Fable (video Game) - Reception

Reception

Fable received positive reception by critics. The original Xbox version of the game has an aggregate critic score of 85% at both Metacritic and Game Rankings. The game won more than fifty awards, and became the Xbox's fastest-selling game up to that time.

Fable's combat was praised as working well. Staff from 1UP.com complimented the multiple approaches to combat which the publication stated made the game more a mini-game of its own.

Though pointing out several flaws in the game such as bland character designs, Marc Saltzman of USAToday.com stated that the game "should satisfy you with its incredible depth, open-ended game play, and a solid story that gets even better about half-way through the adventure." Fable has been praised for its concept of free will and having consequences for the Hero's actions. Other aspects of the game positively received included the game's tongue-in-cheek characters and what The Observer called a "very British sense of humour, in the style of Monty Python or Douglas Adams".

The short length of the main plot was criticised by reviewers, but many overlooked this due to the much larger array of side quests available to the player. One of the complaints that arose upon the release of Fable was the fact that it failed to include features that Peter Molyneux had mentioned while the game was still in development.

One of the features that were not included in the game's release was the Hero's ability to have children despite the fact that Molyneux had previously mentioned that the Hero's own children would be significant in the game. Molyneux reacted to these complaints by means of a public apology posted on the official Lionhead forums, on which he said, "If I have mentioned any feature in the past, for whatever reason, didn't make it as I described into Fable, I apologise."

The PC and Xbox versions of Fable: The Lost Chapters were also well-received, with slightly lower Metacritic and Game Rankings averages than the original title. Reviewers such as Greg Kasavin of Gamespot noted that the addition of new content helped prevent the game from becoming stale. 1UP.com previewed the game and found that the additive content didn't redefine Fable, but helped bulk up the available quests, addressing the complaint of how short the original Fable was. GamePro and IGN judged The Lost Chapters on PC as surpassing its console predecessor.

Fable was a commercial success upon release, selling 375,000 copies in North America during its first week, and 600,000 copies in the first month. The game sold more than two million units by late 2006. In 2005, a Microsoft Game Studios representative stated that Fable would be among the franchises that would appear on the next-generation Xbox 360. Sequels Fable II and Fable III were released in 2008 and 2010, respectively.