My sweet audience, some of you may remember that I mentioned Fable TLC in an earlier post about playing certain video games when bored. I briefly mentioned some of the "dickable" activities in Fable which make it an excellent game to relieve boredom. However, I'm not satisfied with that shout-out. No, no Fable TLC needs more than that, as does Skies of Arcadia Legends. So here in honour (just for you Maleficus) of Lionhead's best RPG is the Fable TLC post.
You'll find out who Maleficus is very shortly audience. Also there is some music at the bottom of the page. Yeah, way way down there. Keep going.
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| This is him. With a few adjustments ahem. |
- You are a boy. Not a single if, and, or but from you audience
- Almost immediately you are torn from your family and forced into the Guild of Heroes. Heroes' Guild for short
- The world of Albian is your terrain and is full of drunk idiots ordering beers with "umbrellars" in them
- Hero does not necessarily mean virtuous *wink*
- There are many NPCs you will hate, namely Thunder
- There are two NPCs you will love, namely Scythe
- The villain is magical and scary as fuck. I love Jack for that.
- This is the game that taught me how to do a poor British accent. Heh.
- You can be a whore if you so wish
- You can be a demon with horns and glowing eyes if you so wish
- You can be a chicken-man if you so wish
- You can be an angel with a halo and face tattoos with perfect blonde hair and perfect scars.Cough.
- You can be whatever you want if you so wish.
Where to begin? Perhaps with the beginning? As you know audience spoilers are to follow BUT not major plot ruining ones. Seriously, I want you to play this game. Why would I do that?
Awaken in Oakvale, a small port-side town busy with NPCs who all happen to know that it is your older sister's birthday. All of them know it, even the new merchant. Everyone except you. Basically you start off as a lazy little boy who forgets his own sister's birthday and waits around for adventure to find him. Rather classic eh?
Anyhow, you begin by doing "deeds" around the town in order to earn enough gold (3 pieces in fact) to buy a box of chocolates for your sister as a birthday present. The deeds are your first steps in the game both controller wise and alignment wise. Alignment is rather big in Fable, we will divulge into that more later. Basically though it is your morality, your amount of good and/or evil. So, you can from the start be all evil, all good, or a nice mix. It's your choice. Personally I enjoy being a total bad boy now and then. Smashing boxes is fun. Sides, "are you just gonna stand there like a lemon?"
Fast-forward past a night of horrible events to the Heroes' Guild. Here is where you really learn how to kick ass or chew bubble gum. Oops, wrong game. Heh, so at the guild you train with at first a stick (lame) then a sword, then a bow, then with plasma lightning that shoots from your finger tips while slowly corrupting your body turning you into a mutated freak who climbs walls and scares the shit out of 18 year old MareBears! Oops, wrong game again. Well sorta. You do in fact train with lightning or will or magic; it happens that cast lightning is your first spell. Still, beware the corruption. Or don't. Being an overpowered mage is awesome.
Ah yes, what kind of hero will you be? Well there are nearly limitless combos. You could just go all out in one skill tree, meaning a maxed out warrior, mage, or marksman. However, that's lame and you'll look weird as all fuck at the end. See, depending on your skill tree you can look like a jacked out glowing giant (which is how I typically go) or a stubby shrimp with trunks for limbs. Or a skinny glowing twig. Or a lanky pillar the width of a pencil. OR a million other things. If you mix your skill tree you can become any kind of hero combination. If you max everything out (which is fun to do) you will look like Maleficus, in other words a jacked out glowing giant with beautiful blond locks. Oh yeah, your "other looks".
Tattoos, hairstyle, facial hair, and hair colour all fall under "other looks" as a category. Some are found in chests, others are only available at specific shops, some are stolen from people's homes. Yes, you can steal hairstyles from residences. How? Why with style cards of course! Fable TLC made it easy to customize your hero's outward appearance with the use of cards. Basically a style is written onto a card and once you collect it, you can have it applied as many times as you want. So if you like a tattoo you own or just want to try it out, you can at any tattoo parlour or with any travelling tattoo artist. It's rather nifty. Unfortunately the colour of your tattoos depends on the card, you cannot change them. Same goes for hair colour.
Quick Tip: If you own the PC version of Fable TLC you are able to design your own tattoos. Unfortunately I'm not that talented of an artist.
Hair colour is not something you can easily mess with. Ok if you know the game then yes, it is easy to change. However, for you curious newbies out there it might be more difficult since hair colour is dependent on your morality alignment. Remember how I said I'd tell you more bout alignment later? Well now is later.
