Entry 023: "Fable III" Pt. 4

Dear Internet,

                Six hours.  Six damn hours I grinded for this blasted game.  Six hours of buying real estate that is no more real than the pride that went into making this game.  Six hours of making pies of questionable ingredients.  I am still not sure if they are shepherd, chocolate, or some kind of berry pies since all I do is make a thin layer of crust to put on top.  That is what sums up the second half of "Fable III," and I am not even done yet.  This game boils down into a bureaucratic money management simulation where adventuring takes a back seat.  I told you yesterday that I have to do this to save the dime a dozen NPCs that are made from randomly picked personality traits from a deck.  After today, I am tempted for them to be consumed by the Darkness.  

                The problem with the endgame of "Fable III" is that it takes a complete 180 from what the rest of the game was.  While one might assume that this quality it decides to avoid would be the concept of fun, and they would be right, the game forces the player to either be the jerk that the previous king was, break promises for the good of the people (which is only a variation of the kind of jerk that the new king replaced, or spend hours upon hours of absolutely nothing to keep everyone alive and liking you.  In some strange bizarre meta world it might possibly be trying to make the player understand just exactly how the character they are playing feel by emulating the experience of that character.  The protagonist is forced to make the previously mentioned choice, but for that character to actively go through with the decisions that they make, there must be consequences that directly affect them.  If the new king decided to go full on greed, taking money wherever they could, this would make their job easier because they would have the funds to save the kingdom.  They could just sit back and let the money flow in.  However if the protagonist were to decide to keep his promises to better the land AND make the kingdom ready for the invading creature, a lot more work on his end would have to be done, namely creating an economy that could support itself and bring in the needed revenue.  Doing such would leave very little time for digging through caves searching for ancient tomes and legendary weapons.  You know, fun things.  Instead, the king would have to put his nose to the ledger and figure out how to raise the money.  How about a bake sale?  Thus enter the three thousand gold coin pies.  If this game was trying to be clever, it could make the argument that keeping promises and making a better work requires hard work, learning to manage property, and most importantly time by forcing the player to get  a job, buy and manage land, and wait around for money to accumulate.  But it does not since this game is not very clever.  Even the parody quest seemed more like it was pointing fun of itself rather than the other games in its shared genres.  

 

Too bad they never have anything interesting to say other than grunting.

                Another thing that I could give the game too much credit for if it was the game's goal would be the real estate management aspect.  Slowly but surely, the player has to buy up businesses and houses to gain rent that is paid back towards the purchase of said property.  It is the only way to make large sums of money.  Pie making is only a means to the land baron end.  But this is neglecting one big point that the game does not make for itself.  This is not some mogul buying up land and stores in a "Monopoly" setting all the while spamming their moves to pass GO and collect an extra $200.  This is the king buying up everyone's land, the head of the government.  In essence, the game implies that the only way to succeed is to reinstitute feudalism.  The king will hold ownership of all the land.  The king and his knights go off to fight the kingdoms enemies instead of the people.  In return, the populace must work the land and pay taxes or services to him.  The only variation here is that the people pay now and he fights later.  But saying that the game is trying to portray a political discussion that could be akin to Plato's Philosopher King would, again, be giving this game too much credit.

                Also, the game is not even trying to hide the extreme polarized morality that it lets the player choose.

 

                Tomorrow: less pies, more killing things.  Maybe.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop