Is Fable 3 as bad as everyone says it is? - A look at Lionhead's failures 

Thanks for watching, I appreciate that. I know this was shorter than normal, but I didn't have more to add lol. Either way, Fallout 2 will be next month for those who have been waiting on that one. If you want to check out Naraka: Bladepoint, feel free to check that out here: Steam- gsght.com/c/xt6qxu | Xbox- gsght.com/c/4vm0v9 It's also free on Xbox Game Pass and has a free weekend from 9 AM PDT Aug 18 to 10 AM PDT Aug 22 on Steam and Epic.

I think i've played through fable 3 twice, and both times it turned into a real estate simulator for me. So by the time i got to the end of the game I was so rich I didn't care.

I started out as a hero, I had the people's interests at heart. I swore I wouldn't become my brother. But after seeing that I would have to buy every freaking property and work my ass off I became worse than my brother. I became the villain. Everyone died and my dog and I lived happily ever after with all the gold I took back at the last second. Oh and my wife gave me a STD. Thanks Peter.

I really like that little detail in Fable 3. Your character is magically inept, so he has to use magical gauntlets to substitute. The system itself is rather bland, but the explanation is pretty cool

The most frustrating part of this game for me is that there is exactly *one* part of this game that I enjoy, and I can't find another game that's done the same thing, let alone done it well. There are many games out there now where you rule a territory, make laws, and make difficult decisions. But no one where you can *walk around in that territory and see the consequences of your actions* take place around you. You removed the drinking limitations? Well now there's a bunch of drunks everywhere. You drained the lake to open a mine? You can now go into that mine. Decided to open a sewage factory? Guess what new building you can walk to. It's such a simple concept that I know must have taken a lot of work to implement, and occasionally I'll force myself to slog through the first half of the game just to play the second. But I really, really want to play a game that takes that concept and does it well. My biggest frustration with Fable 3 is that it could have been my favorite game of all time, if only the devs were given more time.

Ah yes fable 3, where you can literally save everybody by making pies for days or owning and renting out every piece of available building.

The no menus thing was so arduous, it made selecting weapons or outfits way more of a hassle than it needed to be. Don't make me physically WALK to my options menu, just let me select it from another menu, menus are in every game because they WORK.

The absolute best part of fable 3 for me has to be the art. All of the posters in the loading screens, the paintings on the walls of houses, they have such a strong style to them. I had looked up the guy who did all of those last time I played it in 2019 because it really was the saving grace for the game for me. I'll have to find who it was again.

I absolutely loved the butler’s quips in the map room, hell even my wife still quotes the swagger stick line and never even played XD

I used to know a dev for Lionhead who worked on this. I remember her being really frustrated with new ideas coming in from on high and not being given the time to properly implement them

This game is in the "fuck you, I liked it" category even if it IS enormously flawed

As much as I despise the “pause menu,” the moment when the evil is corrupting your sanctum the butler vanishes and the music just cuts out when you pause is amazingly creepy

having your starter weapon morph throughout the game as it gets stronger was nice, but it meant you were 100% gonna get the bone handle since you only fight skeletons up until the first upgrade

The main thing I remember about this game is that I was so good it was absurd, and I funded the ENTIRE KINGDOM with my sword making business. Literally made thousands ands thousands of the fucking things. I had no friends. And then the people acted as if I was making all the evil choices simply because I was so absurdly rich.

The biggest problem with the weapon morphing system is that because of how linear the game feels and how it limits you early on with the ways you can fight and the enemies you can fight, most players get very similar weapons to each other for the most part no matter what

Man, I love this game. I recognize all its issues and whenever people say they hate it I can't fault them; but something about the game just has me adoring it.

As a fun little detail, Fable III actually does look at your Fable II save file and references the protagonist of Fable II as male or female depending on which you played, which is a simple but cool way to connect the games more cleanly for individual players.

Thanks to this, looking back I've noticed a sad annoying trend with magic in game series, arguably the first game has the most, then the 2nd and 3rd games heavily reduce it. It's something that has always annoyed me about dragon age.