Everything, and I mean everything, you do in Fable TLC affects your morality alignment; quests, games, murdering an entire town, clothing, even food. For instance eating tofu gives you "good" points whereas eating crunchy chicks (whole baby chickens) awards you with pure evil. I should also mention that clothing/armour only affects you when you are wearing it. This means if you want to know your true alignment (every piece of clothing has some push on morality) you need to be naked.
How does alignment affect my appearance? It determines your hair colour (bleh, British spellings), whether or not you can grow hair, your eye colour (glowing red can be attractive to gothic culture) and many other things. Horns, those will appear if you are very evil. So will flies. As will red smoke. Least you learn the vulgar thrust expression. Haha so funny.
The completely good heroes have blond hair and sport a halo above their heads. They also grow blond beards (score!) and have butterflies follow them (um yeah...). Plus they are radiant with glowing light and deep blue eyes. If you are in between the extremes you can have sandy blond hair, dark black hair, light blue eyes, dark eyes, and always pale skin. No one tans in the world of Albian.
Aight so you understand that alignment has a strong presence for your character's appearance personally. Fortunately it does nothing for your quests. You can do all the quests in the game whether you're evil, good, or in between. That is a nice feature, means you won't miss anything. However, quests can have different outcomes (even the big major ones) therefore choose wisely dear audience. Or just make multiple characters, that works too.
Besides looks in the game (hey some of us are vain), you can customize your experience greatly. There are many side quests which can aid you at later stages of the game or just gift you with interesting weapons and outfits. For instance there are these things called silver keys. In Fable TLC there are thirty in total scattered throughout Albian. You can use the keys to open silver chests which have a designated number on them; if it says 15 you need fifteen keys to unlock it. Don't worry, you don't lose your keys after opening a chest. That would be a major pain.
Another interesting side factor is the appearance of Demon Doors. These dudes are magic doors which take the form of old bearded men who want you to do something for them. This can be anything from giving them a rose to sacrificing all your silver keys. It's rather mixed. Regardless, you will be rewarded once you've opened the door with some sort of treasure. Often it's a weapon with magical properties. The Cutlass Bluetane is one of my favourites.
Hmm, speaking of favourite weapons, I might as well mention Skorm's Bow. This baby is the greatest and coolest looking bow in the game. Seriously, it is badass. However, acquiring the bow is not easy. In fact, it is a total bitch to earn. There is a temple in Darkwood called Chapel of Skorm. Skorm is the god of evil while Avo is the god of good. Yeah, super complicated.
Anyways, at the Chapel of Skorm you can make sacrifices in order to earn more evil points. What you sacrifice is followers, human followers. Depending on your alignment (the more good you are the more evil points you earn since they want you to be evil) and the time of day (I swear by midnight, it's the only time that works), you have a chance to be rewarded with Skorm's Bow. As a straight up fact you must earn more than 500 evil points from a sacrifice. This almost never happens in the first try and in fact, ends up with you hiring swordhands in order to make multiple sacrifices until you have the fucking bow. It's frustrating always but so so SO worth it. Guess what's not frustrating? Having your hero look 24 by the end of the game when he's totally maxed out with experience.
As many of you have picked up on, one aspect I really adore about this game is the fact that you can make a really hot character and force him to run around shirtless in the snow. Yup, great detail right there. As I was starting to say at the end of the last paragraph, I know of a way to make your hero be forever young. See experience, though it makes you stronger, also ages you. Your maximum age is 65, therefore once you've maxed everything out, then you are an overpowered retiree. This is fine if you don't care that no one else ages in the game. I care. Also I want Maleficus to be hot, always. So I use a minor glitch in the game to get what I want.
Near the end of the game, not at the end but near it, a quest card will appear at the guild for Knothole Glade/Witchwood. Basically the chief's son has been kidnapped and you need to go rescue him from bandits by travelling through Witchwood. This is good. See the Chapel of Skorm might be in Darkwood but the Temple of Avo is in Witchwood. At the Temple of Avo you sacrifice money (there's another glitch to avoid actually giving all your funds) in order to become more enlightened with being good. Horray. Well the first thing you earn from a large donation is the Sentinus, the "good" weapon which is a club with spikes all over it. Horray again. After that little gift though, you have the opportunity to earn some years of youth. This is what you want. So you give money (though not really) and earn a few years off your age.
