Fable Heroes

Lionhead’s attempt to create a quirky multiplayer experience through Fable Heroes results in a game that attempts to please everyone, and instead, falls flat. Despite its familiar setting and cute puppets, it’s tedious and boring, and misfires on multiple fronts. When a game fails to take risks and carve out its own identity, it undoubtedly shows. Fable Heroes aspires to get your bucks, but it’s a game with very little “bang” going for it.

Fable Heroes is a hard recommendation because it requires very specific tastes. Replay value is a real issue because, well, there really isn’t any. The attacks are varied but there is no reason to use anything other than a basic strike. Level progression is done in a unique way but luck plays a huge role in said advancement.

As I sit here writing this conclusion, I find it hard to really recommend this game as a must buy given that it does nothing to push the hack n’ slash genre forward, and it really only stands as an average game at best. In the end if you are looking for something to celebrate the world of Fable, this may something to look at, but for those looking for the next Castle Crashers like experience (the comparison is inevitable) you may want to try the demo before shelling out 800 MS Points for it.

At the end of the day, this isn’t even a passable side-scrolling beat ‘em up though. The ESRB rating may be E10+ (everyone 10 and older), but 10 seems to be the age limit instead for the game as this is definitely geared towards younger gamers. And they probably won’t enjoy it either because with no story told in this game (it relies on you having played the previous Fable titles) it just seems like a bunch of random set pieces mashed together with a fancy paint job. No matter if you are a fan of the franchise or not, I highly recommend that you steer clear of Fable Heroes.

The best part of Fable Heroes, however, are the credits, which you can play through like a regular level. All of Fable Heroes should have been like the credits, which makes its way through vignettes from all three Fables. It was nostalgic and fun in a way that was lacking in most of the other levels since they mostly focus on settings from Fable III. Fable Heroes is a tolerable, albeit short, game that'll probably only be worthwhile to Fable fans.

Player choice has always been a key feature for the Fable series, shaping a hero based on your decisions and actions. In Fable Heroes, the only choice is a forked path at the end of every level. One path leads to one of the game’s repetitive boss battles, and the other takes you to a mind-numbing minigame. Sadly, both choices are wrong. When you find yourself standing at this fork in the road, reach for the power button and turn off your system.