I remember there being a lot of lore that never seems to get mentioned in the fables games. Like the Court, the King and Queen of blades and the original tattered spire. I have no idea where the lore came from but I wish it was explored more in these games.

The games industry: "This FPS/Platformer/Beat em up/Shooter needs more RPG elements." Also the games industry: "This RPG has too many RPG elements."

So glad you covered this. Fable 2 is one of my all time favorite games. I was so excited for 3. At first I hated it. But on more play throughs, it ended up being another favorite of mine. I genuinely enjoy the game.

I feel like “great ideas, poor execution” is literally the description of all of the Fable games

The Alien creature is from this dimension called the Void, it's where Jack and the shadow court are from. It was semi sealed off by the Tattered spire when William Black was around. Though it did come out of nowhere and it just seemed like they wanted to have another void monster for this game

There are two reasons why Fable 3 will always be a guilty pleasure of mine. First and foresmost was it was the first game I found that held not only a magic to it that I had yet experienced in video games, but it also allowed me to create basically my ideal princess. Yes that sounds strange but I'm a designer at heart and wanted to see just how far this game went in terms of what I consider "elegance". Two and arguably the most impactful is that it was last good memory I had of my uncle. I still remember him asking me what I wanted for my birthday; it was just a day past and we went to gamestop that night and bought this, along with some Subway. Then two days later on Halloween, he shot himself in a park - he was 26. I turned 27 just a last week. No matter how dated this game gets, it will always be one of my treasured memories and I'll never get tired of playing through it. The crashes? That's a different story.

One thing i loved about the logan overthrow is he draws his blade ready to fight to the last stand until he sees its you leading it and is like "nah i understand"

The biggest aspect that made Fable 3 worse for me, was that a lot items got over simplified. I loved comparing different weapons, attires and food items in Fable 2. Especially the item descriptions of the different star ratings, where one of the funniest parts. Another nickpick I had early on, was that the guild seal looked so weird. It looks like a cheap slighty melted, low res piece of plastic. While I liked that weapons grow with you, I noticed very quickly that weapon types you use often and the last leveled weapon skill (melee or range) heavily affected the drops. During my first playthrough I pretty much only leveled melee. After getting the pistol in front of the mourning wood fort I put ONE level into ranged and used the pistol, because it had a bonus vs. hollow men. My next 5 random weapons where 2 pistol and 3 rifles and all of them had challenges to become shotguns. After that I used only one of the four weapon types per playthrough, to ensure that I got decent drops.

I gave my friend like 100k gold at the start of his first playthrough which made him so rich he got to pick all the good choices and save everyone meanwhile my world was just totally empty lol

I will say, I do have a newfound appreciation for the story after watching the full Fable retrospective from YourFavoriteSon. A lot of lore behind Albion that never really gets explained all that well in any of the games. The Crawler for example, was actually a monster from another dimension that showed up as a result of the spire being built before the events of Fable 1. And then the spire got destroyed, rebuilt in Fable 2 and whatnot. But the Crawler never was killed or anything. It then makes its grand reappearance in 3 to finish what it started prior to the events of the first game.

Fable always felt like a series that coasted off of fond memories of the first game and the potential it had. Each following game seemed to focus in on specific things no one really asked for whilst moving away from a lot of the fun moments of the first. I'm not holding my breath, but hopefully a new studio not stifled by the scatterbrain direction of molyneux will see some of that potential realised

Logan is easily one of the biggest misses of Fable 3. His big twist comes from literally nowhere, and his behaviour up until your visit to Aurora makes no sense with the reveal of the Crawler. They basically had two different ideas for Logan and half-assed both. And if Fable 3 did do proper boss fights, an actual fight against Logan at the end of the Revolution would've been a great moment. Could've shown him to actually be a Hero in such a fight, and let him access to all the bullshit power the player has.