Now here is where the glitch happens; teleport out of Witchwood to the Hero's Guild (it doesn't matter where you go but the guild is a nice known landmark). The game will ask if you want to abandon your quest, say yes. So now you are back at the Hero's Guild with all your experience you've earned as well as those youth points. However, the quest was not completed. Thus you can start the quest again and repeat this youth process til your desired age. I prefer 24 but you can go as low as 18. 24 is better though.
I suppose I should mention some actual gameplay and a few of the enemies, I just really don't want to give anything major away. Hmm, alright then, balverines and the undead. The other enemies, like hobbes, you'll just have to experience hands on. By the way, my late fish Maxley was named after a very famous hobbe. Just saying. Right then, puppy time!
The balverines of Fable TLC are the werewolfs who never change back into human beings; aight at first if someone is bitten they can control the transformations but over time they succumb to the wolfy appetite of humans and other weak creatures. They are a central part of the game (they even dominate their own quest) and are adorable. I honestly think they are just the cutest things.
In Witchwood I kept hitting the stones in the order of S-H-I-T just to hear Maleficus swear and summon a small pack of adorable balverines to come out and play. They aren't too difficult of an enemy. Just equip a weapon with a silver augmentation (oh yes, these are magical stone badges you can add to weapons) and hack away.
Quick Tip: Augmentations are permanent, you cannot remove them after attaching them to a weapon. Also, weapons only have a certain amount of augmentation slots depending on the level of weapon. Choose wisely.
Ah. The zombies of the game, the undead. These lovely gents, they are all male zombies for some reason, enjoy groaning and slashing at your boots as they rise from the earth. Once slain, they scream into a green puff of smoke before even more pop up to take their place.
They are the ultimate experience enemy. There are a few quests (pst, they involve a prison and a graveyard) which have unlimited respawn on the undead. This means you can kill them as much as you want for as long as you want to boost that experience. Add a few potions of strength, skill, and will into the mix and you've got a jacked out hero.
Quick Tip: Even if you don't want to be a mage, a most useful spell is Physical Shield since damage is switched from your health to your mana. If you take hits from your health you not only risk dying, but you also stop your combat multiplier (you'll find out, trust me) from, well multiplying.
Wow I've talked a lot about this game, without spoiling anything major yet either! Score!! There are just two last things, or should I say people I do want to bring up though. Wait, only two?! Alright, let's see. I chose Whisper and Scythe. We'll discuss Whisper first.
Dear sweet silver medalist Whisper. You are a difficult character for me to describe because I have mixed feelings on you. She is, for the most part, annoying, and like all characters (except for the coolest dude in the world) you have the option to kill her if she annoys you too much. I did kill Whisper once, and to be honest I regretted it. She is your first friend and perhaps your only true friend in the game. I mean everyone else is kind of aloof in a professional way or tries to piss you off by calling you a weakling constantly; Thunder, Briar Rose, you two wouldn't know anything about that kind of hero would you? Anyways Whisper is the other apprentice hero you meet early on in the game. In fact, you have to train with her in order to learn the basics. After graduation the two of you compete in quests and even (drum roll) the "arena-rr".
"Did you see th-at? I sawr it. The -eros of the arena-rr are trying ta kill eacho-der."
Heh heh, that's what all the NPCs in the game sound like, according to me. Yes, you and Whisper go along the path of hero-hood together for a while. She is irritating at times (the name farmboy could be retired darling Whisper) but she does have to deal with Thunder. He's her brother and a major pain in the ass for everyone in Albian. He's a giant and decent fighter, but ultimately he's an arrogant pain in the ass. Now for someone not so pain-in-the-assy.
Sycthe! Just again for kicks, SCYTHE! Dude you are the most bad-ass NPC of all time. Seriously, being a decaying hero who cannot be killed since he is technically immortal (yet looks like a mummy) after having entered the Void in order to defeat the Court (minus Jack of Blades since he fled the battle only to return now) and save Albian thus becoming the first Archon!! Plus, dat voice is freakin' amazing.
Sycthe is someone you briefly see in the beginning of the game and then finally meet near the end. He is, as the description above gleefully entails, fucking bad-ass. He is the original hero of the world and the only one to travel in the Void and survive (thus the Archon title). Although you aren't able to do much with him, he is the only character you cannot kill and you can always talk to him. On top of everything, he treats you with respect from the beginning; none of the others do this (Guild Master saying that Maleficus doesn't look like hero material psh) so that's major brownie points. Honestly, play the game and see why Sycthe is awesome. Maze might have beat him out if it weren't for, well circumstances.
