup destroyed it's own otherwise endless replay value. I'm not sure how you can come back from that one, Fabel II.

As a whole, I adore the game, but if I had known that my choices were going to be so permanent, I may not have made some of the ones I did. Huh. Kind of like life. Go figure.