My biggest complaint has always been the count down to the final battle with the big bad goop monster... I don't mind a count down, but I hate a dishonest one. They could have said you have X days left, and given me that many days, I'd be fine with it. They could have said you had a year, then skipped a month every time you did an event and I could have easily worked out that I had 12 events before big bad. They could have given you a second count of events left before big bad as well as the in game day count... But no, they gave you in game days, passed them at a variable rate, and in general left me and many other people I have talked to pissed off that the ending snuck up on them way too fast, that the game lulled them into thinking they had plenty of time then fucked em over... and its just needless, nothing had to change outside of dialog boxes to fix the problem.

Part of what carries this game for me was the local co-op. Being able to play for the first time with my brother and doing our run with matching red and blue chicken suits is something I couldn't get out of the first two games.

he didn't mention this when talking about the slow time and summoning potions, but they become more effective the higher your magic rank is, so if you use spells a lot and have all the ruins on your body then you slow time longer and summon a lager number of stronger monsters.

I remember being deeply frustrated when I tried a balanced approach running the Kingdom, only to have everyone booing me in the streets because the game couldn't handle the player going outside the good/evil binary.

What I didn't really like about Fable 3 is the last part: it boils down to "wait until something happens" and "choices don't matter if you have enough money to throw at it". Really a disappointment.

Being a bit of a hoarder in games, I was filthy rich by the time I reached the end game. The whole "choice" between being good and poor or bad and rich to save everyone missed it's emotional mark and disappointed me so much. I put the game down for a year.

Would love to see you do something like this with recent releases. Underrated and SERIOUSLY accurate. Always great content

I remember when I went to buy this game, I was standing in line for checkout and the guy in front of me was returning it. I wanted to like it, I really did but it was just so deeply flawed. Still, I had my fun with it. I remember doing a playthrough where I deliberately prepared for the crawler as poorly as possible to get max casualties. Everything was the same as in a regular playthrough but every villager npc was dead. My spouse and the guards would just walk around empty towns filled with corpses.

Ahh, the good ol "I don't updated while you're sprinting" sparkle trail. I do recall that being endlessly frustrating. Personally, I always found the second installment to be the most compelling, though I always hated that they removed armor.

The first fable game I ever played was Fable 3. I remember I just chose what I wanted, sometimes being rich or broke, attempting to be the good person, and somehow playing through the game with no idea what was going on. Everybody died in the end

One thing that you missed, is that original weapons would evolve with how you played, but they overloaded the beginning making it that your weapons realistically can only have 1 or 2 looks. Example, very early on in the game you have to go through the library killing all the hollow men (and there are A LOT of them) well, now your weapon has the "Killed a lot of Hollow men" look. You wanted it to look like something else? Too bad. You could just use magic to kill all the hollow men, but then your weapon has the "Uses a lot of magic look." So while even if what Peter said of having 1,000+ weapon varieties, it is borderline impossible to get any of them.

I'm sure Salt meant this mostly sarcastically but I'm still laughing at him giving credit to the sand furies as a new enemy type when they're just reskinned highwaymen from Fable 2

Fable 3's main problem was this: The initial promise that the series started with the post medieval pre industrial setting so long ago was butchered so badly that there was just no direction left to go. There's a reboot in the works which might return it to how it was supposed to be. And that guild music at the end, so nostalgic...

"We were on the verge of greatness. We were this close!" That sums up how I feel about Fable 3. There was so much potential, like they really wanted to explore new ideas, but got half way through and decided it was too much and too difficult, and so just decided to recycle bits of the other games.

I'm personally a sucker for the sanctuary. I loved the entire system. It just made the game so immersive bc even the pause mechanic was lore friendly. Plus the way it flowed and the giant pile of gold 👌🏆

Having played this game as a kid, and forgetting about it all these years later.. I didn't know anyone hated the game, lol. I loved it.

This reminded me of my only playthrough of fable 3. I was super good till I got to that first village where you had to do the interactions. I wasn't feeling the game and decided to kill/attack everyone and the guards that came. I went super dark super fast. Did that for a while, got solid with the law, married someone who only ever cried, had some kids, eventually she... vanished? I don't know what happened, but I wasn't married anymore according to the game. So I went on with the game with all people screaming as I went around. Found and married the girl in the beginning outside an orphanage after I tried to kill the kids in the orphanage. She was super happy to see me (I guess I was still "good" to her). Somehow managed to marry her on the spot, then after the cutscene, she started screaming in fear of me. Guess she got the memo about me? Maybe it was the ghost of the first wife? I will never know, but it was a very memorable game the one time I played it.