So. Have I convinced you to play this game? If there are any doubts to those of you who love men then may I remind you that you alone have the power to craft a hot at as hell hero to your liking. For those of you who love women I'll say that you can own a bordello and sleep with as many nearly nude whores as you like who will praise you for your sexual talents. I might have forgotten to mention the bordello earlier, just slipped my mind.
Until next time dear audience.
Oh yes, here's some music.
P.S. I fucking kept my promise. I did it. Hahahaha. Yes! Go ME! Oh, and want to know why May 2nd was the deadline? Cause I turn 22 that day. That's why! Mainly cause I can remember that date. In any case, HA again. I did it!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S.S. I can't believe I used British spellings. Cough cough, bleh.
Fast-forward past a night of horrible events to the Heroes' Guild. Here is where you really learn how to kick ass or chew bubble gum. Oops, wrong game. Heh, so at the guild you train with at first a stick (lame) then a sword, then a bow, then with plasma lightning that shoots from your finger tips while slowly corrupting your body turning you into a mutated freak who climbs walls and scares the shit out of 18 year old MareBears! Oops, wrong game again. Well sorta. You do in fact train with lightning or will or magic; it happens that cast lightning is your first spell. Still, beware the corruption. Or don't. Being an overpowered mage is awesome.
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| My overpowered Hero |
Tattoos, hairstyle, facial hair, and hair colour all fall under "other looks" as a category. Some are found in chests, others are only available at specific shops, some are stolen from people's homes. Yes, you can steal hairstyles from residences. How? Why with style cards of course! Fable TLC made it easy to customize your hero's outward appearance with the use of cards. Basically a style is written onto a card and once you collect it, you can have it applied as many times as you want. So if you like a tattoo you own or just want to try it out, you can at any tattoo parlour or with any travelling tattoo artist. It's rather nifty. Unfortunately the colour of your tattoos depends on the card, you cannot change them. Same goes for hair colour.
Quick Tip: If you own the PC version of Fable TLC you are able to design your own tattoos. Unfortunately I'm not that talented of an artist.
Hair colour is not something you can easily mess with. Ok if you know the game then yes, it is easy to change. However, for you curious newbies out there it might be more difficult since hair colour is dependent on your morality alignment. Remember how I said I'd tell you more bout alignment later? Well now is later.
Everything, and I mean everything, you do in Fable TLC affects your morality alignment; quests, games, murdering an entire town, clothing, even food. For instance eating tofu gives you "good" points whereas eating crunchy chicks (whole baby chickens) awards you with pure evil. I should also mention that clothing/armour only affects you when you are wearing it. This means if you want to know your true alignment (every piece of clothing has some push on morality) you need to be naked.
 |
| A typical bad-boy |
The completely good heroes have blond hair and sport a halo above their heads. They also grow blond beards (score!) and have butterflies follow them (um yeah...). Plus they are radiant with glowing light and deep blue eyes. If you are in between the extremes you can have sandy blond hair, dark black hair, light blue eyes, dark eyes, and always pale skin. No one tans in the world of Albian.
Aight so you understand that alignment has a strong presence for your character's appearance personally. Fortunately it does nothing for your quests. You can do all the quests in the game whether you're evil, good, or in between. That is a nice feature, means you won't miss anything. However, quests can have different outcomes (even the big major ones) therefore choose wisely dear audience. Or just make multiple characters, that works too.
Besides looks in the game (hey some of us are vain), you can customize your experience greatly. There are many side quests which can aid you at later stages of the game or just gift you with interesting weapons and outfits. For instance there are these things called silver keys. In Fable TLC there are thirty in total scattered throughout Albian. You can use the keys to open silver chests which have a designated number on them; if it says 15 you need fifteen keys to unlock it. Don't worry, you don't lose your keys after opening a chest. That would be a major pain.
 |
| Somehow I am born from something. |
Hmm, speaking of favourite weapons, I might as well mention Skorm's Bow. This baby is the greatest and coolest looking bow in the game. Seriously, it is badass. However, acquiring the bow is not easy. In fact, it is a total bitch to earn. There is a temple in Darkwood called Chapel of Skorm. Skorm is the god of evil while Avo is the god of good. Yeah, super complicated.
 |
| I am a bitch to get! |
As many of you have picked up on, one aspect I really adore about this game is the fact that you can make a really hot character and force him to run around shirtless in the snow. Yup, great detail right there. As I was starting to say at the end of the last paragraph, I know of a way to make your hero be forever young. See experience, though it makes you stronger, also ages you. Your maximum age is 65, therefore once you've maxed everything out, then you are an overpowered retiree. This is fine if you don't care that no one else ages in the game. I care. Also I want Maleficus to be hot, always. So I use a minor glitch in the game to get what I want.
 |
| See, 24 is better |
I suppose I should mention some actual gameplay and a few of the enemies, I just really don't want to give anything major away. Hmm, alright then, balverines and the undead. The other enemies, like hobbes, you'll just have to experience hands on. By the way, my late fish Maxley was named after a very famous hobbe. Just saying. Right then, puppy time!
