Merry Christmas everyone!  I recently received my next title from Gamefly, Fable 2, and I’ve been playing it over the past few days.  I’d like to start off by saying I am thoroughly enjoying the game.  Regarding it as a video game and assessing it on those merits, my commentary is as follows:

- The graphics are generally pretty sharp.  There are framerate issues, and there are certainly elements that lack polish where other areas are breathtaking, but overall this is a good-looking title.

- The sound is STUNNING.  As I mentioned in my demo review of Tomb Raider: Underworld, a great soundscape can be all-consuming.  Fable 2 carries with it an exceptional soundtrack and some excellent voice-acting to boot.

- The game seems to have a pretty low difficulty level.  I’ve “died”  a couple of times by not paying attention to my lifebar, but never because I was out of health potions.  The combat starts opening up as you advance in levels, and has some great nuance and wonderful presentation (the first time you use a flourish to spin around, flip your sword into the air, and grab it while thrusting it into a bad guy, you too will squee).

- The presentation is nice for an RPG (if you can call it that…we’ll get to that, and the point of this post, in a moment).  The aforementioned mini-cutscene during combat is sharply and dynamically generated, and there are some stylized cinematics at certain milestones in the game thrown in for good measure.  The in-engine stuff, though, isn’t quite as impressive.  There are times that the Gears “Y Button Trick” is implemented (bound to the Left Trigger here), where you press the button to be pointed in a particular direction to observe a  cinematic event, but most of the dialog is presented from a pulled-way-too-far-back camera, the same camera used for combat (where a pulled-back camera is generally more appropriate).  Considering any RPG outside of a Square-Enix game generally has pretty rough presentation for story elements (Mass Effect tried like hell, but was too technically flawed unfortunately), I’m fine with what they’ve done here.

But the question in my post title remains: What IS Fable 2?  It is noted simply as an RPG on Xbox.com, sharing the ranks with Blue Dragon, Fallout 3, Lost Odyssey, and Mass Effect (curiously, one of my favorite titles this year, Too Human, is classified as Adventure…I’m hoping after reading this article, that perception will be challenged).  Far be it from me to create the all-encompassing definition of what a video game RPG should be (I’ll leave that to Khidr… ), but I will say that Fable 2 has occasion to stretch this definition somewhat.

An RPG might be defined (aw heck I’ll give it a stab) as a title that requires the player to build a particular character, and that character will partake in a specific “role” within the presented story.  The genre typically requires the development of that character through upgradable statistics, generally through the acquisition of “experience”.  Outside of this description, though, the genre is pretty open to interpretation.

Some titles such as the Final Fantasy series, Blue Dragon, and Lost Odyssey, take a more turn-based approach to combat and interaction, and guide you pretty closely through a pre-defined story.  These are the gaming equivalent to an interactive movie (indeed FF games generally are packed to the gils with cinematics).  It would seem that the industry has decided to dub these titles “JRPGs”, since the style  originated from Japanese developers.

It would also seem that any RPG that does not follow this formula is considered a “Western RPG”.  While it seems generally true that most RPGs that have been called a Western RPG have not been developed in Japan, it will be interesting to see if this stereotype applies over the next few years.  Some examples of Western RPGs include Fallout 3 (developed by Maryland, USA-based Bethesda Softworks), Mass Effect (from Bioware, hailing from a few different locations, also USA-based) and our current subject, Fable 2 (developed by European-based Lionhead Software).

The major difference I see between them seems to be in the way combat is handled.  Most Western RPGs seem to center around a real-time action-oriented combat system, while most JRPGs are turn-based (some of the more recent releases have bucked tradition, though).  It also seems that some Western RPGs favor a more open-world mission structure, again in contrast to the JRPG penchant for linear storytelling.  Again, there are certainly examples of these two reaching “across the aisle” (anybody else watch the presidential debates ad nauseum this year?), those are the distinctions I’ve seen.

In its most literal form, I think the definition of an RPG (as defined by the University of DragonWyntir) applies just fine to Fable 2.  But as you play the game, it becomes apparent that what they’ve done is a decidedly different take.  To get the specifics out of the way, combat and general interaction is handled in real-time.  What is interesting, though, is how the narrative is handled.  From the very beginning, the game has been pretty insistent on guiding you through a very specific story (this feeling is reinforced by the ever-present “breadcrumb trail” that points you to your next quest).  While the game universe is presented in a open-world style (you can travel almost anywhere at the outset of the game), the game does push you towards the next goal pretty regularly.  I also found that many of the open-world elements have an interesting simulation feel to them (not surprising considering Lionhead’s pedigree), which doesn’t really have much to do with an RPG: you can buy property, have a family (or several), and get a job.  While these things do have varying levels of impact on your character in terms of alignment and wealth, the actual RPG elements of developing your character don’t have nearly the same depth of a traditional JRPG, or even some of the Western titles like Mass Effect or Too Human.  When baked into the choices of a simulation-oriented world, action-based combat, and the strong push for a generally linear narrative, and I sometimes feel like this game doesn’t quite adhere to the normal tenets of the RPG genre.

AND THAT IS OK!  In the course of formulating my thoughts for this post, I realized that we will see more and more of these (and other) elements as developers attempt to evolve the RPG genre.  I think this is necessary for the success of said genre judging by the wild disparity in opinion and preference I’ve experienced when discussing favorite RPGs with my collegues.

Sound off with your favorite (and least favorite) RPGs in the comments!