I love the Fable trilogy. I also love how much detail you gave here in this video. Subbed after watching all of it!!

I remember this being the first "big" game to be available from the Games with Gold program so as a broke teenager I spent a lot of time with it

I loved this game when it came out and played through all 3 fables multiple times. But I haven't touched it since then. And every time I got the impression that Molyneux wanted to be revolutionary like his games from the 90s with new mechanics and features (the weird 'menu', simplified magic system, upgrade road instead of progression menu, etc.). But by the 2000s and 2010s game developers had pretty much figured most of this out already. I always got the feeling he was trying to relive past glory. But the interesting thing is that Fable would do something and other game developers would implement a similar system but do it a lot better. (morality system, lots of little puzzles everywhere, make random people love you) Fable always felt like a testbed for future game developers to take notes on and do better. And once those other games came out you'd never go back to Fable except as a historical artifact.

My favorite part of the game was the gnome hunting quest. I remember being completely and utterly obsessed with it, to the point that I literally travelled all around ignoring every other quest, I was just waiting for a gnome to insult me so I could shoot them. After I finally finished the quest I was truly sad that it was over, it was super fun

I bought this game when it came out and loved it! My Daughter would sit and watch me play all the time. When she was 10ish she had her own playthrough with my help. As she's gotten older she's done a new playthrough every year or so with me helping out when needed. She's 17 now and it's been about a year so maybe it's time for us to do another playthrough. Her and I have different taste in games but Fable 3 is one of the games we both love! EDIT: Also wanted to add that the quest where you're shrunk down to play in a Tabletop RPG is one of my favorite sections in any game ever!

Ah excellent, fun fact fable 3 was my first fable game and I loved becoming a land baron and buying every property. I’m pretty sure there was only one mission I didn’t do. it was a fun experience.

Excited for Fallout 2. Would love to see your take on Jade Empire. A hidden gem for sure.

I have good memories of fable 3, especially the desert part and the end when you are almost forced to be evil for the fate of the people, makes it feel like your brother was just doing everything he could. which i never played with the whole property and money part asides from having a wife who i killed when i actually saw her face up close

Years ago, my friend lent me his 360 and a copy of Fable 3 while raving about the series as a whole. Long story short, I absolutely enjoyed the hell out of this game. My favorite aspect was how the weapons would morph depending on certain accomplishments. When I saw the backlash for the game, it made me want to play the rest of the series because I figured that if I really liked 3, then maybe I'd love the others. I never had the chance to play the rest but this game still holds a special place in my heart. Also, I got him the achievement for finishing the game without dying...so that was nice lol

"Oh, good idea!" That was a dev. "Why was it presented that way?" Because Molyneux walked into the room. I still remember interviews in which all he talked about eas the GUI system and the damn menu room he was so proud of. On 360 that room slowed down the game to a crawl. I remember the frustration of forgetting to manage one thing and having to go back.

Honestly your style of video is so easy to watch. I have never played nor cared about half the games you cover yet I find myself enthralled every time. Keep it up, love it!

for me it is one of those games that do smth really good and a lot of stuff bad, but the good part keeps me playing. I enjoyed the quests a lot for the humor. I actually liked most of the stupid side quests, i remember laughing when i had to lure chickens back in a cage while being in a chicken suit myself, chickens singing some weird aggressive tune together. A lot of it so silly but also clever and charming at the same time. I definitely had fun with this game but still eventually abandoned it because of all the flows

Loved this video, accurately summed up my time and experience with the game even though I found myself playing through it at least 3 different times-- Don't really have anything to add, just wanted to say thanks for making an accurate video about a game I enjoyed

One of the biggest design mistakes was the insistence that there would be as little UI as possible, which is why you cant actually choose foods, and the same reason you have to load an entire level just to choose a different weapon. Pretty much everything about that was what made the massive downgrade in mechanics across the board and im pretty sure its the main reason why people hate this game. Its not like... terrible, but its fucking annoying compared to the previous games because xbox loading times back then were pretty bad. Edit: I didnt realize how long the video was and didnt watch all the way through. But its still something i hold pretty strongly about this game.