He's hacking and whacking and slashing. Hack, whack, cutting that meat.
Again wrong game. My favourite part about these creatures are the scars they leave. I purposely make Maleficus take damage around them in Darkwood just to have this. Perfect. Right, I'll stop drooling and we'll move on. |
| So cuddly <3 |
In Witchwood I kept hitting the stones in the order of S-H-I-T just to hear Maleficus swear and summon a small pack of adorable balverines to come out and play. They aren't too difficult of an enemy. Just equip a weapon with a silver augmentation (oh yes, these are magical stone badges you can add to weapons) and hack away.
 |
| Purposeful damage muwhaha |
Ah. The zombies of the game, the undead. These lovely gents, they are all male zombies for some reason, enjoy groaning and slashing at your boots as they rise from the earth. Once slain, they scream into a green puff of smoke before even more pop up to take their place.
 |
| Hello there darlings |
Quick Tip: Even if you don't want to be a mage, a most useful spell is Physical Shield since damage is switched from your health to your mana. If you take hits from your health you not only risk dying, but you also stop your combat multiplier (you'll find out, trust me) from, well multiplying.
Wow I've talked a lot about this game, without spoiling anything major yet either! Score!! There are just two last things, or should I say people I do want to bring up though. Wait, only two?! Alright, let's see. I chose Whisper and Scythe. We'll discuss Whisper first.
 |
| "Ello dar farmboy" |
Dear sweet silver medalist Whisper. You are a difficult character for me to describe because I have mixed feelings on you. She is, for the most part, annoying, and like all characters (except for the coolest dude in the world) you have the option to kill her if she annoys you too much. I did kill Whisper once, and to be honest I regretted it. She is your first friend and perhaps your only true friend in the game. I mean everyone else is kind of aloof in a professional way or tries to piss you off by calling you a weakling constantly; Thunder, Briar Rose, you two wouldn't know anything about that kind of hero would you? Anyways Whisper is the other apprentice hero you meet early on in the game. In fact, you have to train with her in order to learn the basics. After graduation the two of you compete in quests and even (drum roll) the "arena-rr".
"Did you see th-at? I sawr it. The -eros of the arena-rr are trying ta kill eacho-der."
Heh heh, that's what all the NPCs in the game sound like, according to me. Yes, you and Whisper go along the path of hero-hood together for a while. She is irritating at times (the name farmboy could be retired darling Whisper) but she does have to deal with Thunder. He's her brother and a major pain in the ass for everyone in Albian. He's a giant and decent fighter, but ultimately he's an arrogant pain in the ass. Now for someone not so pain-in-the-assy.
Sycthe is someone you briefly see in the beginning of the game and then finally meet near the end. He is, as the description above gleefully entails, fucking bad-ass. He is the original hero of the world and the only one to travel in the Void and survive (thus the Archon title). Although you aren't able to do much with him, he is the only character you cannot kill and you can always talk to him. On top of everything, he treats you with respect from the beginning; none of the others do this (Guild Master saying that Maleficus doesn't look like hero material psh) so that's major brownie points. Honestly, play the game and see why Sycthe is awesome. Maze might have beat him out if it weren't for, well circumstances.
So. Have I convinced you to play this game? If there are any doubts to those of you who love men then may I remind you that you alone have the power to craft a hot at as hell hero to your liking. For those of you who love women I'll say that you can own a bordello and sleep with as many nearly nude whores as you like who will praise you for your sexual talents. I might have forgotten to mention the bordello earlier, just slipped my mind.
 |
| Rawr. I am Jack of Blades and am a cool yet douchey villain for the shit I do to you. Rawr. |
Oh yes, here's some music.
P.S. I fucking kept my promise. I did it. Hahahaha. Yes! Go ME! Oh, and want to know why May 2nd was the deadline? Cause I turn 22 that day. That's why! Mainly cause I can remember that date. In any case, HA again. I did it!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S.S. I can't believe I used British spellings. Cough cough, bleh.