Omg I recently rewatched the first two videos, and I was really hoping you'd cover the third one as well. Glad you got around to it!

The voice cast was stacked with names easily recognisable if you’re from the UK: Michael Fassbender was Logan Zoe Wannamaker as Theresa Stephen Fry as Reaver Ben Kingsley as Sabine Nichola Hoult as Elliott John Cleese as Jasper Simon Pegg as Finn Sean Pertwee as Saker Naomi Harris as Page Kellie Bright as the female hero Jason Manford as Jammy Jonathan Ross as Barry Hatch And more.

Salt wanted to come to your most recent video to tell you, keep up all the hard work. I have been binging these 1-2 hour videos because they just so well done. Also helps getting through the work day easier, thanks for the killer content!

The magic system in the first game allows for so much room for creativity, it's such a shame they only ever dumbed it down

It is frighteningly clear that they spent more of this games budget on famous voices (Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross) than actually on making a game that innovated on its predecessor

Aight but first of all, why is this so smooth and just good looking in your vid like how. Mine is always bright af

i can understand why some people may not like it but for me its a classic, i adore the storyline and the characters, the game really makes you warm up to them and the sadness of seeing general swift captured is sad because of ben's reaction who you know has fought by his side for years and you get his pain and i love the dlc so much, i forgot the name but the 'amusement park' one with the robots was so FUN it added more enemy types and the story in that is hella unsettling and anyway yeah i could go on honestly but at the end of the day i love this game and i always will

Yoooo I literally just rewatched your Fable 1 and Fable 2 vids today!! Great timing and videos as always 👌 👏

Playing through this game so many times, even owning the artbook and collectors edition, I can't get over how washed out the colors look. I could never have the same love for this as I had for 2 and it kinda breaks my heart because I truly wanted to love it. NOT to say it was all bad *the DnD mission will always be a favourite) but it was me falling for Peter's lies, getting on my own hype train and a game released feeling half done at best. The half that is done is amazing, the undone half on the other hand is just... a reminder of a game that could have been and a disappointment

“Every here and there” instead of “every now and then” is literally killing me. Like. Why?

The fact that hobbes weren't enslaved to mine coal is such a huge missed opportunity.

Personally, at the time i played this, the preparation and fight with the Crawler left me with the biggest blue balls i have felt in any game i have played EVER. Sure Fable II was underwelming and lame but after all that Crawler hype building, the actually good atmosphere that its domain had and the ONLY enemies that actually managed to be a menace on the entire game... to end in a shit 1v1 with not even a 2nd face was EXTREMELY disappointing.

This game was my first midnight release for a game, my dad even let me stay home the next day to play it. BOY HOWDY, let's just say Fallout 76 wasn't my first or biggest gaming disappointment.

I think itd been cool if Logain showed up during a mission, maybe at a critical moment and helped you fight, then stating "its time i tell you the truth before more people die" ..he can face his crimes after things are over, but itd help him show his king role a little better

Fable as a series has always been the best example for me of "I enjoyed my time with this game, but I wouldn't call it a GOOD game..." and Fable 3 is the figurehead for that sentiment.

It was a broken mess of a game, but it looked fantastic. The art and design of the game was the only thing that kept me coming back. The garbage mini map, combat, weapons system, and lackluster story just dragged it down.

It's weird in Fable 2 I usually ended up using the slow time spell most often and not to slow time I'd use the part where you could throw it to basically make yourself super fast just so I could dodge more easily.

This game wasn’t perfect but it’s actually my favorite of the 3, because it’s so story/character driven and it’s honestly funny as hell. The list of voice actors they got for that game is impressive

Thanks for making these videos. I like watching them, specifically for bed. No offense, the content is so comfy, it puts me to sleep. Not boring, comfy! Bright side is I end up watching the same video 5 to 7 times. Quality work, love all your videos friend 😊

I love how the Fable Franchise basically just devolved in features after every new game

You are Absolutely Killing it with these Critiques, it’s my addiction & you always seem to upload quickly. Thank You 🙏🏼

Fun fact. There actually isn't any contradiction with Logan's monologue cutscene and his plea in the courtroom. It's purposefully framed out of context to make you think he was straight up evil when he was indeed referring to The Crawler. Watch it again but actually listen to what he says carefully. "This is my Albion (My home) . It's cities will bow to my law or they will burn (The people must follow my rule or be taken by the darkness) . It's mountains will bend to my will or they will fall (I have to use Albion's resources for weapons or there won't be an Albion). This is my Albion. It's people will do as I say or they will die (self explanatory). Its future will be as I decree or it will end (I am Albion's only hope). I have seen what must be done (Because Theresa showed me), and nothing will stand in my way (There's nothing I wont do if it means saving Albion). We will be greater and we will be stronger, no matter what sacrifices we must make (Albion will push back against The Darkness no matter the cost). This is my Albion, and I will see it destroyed before I surrender it (This is my home, and we'd rather die than suffer a fate worse than death.)" This is basically what he meant. Changes the way you look at him once you get the full context.

One thing I wish they had done was make the map of the 3rd game actually use and expand on things from the second. Like the guild hall in bower lake being fully explorable if you drained the lake. Or a partially submerged version you have to delve through caves to reach. Instead they just removed any trace the thing existed despite it being there a generation ago

"I'm not saying that it was good; I'm just saying that my expectations were below sea level" - Pretty much sums up Fable 3

Love all these videos! Long in-depth reviews that I’m sure must take a ton of time to write and produce. Thanks for making them!

You're the man for the way you approached us with the ad. Wish more creators chose that route..

I like that Logan's palace color scheme is purple - which is a mix between blue and red aka good and evil.

THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE SAID ABOUT that unbridled feeling of joy that uncontrollably emanates through every strand of my entire being every time I see a notification for a new salt factory video

It’s still so funny to me how the no menu feature was hyped up like it was the next big thing. Peter Molynuex is the type of guy that would insist on you selling you a car with square tires

On the Xbox, every time you went to the sanctuary, went into a room, left the room, and then left the sanctuary it was a loading screen each time. So to swap your weapon it’s go to sanctuary (loading screen), go to weapons room (loading screen), leave weapons room (loading screen), leave sanctuary (loading screen). It was absolutely horrendous how many loading screens there were on the Xbox, it was nearly non stop

Keep up the great work I love your videos! It would be cool though seeing a review on the Overlord games, they were pretty fun! Again keep up the great work you're a badass🤘

I watch every new video you make, and I am so happy that you’re continuing your project. You bring much joy to my day 🌸

Didn’t believe you will be making this! Thank you so much for completing the trilogy. I will take my time watching this. :)

Great video! In the DLC you do go through a factory and fight robots haha.

It took like 15 years for it to finally hit that the driftwood hippies are the offspring of the caravan camp. It wasn't until I fixed the bridge this time around, playing on game pass, that it finally dawned on me lol

The fully good or fully evil demon door will be different depending on if you are good or evil, also the demon you missed is the best one IMO. It’s the demon door heaven and it’s where they all go once they’ve been opened. I have many complaints about fable 3 compared to 2, mostly with mechanics and story pacing, but overall I think 3 is a really fun game and great addition to the series. I just wish it had more demon doors

I remember liking Fable 3 when it came out, it's just something about seeing the world progress that I love. But when I tried playing it again last summer, it had aged like milk and I coudn't even make it to Bowerstone. Loved the video.

Another special part about the gypsy camp in fable 3 is that it is the same group of people that took the hero from Table 2 in as a child and nursed him back to health. So i always made syre to go visit them as often as possible.

All that work only to read the book and find out the fate of the Hero of Brightwall is to be imprisoned like his father/mother and ancestor, and for Reaver to take over the your Kingdom and make Logan look like a angel. Also, robots are in the DLCs.